City-Chamber Rift Widens With Cutoff of $12,000 Subsidy

HAWAIIAN GARDENS —  The City Council and Chamber of Commerce have argued since Maggie Vineyard was elected chamber president in 1984, and the council’s decision this month to eliminate the chamber’s stipend has further stressed that already tense relationship.

Vineyard calls the council’s decision a “personal vendetta,” while Mayor Rosalie Sher and Vice Mayor Kathleen Navejas say that Vineyard, instead of serving the chamber members, is using her position as a political stepping stone.

“I would be all for funding the chamber if Maggie wasn’t president,” Navejas said in an interview.

Vineyard maintains that she is doing a great job, saying she would resign if she thought it would be best for the chamber.

“I can do more accidentally than (the council) can on purpose,” Vineyard said. “I only enhance the chamber, not hurt it. It’s a shame that they would punish the whole business community because of me.”

Chamber members have felt the tension, according to Ray Kolahi, a chamber board member and manager of First Credit Bank. “People come in and ask me why all this stupidity? It just shouldn’t be. They feel like everyone is fighting.”

The animosity resulted earlier this month in the council’s action to cut the chamber’s annual $12,000 stipend--about half the chamber’s budget. The city also had the chamber vacate a rent-free office in City Hall.

Vineyard served on the City Council from 1980 to 1984 and ran as a Republican state Senate candidate in 1984. Her showy personality prompted one chamber board member to say: “Maggie has a little bit of Joan Rivers in her.”

Vineyard and her husband, Councilman Richard Vineyard, have owned Maggie’s Mufflers, a Norwalk Boulevard muffler shop, since 1977. Maggie Vineyard often attends council meetings and has on occasion heckled the council, including her husband, from the audience. Some council-meeting observers call her behavior disruptive.

At a recent council meeting, to the surprise of the council and the audience, a scantily-clad hula dancer sent by Vineyard as an anniversary gift for her husband entertained the stunned council.

It’s Either Love or Hate

“You either love her or you hate her,” Councilman Donald Schultze said in a recent interview. Schultze cast the deciding vote in the 3-2 decision that eliminated the chamber’s funding. Richard Vineyard and Venn Ferguson voted against the cut.

Several chamber board members credit Vineyard with its revitalization.

Chamber membership--which costs $75 annually--doubled from 47 to 97 members the first year she was president. Vineyard is quick to attribute that accomplishment to her hiring a chamber manager with the $12,000 stipend in 1984. Membership has since dropped to 79, which she blames on redevelopment projects having displaced some small businesses. Chamber board member Eugene Siegel concedes that Vineyard is sometimes abrasive but says it is her audacity that makes her a successful chamber president.

Maggie Is a Motivator

“No one can get people going the way Maggie does,” said Siegel, an attorney. “Maggie Vineyard is the Chamber of Commerce. She is the only one willing to work this hard to get the chamber going and help the businessmen.”

But some City Council members complain that Vineyard has snubbed the council by leaving them out of chamber activities.

While some state, county and city officials attended a recent grocery store grand opening, the only council member there was Councilman Vineyard, something Maggie Vineyard says proves that the council does not support the business community.

But Navejas and Sher said they were not “formally invited.”

“This is a slap in the face of our mayor,” Navejas said during a recent council meeting. To chamber members, the feud is nothing new, and it has caused some members to stop attending chamber activities and others to not renew memberships.

“Things have been like this for a while,” said Paul Tellez, a Norwalk Boulevard barber. “It’s crazy. I just pay my dues and stay out of it.”

Became a Social Club

Bob McDonald, who recently sold his carpet cleaning business in Hawaiian Gardens, said he dropped out of the chamber when Vineyard took over as president.

“It got to be more of a social club than anything else,” McDonald said. “If we want to be social we can join the Elks lodge. The businessmen need more than that.”

Navejas, who said she would like to see the city start its own business association, agrees.

