Over the past several years under the leadership of Executive Director Catherine Somers, the Los Gatos Chamber of Commerce has become a vital cog in the community’s economic engine.
It’s funded self-guided walking tours, produced informational brochures, hosted meetings for merchants, and created a Santa Cruz Mountains winery map—among many other activities.
Local and out-of-town guests stop by its offices each day for information on current events.
And thousands of residents and visitors from around the region won’t soon forget the two years of “Thursday Promenades” it hosted to help Los Gatos overcome the doldrums of the pandemic.
Somers, who is well-respected by Council but has also sparred with them in the past, had one last chance to win additional funding from the Town, before she steps down from her post later this year.
Her strategy, this time? A softer sell.
“I, too, am here with my hand out begging for money; it seems it’s just that kind of year,” she said. “Don’t worry, I fully expect that you will once again decide that the financial agreement and the terms set forth between the Town and the Chamber to run the Visitor Information Center are sufficient. And they might be, though now, after eight years of working in that office, I can tell you—as I pretty much have every year—that it’s not quite enough.”
Somers said she’s worried about the legacy she will leave if the funding isn’t increased.
“It is vitally important,” she said of the work done at their offices. “We are the welcoming committee, the sales people, the spokespeople and the concierge for the town. We are also, most importantly, the conveners of all the leaders in this town. And we can get things done.”
Councilmember Matthew Hudes said the Chamber is an important partner in developing hotel tax (TOT) revenues through destination marketing.
“I believe that the return on investment in terms of the TOT is absolutely there if we can make a stepwise jump,” he said, suggesting that the continued support could help pitch the town as a place to hold weddings and other events that require people to stay overnight.
But it shouldn’t just be up to the Chamber to work on this, he added.
“Some of these hotels have tremendous marketing capability,” he said. “It just needs to be focused on Los Gatos.”
Vice Mayor Mary Badame said she, too, is supportive of the destination marketing the Chamber of Commerce does.
“I see that as being good for our town,” she said.
Councilmember Rob Rennie made a motion to increase the Chamber’s funding from $55,000 to $88,000.
Mayor Maria Ristow said it’s a strange time in the history of the Chamber of Commerce, since the “triumphant trio” led by Catherine Somers is leaving.
“I know that Donna (McCurrie), Randi (Chen) and Catherine would know what to do with this money,” she said. “Now we’re going to have this transition.”
But she says it’s still important to make sure the business-boosting agency is well-funded into its next administration.
McCurrie, speaking over Zoom, had shared that the Chamber has seen impressive results from its recent digital marketing efforts, thanks to a social media coordinator who was funded with pandemic-relief dollars.
What was known as Experience Los Gatos had just 2,700 followers when it was rebranded as Visit Los Gatos.
“From June 2021 until the funding ran out in January 2023, the coordinator’s efforts—for Visit Los Gatos—have increased followers to 9,500,” she said. “Visit Los Gatos has become an integral part of the Visitor Center’s destination marketing strategy.”
Rennie said his motion was meant to allow the Chamber to keep up the good work on this front.
Councilmember Rob Moore asked staff where the extra money would come from.
Town Manager Laurel Prevetti said the additional cash would likely come from the General Fund or the remaining ARPA Covid-19-relief funds.
“Our General Fund budget is very tight,” she said. “We’re going to have to scrub our numbers.”
However, if this comes from ARPA funding, the incoming Chamber team would have to be very careful with record-keeping, since the federal dollars mean strict paperwork requirements.
Monica Renn, Los Gatos’ economic vitality manager, asked for clarification from Rennie about whether he wanted to break up the money into multiple coffers, or to leave it all in one pot.
Rennie decided it should stay as a $88,000 total. His reasoning, he said, was that if he broke it up into multiple segments it would give the new Chamber officials an easier way to argue that one or the other of these wasn’t big enough.
And when the vote in support was unanimous, Chen and Somers celebrated, high-fiving each other.
“Do we have to ask you to settle down?” Ristow said with a smile.
