Chamber elects officers for 2014

The Odessa Chamber of Commerce has elected its new slate of officers for 2014 by unanimous acclamation:

President: Marcus Horak

Vice Pres .: Marlon Schafer

Secretary: Michelle Melgren

Treasurer: Larissa Zeiler

Board of directors: Justin Parr, Victoria Iverson, DeJay Buck (biergarten chair)

New Year’s Eve party

The final (brief) business meeting of the year will take place December 31 when the Chamber throws a New Year’s Eve party for the Odessa community from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. at Any Occasion Banquet Hall. Tickets are $10 per person and entitle the bearer to free hors d’oevres prepared by volunteer Chamber members and some starter poker chips for those interested in participating for prizes in the gaming activities that will be offered. Chiefs Bar & Grill will staff the no-host bar. The Garland Kings, a Spokane-based band, will provide entertainment beginning at 9 p.m.

The evening’s theme is “A Night at the Casino.” Various games of chance will be played throughout the evening, using poker chips as currency. At the end of the evening, the participants with the highest numbers of chips will be awarded prizes purchased by the Chamber.

Banners

The purchase of decorative banners to replace the weathered “Discover Odessa” banners on the yellow light poles along First Avenue was approved. The new banners will be included in the 2014 budget. They will be installed outside of the immediate downtown area and will remain in place all year long. They are expected to last several years with good color retention and overall durability.

Breakfast meetings

Chamber president Marlon Schafer proposed making one of the two Chamber meetings held each month a breakfast meeting to enable additional business owners to attend. In speaking to downtown business people during efforts to increase participation in Chamber, Schafer was told by several business owners that the noon hour is simply not convenient for them. A 7 a.m. breakfast meeting on alternate Tuesdays will be tried beginning in the new year. The venue will still be Any Occasion Banquet Hall.

Odessa video

Schafer and the Chamber board listened to a presentation from a person from the Altitude Network, a television network that specializes in sports and outdoor activities. For $5,000 the company would provide professional videographers to come to the Odessa area and highlight the outdoor activities available in the area. They would then produce a 10-to-15-minute video that the Chamber would retain the rights to and could use for advertising purposes on its website. It would also be shown four times per year on the network. There would also be a three-minute segment that Chamber members could compose to feature any other points of interest about the town and/or its surroundings.

Debate then ensued over the cost versus benefits, the target audience and the ultimate purpose of the video. Norm Ott proposed that the Chamber spend more effort on lobbying for an improved regulatory and business climate in the state as opposed to a video that may or may not be seen by the people and businesses the Chamber hopes to attract. Ott cited increasing utility rates from the town, electric company and phone company; hospital levies that, once approved, never go away; school levies that continually increase the local tax burden and other fees and taxes that squeeze small-business owners until they are forced out of the market. In Ott’s view, no small-business owner is likely to relocate to Odessa unless there is an overall change in the statewide business climate.

Schafer maintained that the video would nevertheless allow the town to market itself successfully to certain focus groups, such as alumni, former residents and parents of school children daunted by the impersonal nature of mammoth school districts in larger cities.

The issue was tabled for further discussion over the next few meetings.

Business training

Schafer also requested and received approval to spend no more than $600 on another business seminar to be offered at Any Occasion Banquet Hall. Several people had requested that Schafer offer another session that dealt more directly with financial issues.