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Business
Small-business group seeking ouster of chamber's Camper
By Rhonda Bodfield
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.17.2009
67 Comments on this story
A bid is under way to bounce the leader of the Tucson Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.
Fresh from a unanimous vote of confidence Monday by the chamber's executive committee, a defiant Jack Camper says he's not going anywhere, however, as he nears his 32nd anniversary at the helm of the business advocacy organization.
"I think it's a smear campaign and an attempt at a hostile takeover," Camper said Wednesday.
The campaign began to unfurl Friday, when Camper met privately with one of the founders of Tucson First — a group of small business owners pushing for local political change — and a pair of morning radio hosts. He was given an ultimatum to step down or a public campaign to remove him would begin.
And public it has been.
The group sent critical e-mails to board members Friday, which prompted the board vote Monday. After the vote, the group blasted e-mails to the entire membership list of the chamber, airing its grievances, and launched a "Change Tucson Chamber" Web site that essentially characterizes the organization as a go-along-to-get-along group that would rather glad-hand and do lunch than go to the mat with public officials.
Eric Ruden, the owner of Essential Pest Management and a spokesman for the campaign, said the chamber is failing to adequately represent small business interests. He said the Pima County Board of Supervisors and the Tucson City Council are widely considered hostile to business, but that wouldn't be the case if the chamber were assertive enough.
Ruden said taxes are too high; it's too difficult to get permits to move into vacant buildings; and it's too hard to work with the sign and land use codes.
A recent experience stuck in his craw. He recounted wanting to put in a bigger water line so he could fill up his pest company trucks faster. He was willing to pay the $2,700 to do the asphalt work. He was willing to hire a licensed plumber. But when he was told it would cost $16,300 in various development fees, he had to scuttle the project. "These are the situations the chamber should be protecting us from," he said. "I think there's a long-established good ol' boy network, and the leadership is not representing us."
Ruden said the chamber board is primarily made up of large businesses such as Raytheon, IBM, Qwest, American Airlines — companies that aren't as affected by the city's land-use code, for example. "So what that board does is protect all the big interests, and the small business community is left out in the cold, even though we're the economic engine for the community," he said.
Ruden, who said he wants new leadership at the top as well as at least five small-business voices on the board, was one of the major funders of the Tucson Tea Party's Last Stand event in October.
While that's a separate movement, he said, he did learn from the group's aggressive tactics. "From a social network standpoint, those guys are good at what they do," he said. That's how he landed on the idea for the e-mail blast and the Web site, which contends that if the chamber were still relevant, it wouldn't have seen its membership plummet over the past decade.
Joe Higgins, a small business owner who runs a morning talk show with Chris DeSimone, said the crux of the problems lie with the chamber's "stagnant management" and a splintering of the business voice.
There's the Southern Arizona Leadership Council and the Tucson Regional Economic Opportunities office. There's a chamber for black members and another for Hispanic members. There are geographically based chambers. Those disparate groups prevent the business community from having "a strong unified voice," he said.
Higgins said he was sorry to see the dispute go public, saying it's a black eye for the business community. He predicts the chamber will have no choice but to try to address the complaints if the coalition gains strength and membership starts peeling off.
"At some point, it's going to get their attention. If my customers don't come back, I'd better start addressing the reasons they're leaving," Higgins said.
Camper said that after that troubling Friday meeting, he spent the weekend thinking it over and decided to submit his resignation Monday.
"I never want to harm the chamber and if I was going to be an impediment in any way, I didn't want to be part of it."
The board refused to accept the resignation.
John Sundt, a member of the chamber's executive committee and one of the principals in 1st Deed Funding, said he's been "baffled" by the campaign.
Camper, he said, has survived swings in business cycles and political administrations. "He's had a wealth of experience, and he's been a consistent leader," Sundt said, adding that the board takes small business concerns seriously. "I think it was a good faith gesture on our part to say, 'Jack, we have confidence in you.' "
Gary Clark, another board member and vice president of Southwest Gas Corp., said Camper has been particularly effective at the state level, working with the Legislature, and noted he is active with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "I think Tucson's voice is being heard on the national level on down," he said.
Clark said he, too, was surprised at the fissure. "The impetus of the chamber is to represent all business, whether small, medium, or large, and we feel we do a good job at that."
Camper supporters say that while the membership has dropped from 3,100 members in 1997 to 1,743 members today, that's in part a function of the fact that the chamber used to offer a health care plan that was dissolved when the plan was taken over by a new owner. The recession has exacerbated the drift, they maintain.
"It's a tough economic time. You're going to have membership decline when businesses are having to make difficult decisions about where to invest their money," Sundt said.
Camper said the chamber has had a successful run this year.
With the help of other lobbying groups, Rio Nuevo funding for downtown redevelopment was secured, even though it was on the hit list of many lawmakers. Saying the City Council will likely not be sensitive to business as long as 60 percent of city voters are Democrats, the chamber backed nonpartisan city elections to give more Republicans a fighting chance.
It lobbied for an impact fee moratorium and got it. Camper's staffers are trying to address the sign and land use codes. They came out against Proposition 200, the public safety initiative, which subsequently failed and which Camper is still convinced would have required a tax hike from his members to pay for.
That's not to say Camper doesn't agree with some of the Tucson First group's demands.
The various local chambers should have stronger relationships, he said. He thinks a summit is in order to help the groups speak with more cohesion.
The board probably should meet more than quarterly, he said, acknowledging it was a bad idea to scale the meetings back, but saying scheduling had become a problem.
He would be happy to take names of small business owners to the nominating committee for possible board service, he said.
He said the group could have worked within the existing structure to get its demands met — but it's hard to do that if they aren't members.
Camper said he expects a sustained and ugly campaign, which is why he's readying a response to send to his members this week. He said he had started mulling retirement but has changed his mind.
"To be honest, the 'r' word had started to creep into the back of my mind," said Camper. "But you know what? I kicked it out of my vocabulary Monday. I am not going to bow to that kind of pressure and allow them to tear down this organization."
Contact reporter Rhonda Bodfield at 573-4243 or
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