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The humble beginnings (and end?) of the Greater Redmond Chamber of Commerce |
UPDATED OPINION: "One Redmond Partnership". "Community of Excellence". "Redmond Economic Development Association (REDA)." "The Chamber." "Redmond Foundation." "Realize Redmond." "Lodging Tax Advisory Committee (LTAC)."
What does all this mean? To simplify, let's just call the jargon "cards in the deck." and name the game, "One Redmond" - our economic development partnership.
The game started in March of 2010 when council funded $200,000 to create a public-private "economic development partnership" to attract and sustain business. An additional $50,000 was funded to start
Realize Redmond - a nonprofit designed to build private support for community projects -- to enhance and define our culture, build community, revitalize our businesses, and promote tourism. This community ("of excellence") includes in the mix: our schools (Dr. Kimball) and health & wellness organizations.
In the beginning REDA, the Chamber, Realize Redmond (RR) and the City weren't coordinated and playing "out of the same deck" during fundraising. This confused the donors, sponsors and community. So, the mayor hired a consultant ($40,000) to seek alignment and coordination of these organizations. According to Marchione, the study will be done in two weeks. Re-alignments could be announced at that time. It's possible the Chambers will close their doors, eventually.
If you saw the August 30 Redmond city council meeting, you'd have heard presentations from Bill Biggs of Group Heath, Tom Martin of Evergreen, and Dan Angellar of the Marriot-Redmond. They are "One Redmond Partnership" leaders of REDA, Chambers, and RR, respectively. The Mayor ran the meeting while council looked on.
Bill Biggs, Chair of REDA led the discussion saying, "This is going to take an interdependent effort to get it done." He said "we need to enhance our alignment, reduce waste, be a lean organization, with a cost effective overhead structure". He spoke of Redmond Chamber's role in keeping Redmond businesses vital and to be able to retain themselves and the RR value of community. Biggs summarized the consultant's work saying 60 people were interviewed, not counting the Boards of REDA, Chamber, and RR. "It created an awareness to a broad group of people." Biggs stated:
"Historically, the way we have been organized is probably not what we will be, eventually. We may or may not be the kind of independent Chamber or the kind of independent RR....we may look at structuring ourselves differently on the basis of the study...because people who invest expect to see no waste and enhanced alignment"
Tom Martin, President of the Redmond Chamber made an unexpected "fold em" announcement, as follows: Read More >>