ED TAYLOR

The newly formed Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce and the near hundred year old Indian River County Chamber of Commerce each chose the most recent city council meeting to report on their respective organizations. During public input time, Charlie Wilson, one of three founders of the new chamber, and Penny Chandler, president of the county chamber each gave detailed Power Point presentations, with Wilson promoting what his chamber will do and Chandler detailing what the original chamber has done and described plans of further promotions in the future.

Numerous members of the county chamber were on hand to be introduced to the council by Chandler, including most members of the board of directors.  Wilson’s fellow founders of the new chamber are Mark Mucher and attorney Dan Stump.

Clad in a white dinner jacket and black tie, Wilson repeated the slogan of his new chamber which is “Think Vero First” and stated that his chamber was created to focus on Vero Beach rather than Indian River County.  He stated the creation of the Vero Beach chamber was not meant to compete with the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, but was needed to represent Vero Beach much like the Sebastian Chamber of Commerce was created to promote the City of Sebastian. He stated that the primary three goals of the Vero chamber would be the promotion of tourism, economic development and involvement in governmental affairs.  Wilson did not elaborate on his meaning or intent pertaining to the third goal.

Wilson’s comments before the Council seemed to contradict public statements he made the previous week about “tourism and economic development competition for business in Vero Beach.”

Wilson’s claim that the new chamber he is heading will focus exclusively on businesses located within the City of Vero Beach, also seems to be contradicted by documents filed with the Florida Department of State division of corporations. According to articles of incorporation filed with the state, “The purpose for which the corporation is organized is to promote tourism, economic development, and prosperity in the City of Vero Beach, The Town of Indian River Shores and the Indian River Barrier Island while preserving the special way of life that is Vero Beach.”

Wilson said the new organization planned on extensive promotion of Vero Beach summer tourism in the Orlando and Miami media markets with his stated goal of preventing a summer tourism slump and the related layoffs of seasonal workers. 

According to Wilson, the new chamber will not be in competition with the established chamber and will not be accepting any government funding so they are free to “promote what we want”.  He added that “if you like your chamber, you can keep your chamber”.  Wilson said that they were well on their way to meeting their goal of 100 members by March 31 and currently have sufficient funding, based upon contributions and donations combined with membership fees, to operate for at least one year.

Wilson promoted the idea of creating a “signature” event that was unique to Vero Beach much like the Fellsmere Frog Leg Festival and the annual Sebastian Clambake.

Penny Chandler, President of the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce for the past 18 years, told the council that the established chamber was established in 1915 as a board of trade and was formally named the Vero Beach Chamber of Commerce in 1922.  When the chamber began conducting tourism marketing and economic development on behalf of the County, its name was change to the Vero Beach/Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, and in 1997 was shortened to the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce.

Chandler said her organization has always promoted Vero Beach prominently as well as the other organized municipalities of Indian River County. “We promote for the good of all,” Chandler said and added that they have 900 member firms and did help in retaining Piper Aircraft, one of the largest employers in the City of Vero Beach as well as Indian River County.

Chandler stated that the chamber maintains three distinct budgets in separate bank accounts.  The first account is the chamber budget of $444,000, the second budget of $140,000 is devoted to economic development and the third, emphasizing tourism consisted of $350,000 which is funded by the county hotel bed tax.  She also detailed that the county chamber is the beneficiary of approximately $200,000 in volunteer and pro bono services annually.

“If we can attract a business to Indian River County, it helps everybody,” the chamber president said.  She added that, on a county wide basis, the employment numbers were up during the past summer.

Allison McNeal, tourism director for the county chamber, also addressed the council stating that the county had a record breaking summer for tourism and was heavily promoting local tourism in major northern markets such as New York, Boston and various Canadian Provinces.

McNeal also stated that county tourism was also heavily promoted on the internet travel website Expedia, which attracts millions of virtual visitors on a daily basis. She also stated that a county chamber mobile application has been developed for use on various smart phones and web tablets, such as the iPad, which is currently in the Apple queue for release within the next month.  She said users of the free app will be able to reserve and plan their Indian River County vacation with the convenience associated with cell phone usage.

The chamber’s tourism director said that after meeting with numerous hotels and resorts, in both the city and the county, that there were no employment layoffs during the past summer season in the hotel industry.  She also said that there was a significant increase in hotel bed taxes compared to previous summers.

After the presentation, Daniel Stump, a co-founder of the Vero Beach Chamber applauded the efforts of the county chamber but expressed confusion as to why their president, Penny Chandler, chose to speak and address the council with a presentation immediately following Wilson.  Stump stated that there are over 2,000 businesses in Vero Beach that do not belong to a chamber of commerce and reiterated that his newly created chamber was not in competition with the established county chamber.

Although objectives of both chambers of commerce may provide benefits to the City of Vero Beach, the city council is not involved in the planning or operations of either.