St. Paul and District Chamber of Commerce members approached Town of St. Paul council at its Nov. 12 meeting to propose a collaboration that could see businesses pay an increased business license fee to operate, which would include a chamber membership.
President Alice Herperger told council that about 150 businesses pay membership dues to belong to the chamber, yet all the businesses receive the benefit of the chamber’s work. “It doesn’t seem fair to some of the businesses that are paying, (that there are) businesses that aren’t paying.”
In a letter to council, the chamber’s board stated it had some immediate needs, including paying for a full-time executive director - instead of one that is only paid to work three days – and not having to ask the County or Town of St. Paul for financial help so that the chamber can be independent. Having an automatic chamber membership built into the business license would increase the chamber’s membership, eliminate businesses having to pay two fees, and would provide all businesses with stronger chamber services, the letter stated.
“Currently, all immediate and long-range planning is on hold as we do not have the necessary funding to complete our ideas,” states the letter.
There are about 375 to 400 businesses with business licenses operating in town, according to Town of St. Paul CAO Ron Boisvert.
Coun. Ken Kwiatkowski asked if the chamber had approached business owners to get their views. If they have to pay more on top of their yearly business license, he questioned if some would express the view, “I shouldn’t have to be forced to pay.”
Herperger noted business owners don’t have a choice about paying a town business license, but pay it anyway. She gave the example of the southern Alberta town of Carstairs, saying that in this town, business licenses have been tied to chamber memberships for 10 years with success. “It’s a very workable situation.”
The letter also states that most chambers across the province run the community’s visitor information centre, which gives the chambers a secured amount of income and a place of their own.
“We are one of the few chambers that do not run the Tourist Information Booth,” said Herperger. As council noted, the chamber used to run the town’s tourism information centre at the UFO landing pad, before a break in relations saw the town stop funding the chamber and the chamber relocating to a downtown location, for which it must pay rent.
“This is not the same board, this is not the same council,” Herperger said, explaining the rationale for going back to the old way of operating. She felt that the chamber had lots of exciting ideas and energy that it wanted to transmit to business owners.
“We’re busy, we’re involved, we’re trying,” she said. “Status quo is not enough for me. I want people to get excited about what we’re doing.”
Mayor Glenn Andersen expressed appreciation for this viewpoint. Later in the regular council meeting, he suggested that the first way to deal with the chamber’s request was to set up a regular line of communication between the two entities. He suggested Coun. Don Padlesky and Coun. Pat Gratton, with himself as an alternate, would attend chamber meetings as town council representatives and could come back with some recommendations.
