The more things change in Grass Valley, the more they stay the same. The “changes” at the “new” Nevada County/Grass Valley Chamber are certainly worth pondering in our community if you care about real progress.
First the County decided to turn the county’s tourism initiative over to the Economic Resource Council, not the Chambers of Commerce (which benefited from the county money but never quite stood on their own two feet as a business advocacy group sustained by dues paying members). Now they’re squarely back in the tourism game, however, raising questions about they’ll collaborate — or clash — with ongoing ERC successes.
This was an open and transparent RFP process at the Rood Center last year for the tourism contract; the Chamber declined to participate (at least at the time).
To many people, the county money had really been a financial “crutch” that confused the Chambers’ chief mission: evangelizing business advocacy, signing up new members and becoming self sustainable. It’s a cool (and needed) goal in our community, at least in my mind. A lot of businesses — large and small — could use this help.
Then the Grass Valley/Nevada County Chamber changed leadership, opening the door for it to become a bona fide business advocacy group, standing alone with a growing base of dues-paying members and an invigorated, innovative mission.
Think of all the non-downtown businesses they could sign up; the Grass Valley Downtown Association already does a good job serving the downtown — and it’s their legal mission as a “business improvement district.” But this meant the Chamber — for its part — had to develop a new and exciting suite of services to sell to the business community, not just rely on the county funding for tourism.
But look what happened:
Instead of the County, the Grass Valley/Nevada County Chamber just turned to the City of Grass Valley for some money (now more financially robust from a newly passed sales tax initiative), and the Council happily went along.
Longtime local politico Patti Ingram Spencer helped secure $60,000 from the City of Grass Valley ($30K per year over two years) for “tourism support services,” (in fact, the same role that the county handed over to the ERC). You can read the document here. It received scant attention in the media.
The Grass Valley City Council unanimously passed the plan at its pre-Christmas meeting. (Mayor Dan Miller, for one, has been one of Patti’s longtime friends and allies for decades).
Then guess what happened? Keith Davies, and his wife, Robyn, became the new leaders of the Grass Valley Chamber. Davies is a fourth-generation Nevada County resident. His proposal for a destination resort in our county cited Miller as a “good friend since high school.” I don’t know if there was an RFP process for this job, but it wasn’t visible or transparent.
You can read about Keith’s plan for the Grand Sierra Resort here. It was met with some anxiety in the town (including the existing hoteliers and B&B owners) because of its risky “if you build it, they will come” mindset. Since then, Keith has backed off his “modest proposal.”
The Visitors Center has moved too — twice in less than a few months and only a block away. The new landlord is a longtime ally of the Contractors’ Association PAC (political action committee).
What’s going to be different about this “new” chamber?
•Some people think there’s a political agenda in play: to build a base that includes getting Dan Miller elected to the county board of supervisors, replacing Terry Lamphier. Terry’s upset of John Spencer (Patti’s husband) did not sit well with the “old guard” politicos.
•Others think it’s to win support for the “tabled” destination resort plan — touted as a way to bring jobs to town.
•Others worry the Chamber will clash, not collaborate, when it comes to tourism and event planning, seeking to subsume the ERC and GVDA efforts.
•As for a business advocacy strategy and membership drive, I have yet to hear about that — only the $60,000 award from the city.
We’ll just have to wait and see.
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Nice reporting, Jeff. I’ll be checking back to see how the electeds and Chamber of Commerce people respond–or not.
Jeff, if you would like the information about the Chamber’s new direction and future goals, please contact me for a sit down. I am always available to give you the facts and keep you informed.
Keith,
Thanks but methinks a community-wide sit down might be in order. Lots of people are asking the same questions, and they have more local longevity and institutional knowledge than me, for heaven’s sake. Cheers.
Jeff, I/we have nothing to hide, In fact we are very proud of the new direction this Chamber and City of GV are going. In fact, we encourage all interested parties to join our efforts. I will be happy to sit down with you and answer any questions you have or have gathered from anyone else with interest in this subject. Please let me know when & where………..Kindest Regards: Keith.
Keith,
If you have nothing to hide, then could you please just explain briefly where Jeff’s confusions about how the contract was awarded come from?
