Chamber sets vision and action plan for next year Monica.
With a new captain at the helm, the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce is heading for uncharted waters.
Dr. Michael Gruning — who was officially named the chamber’s new chairman last week — will help officially lead the organization into Santa Monica’s stormy political arena for the first time.
The chamber, which has never endorsed City Council candidates, recently established a political action committee charged with finding office-seekers for 2004 who will be advocates for business owners’ interests.
The chamber has for years attempted to protect businesses, but its members frequently butt heads with policy-makers in City Hall. The majority of the current City Council are members of Santa Monicans For Renters Rights, a liberal and powerful political party.
As a result, the chamber’s interests aren’t a priority and are in the minority when it comes to local politics.
However, if candidates can be propped up with the help of the chamber’s endorsement and fundraising, the organization may be able to put some of its own in office and make the changes it wants in Santa Teacher claims partial victory in overtime case Gruning said the chamber’s top priorities for the upcoming year are the same they have been for at least three years — dealing with the city’s growing population of homeless people, a lack of parking and traffic jams. All of those issues negatively impact businesses, he said.
Surveys of locals and tourists conducted in the past few years have listed those issues as the most important, yet little is done in City Hall to address them, business owners say.
“We looked at those issues and decided the only way to make real progress was at the City Council level,” said chamber president Kathy Dodson. “We have to start addressing these issues because it’s hurting our businesses.”
Gruning, who was described as an effective advocate for the business community, worked on the chamber’s political action committee that helped defeat the Minimum Wage Ordinance last fall and helped pass Measure S, the school funding proposal voters approved earlier this month.
With the education funding issue behind him, Gruning, a 56-year-old optometrist, said he is ready to tackle this year’s challenges.
“The first, obviously, is to keep the living wage where it should be, which is where it is,” he said at last week’s installation dinner, the chamber’s biggest fundraiser of the year. The event brought in close to $50,000 of the organization’s $600,000 annual budget.
After operating for a few years in the red, the chamber is financially solvent again, partly because of a 20 percent increase in membership this past year, as well as painful cost-cutting.
When Dodson became president in the fall of 2001, the chamber’s membership was at about 840 businesses. By the end of this past May, membership was 1,042.
“We improved the relevancy of the chamber,” Dodson said.
But with 10,000 businesses in Santa Monica, there’s still plenty of recruiting to do.
Now that it is financially healthy, Gruning said he wants to help increase the organization’s membership and build a stronger relationship with City Hall to tackle Santa Monica’s issues.
“We all want to come to a resolution,” he said. “In these economic times, the city needs to have businesses that are viable.”
And they won’t be if parking doesn’t become easier, traffic isn’t alleviated and City Hall doesn’t become more business-friendly, officials say.
One of merchants’ biggest complaints is that City Hall makes it difficult to operate their businesses. They blame it on long waits for approvals as a result of bureaucracy and politics, and poor customer service.
Gruning said many entrepreneurs are reluctant to set up shop in Santa Monica because it can be difficult to get their businesses properly licensed in the city.
“The worst thing for a prospective business is they don’t know how long it’s going to take,” he said.
The chamber’s board of directors held its annual retreat last week, during which time the board sets its vision for the next year, Dodson said.
In that meeting, the board determined that the chamber has to strengthen its effectiveness in advocating and representing businesses. Board members also want to establish the process by which they will select city council candidates, as well as address City Hall’s permitting process so there is no longer any uncertainty in acquiring approvals.
In the next few months, the political action committee will start looking at other chambers to see how they endorse and raise money for candidates. The committee will then develop its own guidelines about campaigning, raising money and identifying candidates.
“The issues committee has been around for a few years and now we’ve expanded it to candidates,” said Tom Larmore, a local attorney and committee member. “I think the City Council has not been good for business and one of the things that our members want from us is to advocates for businesses.”
Larmore, also a chamber board member, said he was impressed with Gruning’s dedication during the living wage battle last year and is confident he’ll do well in achieving this year’s goals.
“I think Mike is terrific and he’s extremely energetic,” Larmore said. “He’s one of those people you can rely on to do what he says he’s going to do.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 23, 2003. Read the original PDF.