Tensions are brewing in Cordova as the City Council continues deliberating over its 2025 municipal budget, causing a stir around one entity in particular facing cuts: The Cordova Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber has operated out of the same city-owned building downtown rent-free since 1999, originally because of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the municipality and the nonprofit that the Chamber would be a kind of an extension of city services. The Chamber – a 501(c)6 nonprofit not run by the municipality – has also up until now received city funding.
But the lease on that downtown building expires on Dec. 31 of this year and the city is discussing re-negotiating the lease’s terms – as well as a potential $40,000 cut to the Chamber’s budget.
Cathy Renfeldt, the executive director of the Cordova Chamber, argues that the organization provides critical city services – not only by putting on “quality of life” town events and guiding tourism, but also by helping to advance Cordova’s critical ferry and air service, business startups, childcare, workforce development, and more.
“We’re not just the destination management organization … we wear more hats than that,” she told The Cordova Times in an interview earlier this fall.
The city’s Planning Commission on Sept. 10 voted to recommend that the municipality begin re-negotiations on the building lease with the Chamber directly. At the council’s Sept. 18 meeting, the body voted on a motion to negotiate the Chamber’s lots at a 3-3 tie, but since tie votes fail under municipal code, the issue was set to come before council again after the city’s budget is approved. Cordova City Council Member Ken Jones told The Cordova Times there was “quite a bit” of public comment surrounding the Chamber lease at the time of the Sept. 18 meeting, although he said he couldn’t comment on land-use matters still in deliberation.
Residents even took to Facebook to go back and forth about the city budget, one anonymous person posting that the council should be considering the purpose of municipal tax money and allocating those funds to city services.
Renfeldt, who spoke at the council’s meeting in September, said she believes the Chamber has proven that it’s a profitable investment for the city, and is urging the council to continue investing in the organization. She said if the Chamber loses the lease, they’ll likely struggle to find a new central building and balance their operating budget, and they’ll probably be forced to make programming cuts of their own.
“It’s going to be difficult for us to continue doing all of that if we have a lot of new expenses that we didn’t have before,” Renfeldt said.
But, she also said she acknowledges that “the city is really facing some difficult decisions when it comes to budget.”
In the City Council’s Nov. 13 budget work session packet, the municipality is proposing cuts for the school district ($-90,000), city equipment maintenance (-$25,000), the Mt. Eyak Ski Area (-$20,000), and city street maintenance (-$10,000).
The council is set to pass their Fiscal Year 2025 budget in December.