Tony
Tony, please call me at the Chamber office at 273.4667 and set a meeting with me and I will be happy to explain to you how this came about. It is a long story that started over 18 months ago. My wife and I believe it was destiny, it was meant to be………..Look forward to hearing from you. Keith
Tony and Jeff,
Silence can feel very loud. Therefore, I want you to know that I normally will not respond to blogs. I would rather sit down face to face with an individual and discuss any differing points of view.
The first Monday of every month there is a Monday with the Mayor at City Hall from 10 -12 a.m. Please stop by and I will be more than willing to answer any questions you might have to settle any outstanding or ongoing concerns. After all, we all want the best for our community.
Dan,
Jeff raised issues of transparency an conflict of interest in his post. My hope is that you could post a paragraph here explaining the situation, and then we could move on. Other elected officials in Nevada County have done this here on occasion (Terry Lamphier, Yolanda Cookson, and Nate Beason all come to mind). In my view, occasionally writing on the blogs is a good way to communicate with the community, and quickly dispel misunderstandings. My hope is that the issues that Jeff raises can be dispelled in such a fashion—though your initial avoidance of this issue in your response indicates to me that maybe Jeff is really right about concerns regarding insider-politics in Grass Valley.
As for meeting on a Monday morning, or for that matter attending a forum, both of these solutions seem out of proportion to the issues involved (in addition to the fact that I am in Germany for the year!). My own limited experiences with local government in Nevada County during the 20 years I lived there always, to be honest, left me with a bad taste in my mouth. From my perspective there indeed seem to be a “good ol’ boys and girls” network which seemed to revolve around going to NU together, attending Rotary/Lion’s or attending the same church. Nothing wrong with any of these things by themselves, but again, unless managed well, over-reliance on such connections erode transparency and trust.
Again I hope that the concerns Jeff raises can be dispensed with through a quick paragraph from you or someone else involved in awarding the contract to the Chamber of Commerce. On the other hand, if the issues Jeff raises are indeed spot on (as I’m beginning to suspect), maybe the City Council should revisit the relationship in an open and transparent fashion.
In any event, I hope that you will continue to participate in the blogging community. It is indeed an effective way to communicate with constituencies which are outside the normal routines around City Hall.
Best,
Tony
Tony, I can not tell the 18 month story in a paragraph or two. Frankly, it is a wonderful story of how four parties (2-private & 2-government) have come together for the betterment of this community. I will be telling the story as the interview process over the next 2-3 months unfolds. Since you and Jeff do not want to meet with me to hear the full story, stay tuned! Thanks for you interest…………….Keith.
Umm…..Keith,
I think Tony is in Germany. see above.
Hi Keith:
I’m not really interested in the whole story–rather just a response to the gist of what Jeff has reported here, which is about the fairness of the process, and not the quality of the collaboration. Quick responses to two of the questions raised here would help. These would be:
a) Is the city’s money ($60,000) a crutch for the Chamber of Commerce, as Jeff suggests? And related to that, what are the “tourism support services” the $60,000 pays for?
b) Why did the Chamber of Commerce seek Grass Valley money after declining to apply for a similar grant from the County?
These strike me as fairly straightforward questions if there is a straightforward answer. If there is not a straightforward answer, well that’s another issue–and so far there seems not to be one.
What would take a longer answer perhaps are Jeff’s points about what looks from the outside as conflicts of interest between members of the City Council, the C of C, members of the local Contractor’s association, etc. On a certain level, I know that such relations are normal–however, they also breed the appearance of corruption at times.
Anyway, that is my view from outside the bubble that sometimes the local elected officials seem to inhabit.
Tony
Dan,
Thanks, but this isn’t about “Tony and Jeff;” it is a feeling that is being expressed throughout the community — from different circles — not just “on a blog.” Methinks you would want to address it on a much larger scale. BTW, on a lighter note, the joint “60ish” birthday party invitation that you and Keith sent out this summer was a hoot! You obviously have a longtime, fun relationship. Also, I figured you meant 12 p.m., not a.m., though I have no doubt that you work long hours on behalf of City Hall. Thanks for your service.
