Smallness Suits Local Concerns

This town’s business community is so small that residents outnumber business members on the board of the Arleta Chamber of Commerce and Residents Assn.

Arleta’s chamber doesn’t have an office or any paid staff members. With a limited budget, it saves money by keeping its answering machine at a member’s bookstore and its computer at the home of a longtime board member.

Make no mistake about it, however, the chamber is serious about what it does and its leaders believe firmly that Arleta needs its own chamber to tackle the extremely local concerns that only a local group would care about.

The chamber’s history illustrates just how local those concerns can be. It was founded in 1975 to fight a ZIP Code change that folded Arleta’s old 91332 into Pacoima’s 91331. The chamber lost its battle to keep the old code, a loss that still rankles some members.

“We got 5,200 signatures against the ZIP Code change, which is pretty good in a community of about 30,000 people. It’s one of our biggest disappointments,” said Hawley Smith, a 15-year board member and retired U.S. Small Business Administration official.

On the other hand, both Smith and chamber President Raymond Setterstrom cite a “Welcome to Arleta” sign at Woodman Avenue and Branford Street as one of the group’s proudest achievements.

“The corner there was full of trash and weeds. It belongs to the city, and no one was taking care of it. It was an eyesore,” Setterstrom said.

The sign, erected in 1993, sits amid landscaping completed in 1995 that is maintained for free by California Nurseries, a chamber member, according to Smith.

Setterstrom said Arleta residents are probably the only people who would invest the time and effort required for the success of such projects as the chamber’s fund-raising drive for the welcome sign, the “Sparkle Days” it sponsors to clean up the community, its graffiti-removal team and its quarterly newsletter.

The very local nature of these concerns is the reason Arleta will always need its own chamber, said Setterstrom, who acknowledges that larger organizations, like the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley, have their place in tackling bigger regional issues.

“We send a representative to their [the United Chambers’] meeting, and we participate in the votes, but no one is going to represent our interests in Arleta with the same amount of concern as those of us who live here,” he said.

Added Smith: “We would always want to be a part of the United Chambers because it carries more clout. But we would always still want our own chamber.”

Setterstrom said the Arleta chamber has found its dealings with the United Chambers a bit unwieldy because the Arleta group doesn’t get an agenda ahead of time. That makes it tough for him and others to discuss agenda items and form a consensus before the meetings.

J. Richard Leyner, vice chair of the Encino-based United Chambers, said other members have raised similar concerns and his group plans to distribute agendas “on an earlier basis in the future.”

Setterstrom said the Arleta chamber’s membership and its mission make it different from most other chambers, if not unique.

The group’s 130 members include 70 residents and 60 of the city’s approximately 270 businesses, he said. Residents pay $24 a year for membership, or $12 if they’re 60 or older. Businesses pay $48 per year, or $120 if they have more than 48 employees. But Arleta has very few companies that fit into the latter category, Setterstrom said.

“Residents join because they want to help us keep our community the way it is. Businesses join because most of the owners live outside of Arleta and they want someone here to represent their interests,” said Setterstrom, who is a purchasing manager for a Los Angeles manufacturing company.

Smith and Setterstrom both said the chamber has always had difficulty expanding its business membership and getting business people to take active roles in the group as officers or board members.

The only business board member, Setterstrom said, is Robert Lozano, owner of Emmanuel Christian Bookstore, where the chamber keeps its answering machine and receives its mail.

Lozano, who has operated the store for 13 years, credits the chamber with keeping the business district clean, ensuring that street signs are properly maintained, and generally looking out for the interests of Arleta’s mainly small shops.

“Being a member helps me to meet other business people and it gets our store’s name out in the community,” Lozano said. “As a board member, right now, I’m concentrating on trying to recruit some new business members.”

One of the chamber’s primary missions is to keep apartments out of Arleta, Setterstrom said. He said residents prefer the single-family home environment and believe apartments bring too much traffic.

The chamber also fought plans for a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power substation, which members believed would be unsightly in a residential area.

“We won that one, at least for the time being,” board member Smith said. “We inundated the [Los Angeles] City Council with calls and letters.”

Individual chambers like Arleta’s provide “a window into the community” and hardly any two are exactly alike, according to Patricia Davenport, a deputy to Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, whose district includes Arleta.

“I’m not sure if these chambers deliver the vote, but they let you know what’s on the mind of the community,” Davenport said. “They are all very different. Some of them are very active and others are much less so. Some are growing and pushing to increase their membership, but others aren’t growing at all.”

Membership in the Arleta chamber peaked at 93 businesses and 130 residents about four years ago, according to Smith, who said the group probably needs some new blood to help him and other old hands.

“I think some people got discouraged that we weren’t getting anywhere with some of the things we would like to do,” Smith said. “But we’re trying to emphasize membership again, so we’re hoping to grow again.”

One project that might boost business membership, Smith suggested, is a push for newer and brighter street lights in the city’s business district along Woodman Avenue. The chamber is hoping to find some city or county funds for the project but hasn’t found the money so far, Smith said.