Merger Works for Santa Clarita Valley Area

While the San Fernando Valley is home to a patchwork of chambers of commerce--some of them small and struggling--the Santa Clarita Valley has learned strength through consolidation.

The 1,100-member Santa Clarita chamber absorbed 63 members from its Canyon Country counterpart four years ago to form the Santa Clarita Valley Chamber of Commerce--a regional business powerhouse that today boasts about 1,360 members--one of the five biggest in L.A. County.

Growth over the last 11 years and the merger have boosted the chamber’s ranks by about 450 members--or 50%--said Executive Vice President Cheryl Adams. Over that time, the organization’s staff has doubled from four to eight full-time workers, and its annual budget has nearly tripled from about $300,000 to $820,000.

The absorption of Canyon Country’s members, while adding slightly to the chamber’s overall membership, was more significant because it created a unified body that could be said to truly represent the business interests of the entire Santa Clarita Valley--one of L.A. County’s fastest-growing areas, Adams said.

“Many of the organizations and businesses [in the Santa Clarita Valley] were duplicating their work,” she said. “Many companies had duplicate memberships. We were trying to address issues valley-wide, not just to a specific community or communities.”

In merging the two bodies, the new chamber maintained a separate Canyon Country Committee that functioned independently within the larger organization initially “to make sure their input continued with us,” Adams said. But that committee, although still in existence, has largely faded into the background as the two groups have integrated.

The chamber, whose 24-member board includes representatives from such heavyweights as the Newhall Land & Farming Co., Southern California Edison and U.S. Borax Inc., is distinguished locally by the fact that most of its members live in the area where they do business.

In fact, many members were looking for more local say in both business and quality-of-life matters when the chamber became a major lobbyist for Santa Clarita cityhood in 1987.

The chamber, which acted as a kind of de facto local government before cityhood, continues to hold a position of community leadership--and its offices are even located in Santa Clarita City Hall.

There are even joint ventures, of a sort. At a July meeting, the chamber board discussed leasing the chamber-owned “Walk of Western Stars” name to the city for promotional purposes.

At that same meeting, the board voted to oppose plans by Transit Mixed Concrete Co. to remove 56 million tons of gravel and rock from Soledad Canyon.

The board members who recommended opposing the project are on one of the chamber’s 29 committees--about double the number from five to 10 years ago.

“Part of our mission has been one of advocacy,” says Will Fleet, chamber president and publisher of the Newhall Signal.

“We are very active legislatively and even on local government issues,” he added. “I have been exposed to a lot of chambers, and haven’t seen another one that is not only active but effective. We are more in charge of our destiny by being active in those areas.”

But the organization is still essentially pro-growth at heart--as one would expect for a business outfit, says Santa Clarita City Councilwoman Jill Klajic.

In fact, two companies that stand to benefit directly from continued growth in the area are the Newhall Signal, headed by Fleet, and Transportation Management Assn., a telecommunications center for people who work for companies in the Los Angeles Basin. The company is owned by chamber President-elect Connie Worden-Roberts.

But the chamber’s previous status as the area’s one-ton gorilla has been somewhat tempered by the formation of Santa Clarita’s city government, Klajic says.

“In the beginning, before we were a city, the chamber was sort of our quasi-government out here,” Klajic says. “They often spoke on behalf of the community and behalf of our citizens. But in a lot of ways, it was a misjustice because they spoke on behalf of the big business community and the large developers--mainly Newhall Land & Farming. So there was very little evaluation done of the developments in the beginning.”

But Klajic, a slow-growth advocate and environmentalist whose views sometimes differ from those held by the majority of the chamber, adds that city government and chamber interests coincide more often than not.

“We’re not constantly at loggerheads, as long as you can draw a real clear picture in your head and you understand what their role is,” she said. “Their role is to encourage and accommodate as much growth in the valley as they can because that’s their job. So in many ways we can partner and get along. But I weigh very little what they say when it comes to taking a position in quality-of-life issues.”

Others, including Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), say the chamber’s credibility on that issue is high.

“Most of the people in the chamber live in the city and want it to have a good quality of life,” he said. “They believe there should be economic growth in the community, and I think the city also supports that.”