Chambers of Commerce All Over Region Are Feeling Merger Mania

Around the state and nation, there’s an urge to merge among chambers of commerce--those venerable merchant support groups that are home to the popular business mixer.

The San Fernando Valley maintains a sizable contingent of roughly two dozen chambers, but some have only about 100 members and no full-time staff. But in other regions, many chambers faced with diminishing membership rosters are finding that there is strength in numbers.

Merged chambers, some with 1,500 or more members, have amassed the muscle to offer their members everything from increased political clout to the staffing and wherewithal to respond almost immediately to pressing business concerns.

“We’ve received probably about 20 calls this year alone asking about mergers,” said Dave Kilby, vice president of the Sacramento-based California Chamber of Commerce, who coordinates the state organization’s relations with the autonomous local chambers. “Last year at this point there would have been only a half dozen [calls]. It’s an issue that seems to be popping up more and more today.”

While there have been a few recent courtships within the San Fernando Valley, there have been more consummated marriages recently outside the Valley--in Ventura, Orange and San Diego counties as well as the Santa Clarita Valley.

Why? The reasons are as varied as the personalities of the 23 chambers that make up the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, an umbrella group responsible largely for lobbying on behalf of the chambers.

But now, as the chambers compete for members--and prestige--with other prominent local business groups, some within the Valley chamber community are wondering if 23 is too many.

One of those raising the question, at the risk of alienating some chamber leaders, is Ross Hopkins, chairman of the United Chambers of Commerce, which bills itself as “the voice of Valley business.”

“There are about six to eight chambers in the Valley that I would consider very marginal,” said Hopkins, rattling off names that included Arleta, Pacoima, Sylmar and Winnetka. “I think the Valley can probably sustain six to 10 chambers. I’d like to see six to 10 chambers in the Valley.”

And if the consolidation trend, which has been strongest on the East Coast, hits home, he might get his wish.

Or, a very different outcome could result from the new Los Angeles City Charter and its promise to zero in on neighborhood concerns via the neighborhood council structure.

If individual chambers can become an integral part of the new council structure, Hopkins said, there might be opportunities for the local chambers, even the smallest ones, to stay local.

Through the neighborhood councils, “the city is going to have to pay more attention to these communities. The city is going to have to pay more attention to what Chatsworth wants, and that includes the chamber and all of the other groups in Chatsworth.”

The councils, as official arms of the city, would in effect give some of the smaller chambers the clout they now lack.

“So the chambers survive because they define their mission,” said Hopkins, who has served as chair of the 22-year-old group since January. “They redefine themselves as part of the community council.”

But why wait for that possible rescue?

With some local chambers lacking the funding for even a part-time staff, why not find a willing spouse and join forces now?

A feared loss of identity, disenchantment with a particular suitor, a provincial attitude and no real sense of the need, all emerged as reasons that the Valley holds on to these two dozen chambers.

Bonnie Bernard, board president of the Sylmar Chamber of Commerce, heads an organization with about 140 members and, currently, no paid staff. Her group was approached recently by another chamber about a merger. But it was perceived as a “hostile takeover, and we hostiled right back.”

Any thoughts of future marriage?

“It depends on the organization. It would depend on whether the chambers can coexist without power struggles.”

Leslie Himes, president of the Chatsworth/Porter Ranch Chamber of Commerce was left standing at the altar--twice.

Several years ago, talks between Chatsworth and the neighboring Northridge Chamber of Commerce progressed to the point of a merger vote. Himes said it passed in the Chatsworth Chamber--an organization with 275 members, a full-time chief executive and a budget of $110,000--but was defeated in Northridge by a narrow margin.

Last year, Himes rekindled the merger talks, but they were shut down earlier this year after his group found insufficient interest on the part of Northridge.

“There’s a whole lot of provinciality among the people in the various chambers,” said Himes, speaking in general about the lack of Valley mergers. “It’s a balkanization. It’s ‘we’re on this side of the street and they’re on that side.’

“It sounds pretty silly, but having been through it twice, I know.”

Richard Hardman, executive director of the 250-member Northridge Chamber of Commerce, said he thinks the Chatsworth merger is still a real possibility.

“At some point I think it will happen, because the San Fernando Valley does not need to have 23 different chambers,” he said.

One stumbling block to mergers appears to be disagreement on the function of today’s chamber.

Some businesses merely want a body that can get the graffiti removed from neighboring buildings. Others see the need for a body with political punch, especially in Sacramento. That was part of the reason for the formation of the United Chambers.

But Hopkins, who will step down as chairman of United Chambers next year to run for the Assembly, readily acknowledges that he concedes some turf, such as lobbying on larger issues, to the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. Some consider it the Valley’s leading business organization.

“We’ve shifted our focus from trying to solve the whole mass of transportation problems, to focusing on things that are going to benefit individual members,” said Hopkins, recounting a failed attempt to bring light rail to the Valley.

“We pretty much decided to let VICA deal with the big issues.”

But Hopkins and others stressed that the chambers have clout on local issues.

He noted that the Mid Valley Chamber--formed in 1989 from the merger of chambers in Van Nuys and Panorama City--”is clearly a player in issues related to the Van Nuys Airport. The United Chambers has been a player on charter reform.”

Himes mentioned an instance in which chamber involvement kept an employer in Chatsworth. And Judy Kessler Block, chief executive officer of the Encino Chamber noted that her chamber successfully lobbied for $400,000 in government funds to repair earthquake-damaged buildings in Los Encinos State Historical Park.

But “In terms of being able to pick up the phone and call Mayor Riordan and get him to come out to our whatever, no, we probably can’t do that,” Himes said.

Nancy Hoffman has been chief executive officer since 1993 of the Mid Valley Chamber, a 540-member body with a budget of $323,000, which has become one of the strongest groups in the Valley.

She mentioned the impact her organization has had on improving the look of her community via a new program called Valley Business Watch, which works like a Neighborhood Watch program to reduce crime and blight. The program, which began in Van Nuys, was expanded Valleywide last month through an arrangement with the chambers and the Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley.

Hoffman looks at her chamber as one of the most successful merged groups in the state and noted membership has grown in recent years.

That helped the chamber make up some ground from a period several years ago when membership dipped. Others mentioned the November 1998 merger of the Thousand Oaks and Westlake Village chambers as an example of a successful merger.

“There is strength in numbers,” said Hoffman. “The more people you represent, the better.”

A number of chamber executives were reluctant to predict when they’d see the next engagement party for merger-minded Valley chambers. But they said you can expect to see more courtships in the next few years.

“The next couple of years will be a real transition time for the Valley as a whole and for the chambers,” said Hopkins. “The chamber will either meet the new challenges or not meet them, and die.”