Chamber members to vote on merger: Woodland Hills, Tarzana plan designed to boost influence.

The memberships of the Woodland Hills and Tarzana chambers of commerce will vote next month on merging the two organizations.

The move is designed to expand the organizations' areas of influence and attract new members, chamber officials said.

The Tarzana Chamber approached Woodland Hills with the proposal of merging and the two sides have been in discussions for several months.

"They don't have staff and are overwhelmed with running a chamber," Woodland Hills Chamber Executive Director Tinalyn Firestone said. "They want to keep their history and keep the chamber alive so the felt if they merged with us it would be bigger and better for them."

Firestone is a former executive director of the Tarzana Chamber. The merger works out well because many of the Tarzana board members date back to her time with the organization.

The Tarzana Chamber was founded in 1925 and has about 150 members. The Woodland Hills Chamber was founded in 1942 and has about 500 members.

If the membership gives its approval, the merger takes effect on Jan. 1.

The Tarzana chamber office will remain at its location at the Tarzana Community and Cultural Center although the phone number will be transferred to the Woodland Hills office.

The new Woodland Hills-Tarzana Chamber will add up to four new board members after the merger is complete.

Tarzana Chamber Chief Financial Officer Paul Lawler said the merger increases efficiency for the two organizations and the relationships among the members because the business communities of Tarzana and Woodland Hills are homogeneous.

The community as a whole benefits when the chambers organize events, Lawler said.

"Whenever we do anything to help the community it will turn out a larger group of people with a lot more enthusiasm," Lawler said.

The merger also gives Woodland Hills a presence at the cultural center, one of the few remaining self-supporting centers in Los Angeles.

The Woodland Hills Chamber membership votes on the merger proposal on Nov. 15. Tarzana's membership votes on Nov. 20.

Combining two chambers can be difficult as the people involved need to put aside their personal feelings for their individual organization, said Mid-Valley Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Nancy Hoffman Vanyek.

The Mid-Valley Chamber absorbed the Panorama City Chamber in 1989. Firestone was a Mid-Valley staff member at the time of that merger.

Following the merger, outreach was done to the existing membership of the Panorama City Chamber and an effort was made to create a new group as a whole, Vanyek said.

Mid-Valley did not gain a lot of members from the merger but many they did get stayed, she added.

"Obviously it benefited them because look at Mid Valley now," Firestone said. "It made them stronger and it helped Panorama City."

BY MARK R. MADLER

Staff Reporter