Rolling Meadows chamber may have to take office space
The Rolling Meadows Chamber of Commerce is faced with relying on the charity of a local business to keep afloat if it is not able to seek refuge from budget struggles by moving into city hall.
No longer able to afford their location at 2775 Algonquin Road, officials said Tuesday the chamber is nearly bankrupt.
“This is our heart and soul,” Rolling Meadows Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Linda Liles Ballantine said of the chamber Tuesday in an impassioned plea to the board.
Ballantine described the cutbacks made, including a 50 percent pay cut in her own salary, to help keep the chamber afloat.
The chamber’s options are either moving back into a spare conference room in city hall or taking up a business’ offer to move its headquarters into one of its offices.
If the chamber moved into the business office, it would not have any signs. While the space is nice, Ballantine said, the office is not in the main part of the city and would be hard for residents and potential business owners to find.
Room 240 at city hall is next door to a conference room that is used almost daily, officials said. If the chamber relocates to Room 240, officials worried they may be able to hear conversations from neighboring rooms because there is no soundproofing.
“If we have room here, I think it’s unspeakable to tell them to go to the backroom of some office. It’s not the impression we want to make,” said Alderman John Pitzaferro, who serves on the chamber board. “Would you be proud of that?”
“I’m not entirely sure ...,” Alderman Barb Lusk said, “I don’t think they’ll throw you in the corner with a light bulb over your desk.”
The chamber of commerce left city hall in 2002, with the city giving financial assistance at that time for three years after asking them to leave because of remodeling and space needs. The city pays membership dues and participates in a tax sharing program, which is projected to give the chamber about $19,000 in 2011.
“I don’t think that we can quantify what it would be like not to have a city chamber here,” Alderman Jim Larsen said. “It almost feels like we’d be kicking them to the curb.”
The chamber must move by the last weekend in March, Ballantine said. Officials agreed to review what it would cost the city for the move before making a decision on the matter.
“The chamber is important to the city; it’s our agency we look to when we hear businesses are looking into coming to the city,” Mayor Kenneth Nelson said. The chamber will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year.
Ballantine noted that 10 of the top 12 companies in Rolling Meadows are chamber members, and that the main reasons businesses left the chamber were they either went out of business, moved out of Rolling Meadows, or were forced to make budgetary cutbacks.
Officials plan to gather more information and have a proposal ready for vote in the next few weeks, Nelson said.