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New group will provide information, education, and advocacy for Mid-County businesses
LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
There’s a new player on the Portland business scene, and it’s headquarted right on the edge of Gateway.
The East Portland Chamber of Commerce had its kickoff meeting last month at the offices of its president-elect, Bob Peterson of MBank at 9415 S.E. Stark St. The event drew dozens people, all the more impressive because they represent a number of east side business associations.
Peterson sees the role of the group as part education, information-sharing and mutual support, and part advocacy. He is not alone in feeling that the last is badly needed. “East Portland is a vast area,” Dan LaGrande told the gathering. “It’s an area best known for choice: choices on where to live, work, shop, worship. But it’s a well-kept secret.”
Ken Turner, currently the chair of the Association of Portland Neighborhood Business Associations (APNBA), agreed, “The east side is relatively easily forgotten by the politicians downtown.” He recalled a map of “Portland” that stopped at the Willamette River.
Origins
What would become the East Portland Chamber began during the creation of the Outer Southeast Community Plan, “A neighborhood-driven process that paid not much attention to business.” To protect their interests, a group of eight area business associations formed the Outer Southeast Business Association.
The new group sought support from the Portland Chamber of Commerce. “They said yes, no, good luck,” Turner said. They received more help from the Gresham Chamber of Commerce, who provided space for what would become the East Portland Business Council. “They were very helpful,” Turner said, “but we knew that someday we’d have to become independent.” That day has come, he indicated.
The group’s outgoing chair, Jeff Bennett, gave the group “legal advice, whether we wanted it or not,” Turner said. Bennett joined in 1999 when he met Officer Paul Ellison, who “got me all excited,” he told the group. When he became the group’s leader he inherited “a very powerful board,” he said. “This would never have happened without it. It’s been truly a team effort.”
Current plans
The new group will take in all territory from Gresham to the river. Part of its mission, Peterson told an earlier APNBA gathering, will be area-wide promotion. “Alone, working 24 hours a day, we have trouble marketing ourselves,” he said. “We’ll offer an opportunity to market to a wider area.”
Another function will be information sharing. “If it happens in Hawthorne, it could well happen in Belmont,” he said. “We can learn from each other.” He said he plans to host quarterly seminars on a variety of subjects.
A third function could be advocacy. “All of us united have a stronger voice to make the folks downtown take us seriously,” he said.
“I hope the business associations of East Portland can work cooperatively, and be a voice for the entire east side,” LaGrande said.
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