Vineyard “has the best interests of the city at heart? That’s baloney,” Navejas said. “Welcome to the Maggie Vineyard Show.”

Navejas believes Vineyard views the chamber as a political steppingstone that could ensure her husband’s reelection or assist her own return to the council or move to higher office.

To others, the idea is ridiculous.

“This is a small town and a small chamber,” Siegel said. “What would she have to gain?”

Noncomittal About Running

When asked if she plans to run for office again, Vineyard laughed and said: “Well, I don’t know about that. But if I did, I’d sure like to have the support of the chamber behind me.”

Like chambers in surrounding cities, the Hawaiian Gardens Chamber of Commerce holds monthly luncheons for business people, conducts ground-breakings and grand opening ceremonies, hosts parades and fund-raisers and publishes a newsletter.

The loss of city money means the chamber will no longer be able to put on the Christmas parade and the city beauty pageant, Vineyard said. The chamber this month also dropped the manager position, which carried a salary. Vineyard’s job as president is a volunteer position.

Subsidies in Other Cities

“The city has turned its backs on the business community and the little businessman is suffering,” Vineyard said. “But we will go on.”

When the chamber was formed in 1959, the city started giving the chamber an annual stipend that continued through 1979, Vineyard said. Between 1979 and 1984, when the chamber was not receiving city money, membership dwindled, Vineyard said. In 1984, Richard Vineyard took office and the council voted to resume subsidizing the chamber.

Although Sher argues that many cities do not provide money for their chambers, the surrounding cities of Artesia, Cerritos, Lakewood and Bellflower all subsidize their chambers or contract for services with them.

“Typically, the smaller cities fund their chambers because the small businessmen could not survive,” said James Algie, financial management director for the City of Long Beach.

Long Beach has never subsidized its chamber, Algie said, because it “is large enough to sustain itself.”

Bellflower gives its chamber $34,500 under a contract for services, said David Ryal, chamber manager. In return, the chamber administers the Sister City program and coordinates city parades, beauty pagents and sidewalk sales.

The Lakewood chamber gets $28,000 under a similar agreement.

Cerritos gives its chamber $8,400 that can be used “any way they see fit,” said Michele Ogle, city spokesperson.

Budgeted as Promotion

The Artesia chamber receives $14,000, which the city budgets under community promotions.

Artesia Chamber of Commerce Manager Evalyn Abbie says it is important that small cities like Artesia and Hawaiian Gardens subsidize their chambers of commerce,

“A lot of your smaller chambers could not survive without funding, particularly in a small town with mom and pop stores,” Abbie said.

Nevertheless, Sher maintains: “If the chamber can’t be self-sufficient, then there is something wrong with the organization to begin with. I have been philosophically opposed to the idea of cities funding chambers of commerce.”

To Vineyard, the council’s decision is based on personal, not philosophical, differences.

“This all goes back to when I voted for a card club to come in the city,” said Vineyard, who was one of three council members to vote in favor of legalizing poker clubs in Hawaiian Gardens in 1983. After heated public opposition, the ordinance went to a referendum and was narrowly defeated.

Other Agencies Also Cut

But Sher said the chamber was not singled out since the council also cut money for other organizations, including Su Casa, Jobs for Progress, Community Family Guidance and the Hawaiian Gardens Social Services Agency.

“This has nothing to do with personalities,” Sher said.

City Manager Charles Bryant said the chamber was asked to move out of City Hall to make room for other city departments, not because of any differences between the city and the chamber. The chamber is temporarily operating out of Vineyard’s muffler shop while it searches for a new home.

While not all chamber members agree with the council’s decision, most members like George Buyuklian have just decided to stay out of the way.

“The chamber doesn’t do much for me, the city doesn’t do much for me so I just pay my dues and keep quiet,” said Buyuklian, who owns Tex Auto Stores.

Elena H. Fiddler, a Norwalk Boulevard pet groomer, said that before she pays dues this year she will ask the chamber board what she will get for her money.

“Nothing--so far I get nothing for my money,” she said.