GOVERNMENT
Chamber pressure Breakup over contract violations means end to ‘social club’
BY ELIAS WEISS
rent a space in the Estrella Gin Business Park for just $200 per month. Market rate for the 500-square-foot space starts at $16,000 per year, about seven times the rate the chamber paid, according to realtors representing the office complex at West Edison Road and North Estrella Parkway. Every chamber board member and director at the time the contract was signed has since resigned. Now, less than halfway through the contract term, the city squashed the deal. The seven-page contract specifies a dozen services the chamber must provide the city in exchange for near-free rent. A cursory review of the facts suggests the chamber did not fulfill nine of the 12 conditions. Assistant City Manager Jennifer Brown told then-chamber President Antonia Présumé Dec. 12 “several conditions outlined in the agreement have not been met” in a letter obtained by InMaricopa through a Freedom of Information Act request. Présumé’s term expired days later. CONDITIONAL LOVE When asked directly, Brown did not answer which terms of the contract the chamber violated. City Councilmember Rich Vitiello said “there were a few things they didn’t follow,” but also declined to elaborate. Councilmember Eric Goettl spoke glowingly about the chamber but didn’t answer questions about the contract violations, as did the city’s spokesperson, Monica Williams. Mayor Nancy Smith and three other councilmembers declined to comment altogether. Only Councilmember Vincent Manfredi answered the question, saying there were “shortcomings of the chamber in fulfilling their agreed obligations” and that “several key requirements set by the city have not been met,” which he later detailed. Many are obvious. The chamber was contractually obligated to provide quarterly
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In losing its lease with the city, however, the chamber might just find a new lease on success. The chamber’s debutant leadership team sees the breakup as an opportunity to reconcile years of shoddy reputation as a “social club” and usher in an era where business, not brunch, takes center stage. The city never told the chamber which terms of the contract it violated — in spite of the chamber’s pleadings to know why. But conversations with chamber leaders paint a different picture, one in which the chamber knowingly flouted the terms of its lease. Very few at City Hall are willing to acknowledge where things went wrong. Setting the chamber free, they say, is indeed an act of love. Just as the adage goes. LEASE OFFERING It was less than 18 months ago the city and chamber of commerce signed a three-year sublease contract allowing the chamber to
F YOU LOVE SOMETHING, SET IT FREE. That’s how the adage goes, and the city learned it well, abruptly terminating its contract with the Maricopa Chamber of Commerce in December. “It’s time for us to step back,” says one city councilmember. Says another: “We’re letting them take a great step forward and do this on their own.” By all accounts, it seems like an amicable breakup. The city is growing quickly; the government, rightly, is disentangling itself from private business affairs. With a goodbye kiss and a “bon voyage,” the city pushes the fledgling chamber from the nest to test its wings for the first time. But a closer look at the facts reveals the chamber was mired in accusations of breaching a contract that, ironically, it inked despite violating its own bylaws. Now, without the city’s hand to hold, the cash-poor chamber faces the specter of homelessness by year’s end.
InMaricopa.com | February 2024
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