Kansas City Chamber

What The Mayor Thinks:

While cities are made up of neighborhoods and the residents who live there, every city also needs a strong business community to provide jobs for those residents, pay taxes and power the local economy.
In general, a city’s business community is mirrored in the local Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber provides leadership for the business community, offers advice and service to businesses considering that city as a place to locate, and offers networking and education for existing business owners and entrepreneurs.
By its nature, the Chamber is one of a city’s strongest advocates.
In the Kansas City area, a regional Chamber represents the interests of the entire metropolitan area. Smaller chambers of commerce in each of the other local cities in the Metro advocate directly for the business community in those cities.
Raytown has a Chamber, as does Kansas City, Ks. Gladstone and Parkville each have their own chambers, as does Platte City, the Northland, Shawnee, Independence, south Kansas City, Northeast Kansas City, Gardner, Spring Hill, Lenexa, Overland Park, Olathe, Leawood, northeast Johnson County…it’s a long list that goes on, but you get the drift.
Kansas City, traditionally, has been represented by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce. That relationship worked for years – years when Kansas City’s suburban city neighbors were small, sleepy burgs that weren’t vying for major business developments against their larger neighbor.
Like Kansas City, each of those cities is a member of the regional chamber of commerce. That Chamber now must represent all of those cities more or less equally, which places this group in what can best be described as a perpetual conflict of interest.
Unlike Kansas City, virtually all the other cities in the Metro also have their own chambers of commerce to drive their local business community, and to sell potential new businesses on their cities.
Clearly, the regional Chamber is no longer enough for Kansas City.

What The Mayor Has Done:

I have proposed the formation of a true Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, a business advocacy group made up of Kansas City business leaders – not a regional group with business executives from dozens of suburban cities.
Kansas City needs a group of business leaders whose sole concern is the growth and retention of businesses and jobs within the Kansas City city limits. As Mayor, I need business leaders who understand the conditions in their city’s neighborhoods.
The vast majority of the board members of the current Chamber – the Greater Kansas City Area Chamber of Commerce – live outside Kansas City. They can’t, and don’t care to, understand my central concern: my residents and the neighborhoods they live in.

What The Mayor Plans to Do:

I’m not done.
I continue to speak with Kansas City business owners about the need for a local Chamber of Commerce. They support my efforts. I plan to continue to push for the formation of such a group. But I’ve got to tell you, this will not happen without a fight. Where money is concerned, change never comes easily.
With our own Chamber – the “Kansas City Chamber of Commerce” – we will retain our regional approach, but add a needed focus for, as well as on, our own city.