MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.
One vote does make a difference.
The St. Charles Chamber of Commerce and the St. Peters Chamber of Commerce held separate elections on Wednesday on a proposal to merge the two organizations. The proposal needed two-thirds majorities in each chamber to pass.
That wasn’t a problem in the St. Charles chamber. About 93 percent of those members who cast ballots supported the merger. The actual vote was 104 to 8.
St. Peters chamber officials had a more difficult time convincing their members the merger was a good idea. Members voted 45 to 22 for the proposal, a 67 percent majority.
There are still some legal issues to work out, bylaws need to be approved by the new board and a plan of merger needs to be put together and submitted to the Missouri Secretary of State, according to Scott Tate, president of the St. Charles chamber. The new board, comprised of members from both the St. Charles and St. Peters boards, will take effect almost immediately, according to Aleece Vogt, chairman of the St. Charles board.
“I’m hoping within a couple of months we can be official,” Tate said.
Plans call for Tate to lead the new organization, to be called the Greater St. Charles County Chamber of Commerce. Assuming the current members do not drop out, the chamber should have close to 1,000 members. The St. Charles chamber has approximately 580 members while the St. Peters chamber has more than 400.
Vogt said chambers throughout the country are experiencing hard times.
“Ours will be one of the few that is growing and on sound financial footing,” she said. When the proposal was announced a couple of months ago, Vogt said declining membership was “one of the driving forces” in the chambers’ decision to consolidate operations.
Cliff Heitmann, chairman of the St. Peters board, attributed the close vote, in part, to the low turnout. He said he hoped for a larger turnout, but acknowledged that getting members’ attention can be difficult with the holidays approaching. His members had a five-hour window on Wednesday to appear at the chamber’s office and cast a ballot. The voting in St. Charles took place during a general membership meeting at the Banquet Center of the Little Hills.
Both chambers have a number of not-for-profits as members, but mostly business owner or their representatives participated in this election. Of the 112 members that cast votes, 19 represented not-for-profits, Tate said. Of the 67 who voted in St. Peters, 10 were from not-for-profits, said Lori Tainter, the chamber’s office manager.
Tainter is the St. Peters chamber’s only full-time employee. Plans call for the merged organization to operate out of the St. Charles chamber’s facility at 2201 First Capitol Drive, and Tainter will join the staff there. The St. Peters chamber leases space in an office building on Jungermann Road. That lease, which runs through September, will be allowed to expire.
Ed Weeks, the St. Peters chamber’s president, resigned a couple of months ago and another full-time staffer also recently resigned. There are no immediate plans to replace that staffer, Tate said.
