PORT ANGELES — A bottom-up reorganization of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce got a mostly thumbs-down reception Tuesday from another business group.
While chamber President Jim Moran got polite applause from two-dozen members attending the weekly meeting of the Port Angeles Business Association, or PABA, he also took some criticism.
Namely, PABA members wondered whether a reconstituted chamber consisting of five task forces could adequately supervise its executive director and the chamber’s staff.
Kaj Ahlburg of PABA said the chamber’s new bylaws — on which members will finish voting Monday — don’t show how chamber members can control their director’s performance and spending.
“It’s so important that someone supervises the executive director,” added PABA member Cherie Kidd, a Port Angeles City Council member and former mayor.
“Who directs the executive director? Who is he accountable to?” Kidd asked.
The City Council decided in December on a 4-3 vote, with Kidd in the minority, to retain the center in the chamber’s headquarters, 121 E. Railroad Ave.
The accountability issue looms larger because Russ Veenema, the chamber’s director for 15 years, will retire at the end of the year, several PABA members said.
Task force clout
The new director and the chamber staff may find their jobs pared down, Moran said, and the increased clout given to the task forces.
“This will require less staff input because of more work being done by the task forces,” he said.
The task forces would include groups on business development, downtown Port Angeles, organization (including the visitor center), promotions and government affairs.
Any chamber member can join one task force or more — although participation isn’t mandatory — and each task force would select three of its members to compose the chamber’s board of directors.
That board would supervise the executive director, Moran said.
It’s the task forces that would make the chamber board different from its current composition, many members of which represented public and private agencies, including the 44-member PABA, Moran said.
Andrew May, PABA’s designated member on the chamber board, was its only member to vote against the reorganization recently.
Chamber members
The proposal is pending ratification by the chamber’s 470 members, with results expected after 5 p.m. Friday.
The arrangement has made the chamber vulnerable to charges that it is a “good ol’ boys network,” Moran added.
“We want this to be a bottom-up organization,” he said.
“I know it’s radically different and it doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, and I get that.”
What he got at Tuesday’s meeting at Joshua’s Restaurant, 113 DelGuzzi Drive, were allegations from Ahlburg and May that the reorganization won’t end a so-called “silo approach” of multiple business organizations — PABA, the chamber, the Port Angeles Downtown Association — working separately toward the same goals.
“We have a bigger fracture now,” May said.
Moran, though, said it would take time to judge the success of a reorganized chamber.
“This is like a suit of clothes,” he said.
“Until you put it on and wear it for a while, you don’t know how well it’s going to fit.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com
