editorial

2-5-09

Merge the Cooperstown and Otsego County chambers of commerce?
It’s probably a conversation that should be had; in fact, has been had, leaders of both chambers will tell you, although not publicly yet.
No doubt the conversation will find neither independence or alliance is a panacea.

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The Cooperstown Chamber has seemed in flux since the formidable Polly Renckens retired three years ago this month.  If something needed to be done, Polly did it.  If money needed to be raised, Polly found it.
Polly’s successor, John Bullis, a retired Herkimer Community College dean who resigned after a year, measured the success of all chamber ventures in terms of the bottom line, and discovered only the Pumpkin Fest was actually a money maker.
Everything else – Holly Dollars, the state Snow Sculpting Competition, the Victorian Stroll, etc. – went over the side, with no consideration of the multipliers.
These changes came just as the tourism economy began to slide – first, $4 gasoline, then everything else – when a vigorous schedule of promotional activities to bring people to town would have been most helpful.
You can understand why the Cooperstown Chamber may be reexamining reasons for being.

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A merger with the Otsego County Chamber may seem like an easy way out in challenging times, but for whom?
Judging from experiences in other regions, big entities – NYSHA, the Fly Creek Cider Mill, the Baseball Hall of Fame – have macro needs, regional needs, and a big chamber is more able to meet them.
Smaller entities – retailers, mostly – need grass-root promotional efforts to bring feet in the door.  A regional chamber, with many communities to serve, tends to insufficiently serve individual localities’ individual needs.
It’s common that merchants associations – Main Street Oneonta, for instance – soon rise: Store owners find a regional chamber’s interests are too broad-gauged for the task at hand.

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If the conversation ensues – Otsego Chamber President Rob Robinson said his executive committee may restart it in the spring – a clean sheet is required: no preconceptions.
Combining administrative functions might make sense.  Perhaps combining health insurance, the main revenue producer, would achieve economies, as long as the income was then parceled out. 
A confederation of chambers – Cherry Valley, Richfield Springs, the gauge, too – might be feasible.  But it’s hard to imagine how local, intensely market-focused promotional efforts would emerge from a regional maw.
A chamber’s heavy-lifting has to be done close to the ground. Perhaps a regional chamber could be an “enabler,” in the best sense, freeing the local arms to do what they do best.
In addition to providing efficient administration and fundraising, it could develop a bubble-up countywide vision, if you will, that all chambers could buy into.
Something to think about.