By Robert Haugh
The Good —The Leg Drop Award:
The City Council decided to increase funding to help our local businesses. The total is now $1.1 million. Kudos to the Council and staff for responding to an important need.
The Bad — The Jabroni Award:
The NOT the Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce has raised only $1,500. That’s embarrassing. Maybe they were right to change their name. They’re not really doing much to help small businesses in Santa Clara.
I shop as much as I can in our three “bricks and mortar” Zip Codes – keeps our share of those CA Sales Taxes here at home. But the bulldozers keep knocking down my supermarkets and my bike shops.
Nonetheless, the smaller the shop in Santa Clara, the less likely they are to display any notices involving the Chamber of Commerce. Very unscientific poll, this, but the answer I got most often was that they never got anywhere near the support or promotions to justify the thousands they would have spent on membership.
Now, in the pandemic, those single-proprietorships are really on the ropes, and city government is having to step in. More than San Jose’s City Council is doing, I’ll bet.
Maybe the C-of-C works for Owens Corning, Applied Materials, Intel, AT&T, B of A. Can’t be sure who, though, because their membership list is behind a password dialog.
A Chamber of Commerce isn’t just for the best of times. This may be an opportunity for ours to remake itself into a more responsive Chamber – and very possibly to help more of our Santa Clara businesses come out on the other side of the pandemic.
Looters must have some kind of fear to stop. Today, they are arrested (MAYBE), booked,
and when the paperwork is done they are released and are back on the streets the next day in the same city or get on a bus or airplane to a different city targeted by the organizers. A few years ago all the media repeatedly warned that LOOTERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT! This is the fastest way to put fear into the criminals mind. What ever happened to this effective policy?
The chamber of commerce has ripped off the city and residents for years. They used City funds and property for their own benefits and helping their buddies. The money we all lost with the mismanagement of thedthe Convention Center istis criminal.
Let’s not forget the Blu Pac, trashing the city and Mayor with our money. Let’s not forget their affiliation (taking money) with the 49ers going against the city from the noise curfew to measure a.
I will not support anyone associated with the chamber of commerce in any election or capacity as they have shown themselves to be thieves.
The new chamber of commerce is working to rite themselves but have along way to go.
I think it’s a shame that you continue your relentless attack on the Chamber. It is not becoming and it is a sort of bullying tactic. Why?