Only when all the entities that rely on the tourist trade join in a joint discussion will anything happen in this area. Going alone is not the solution to attracting people to this area. A single entity does not cannot accomplish anything in this very competitive market of small communities. Most of the successful areas in this State have done this ie. the Monterey Peninsula . When the 2010 Preservation Conference was held here all the Organizations that were involved worked well together except for three but they did stay in the group.
The separation worked well 20 years ago but the times have changed unfortunately certain people and groups have not changed with the times.
Some answers from Keith and Dan here seem like a great idea. Don’t they know this is where News from Nevada County appears first?
I’m still at a loss as to why we continue to spend money on the ERC without a major “refocusing” of these funds/efforts.
What tangible results have come from the money that has been spent so far?
I cannot think of one thing, and I am still wondering why they have not focused these efforts on bringing some type of businesses to our hamlet (I know of the one fabrication business that brought up 10 people, but was the ERC involved with this action?).
I was wondering why we cannot have a creative individual that can figure out how to fill every empty building on the Crowne Point Circle area? This type of effort will help a number of issues including school funding, and businesses closings with a minimal amount of negative repercussions.
From what Jeff reported coupled with the responses from Keith and Dana public forum sounds like a great idea. I well planned and publicized forum where the new members could introduce themselves to the public and outline the goals/ mission/ vision to improve the Grass Valley/ Nevada County region. Any responsible entity would do so without any reservation.
Oops, From Keith and Dan a public …. is the way it is supposed to reade.
Please let me know when this meeting is scheduled so that I may attend.
Jeff,
As Dan Miller wrote above, “silence can be very loud.” Looks like no meetings or further explanations will be forthcoming from either Grass Valley, or the Chamber of Commerce about how the $60,000 was awarded in a what was, as you implied a back room deal. So it goes in a small town, I guess!
Thanks again for the good reporting.
Tony
I can understand Dan’s reticence to put anything in a blog post. It is nearly impossible to write anything without someone seeing something other than what was intended (I know!). I do, however, respect those who are willing to take the risk and write their thoughts and reasoning.
In the world of contracts, I put more weight on what is written than what is said. That said, as any lawyer will point out, 1 page or 100 pages, it all boils down to meeting of the minds.
The funds awarded may or may not be a good idea and the process may or may not be the best, but the intentions are good. We want Grass Valley to thrive and be successful.
Too often it seems it’s about winners and losers and less about partnering of stakeholders (which, of course, should include citizens at large when dealing with tax payers’ money).
Supervisor Weston was inspiring at our recent Board workshop. His message? In essence, we need to strive for our highest and best.
I agree.
Ok, now another elected is blowing smoke over the issue of the $60,000 contract awarded by the Mayor of Grass Valley to his high school buddy. Let me suggest a few words to get people like me (and Jeff perhaps) to go away, and even give you a pat on the back.
a) “Great article Jeff, but you may not be aware of fact a), b), and c).”
b) “Great article Jeff and you raise great points. Sorry that the process did not appear clear this time, I will do everything I can to see that the bidding process is open and transparent in the future.”
I really like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I have tried to bend over backwards in this exchange to do so. But I am met with some combination of silence and obfuscation.
Terry, I also don’t also buy your assertion that “It is nearly impossible to write anything without someone seeing something other than what was intended.” This can happen in all human communication whether written or oral. The only advantage/disadvantage of participating in public blogs is that you are held accountable for the precision and conciseness of your language—in other words weasel words are harder to use than in the privacy of the Mayor’s office between 10 and 12 on Monday mornings.
Terry, I’ve really admired your “outside the box” approach to Nevada County politics. Please, please don’t become part of the good ol’ boy system, too!
Tony
Should be an interesting Chamber!!!
Nyla Haddy (5generations of us)
Can’t wait…
Tony, re: my remark: “It is nearly impossible to write anything without someone seeing something other than what was intended.” note that I also said, supporting your view, “In the world of contracts, I put more weight on what is written than what is said.”
Terry–good point.
As a Nevada City booster, I haven’t had much to do with Grass Valley, so I don’t know a lot about their politics. But, when I hear a community leader appear to dissemble by using terms like ” destiny”, “meant to be”, and ” wonderful story”, it raises the hair on the back of my neck.
Magic thinking is not consistent with level headed leadership in the real world.
I’ll stay tuned for whatever lessens we may draw from this gathering tempest in a teapot.