L.A. Chamber connecting with other groups in outreach effort. (Up Front).

The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce is reaching out to other business groups in the county in an attempt to shed its image as a downtown-centered, old-boy network.

Over the last several weeks, the chamber has extended invitations to several other chambers for ex-officio seats on its 70-member board. Later this year, it plans to set up an advocacy and information-sharing network with up to 100 other local business groups.

"The goal here is to provide a true countywide network and force for business," said George Kieffer, a partner with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP and the new chairman of the L.A. Area Chamber.

It's the latest in a series of moves by the new leadership of the chamber to revitalize its stodgy image and strengthen its reputation. Shortly after new president and chief executive Rusty Hammer took the helm in late 2001, the chamber moved to beef up its public policy staff and began making political endorsements. But during the year-long campaign against secession, the group came under criticism for seeming too centered on the interests of downtown L.A.

"A lot of people said we were primarily a downtown organization," Hammer said last week. "And while that was not technically true, we needed to show that we weren't a downtown organization."

Since the secession battle, the chamber has invited board members of the Central City Association, the Valley Industry and Commerce Association--its secession antagonist--the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. and the Los Angeles Business Advisors to sit as ex-officio members of its board.

Attempting diversity

For geographic diversity, seats were given to the Woodland Hills, Hollywood, Pasadena and Torrance chambers. For ethnic diversity, the chamber gave seats to the Greater African American Chamber of Commerce, the Latin Business Association and the Asian Business Association.

Hammer said the chamber was planning to allow more local business organizations to sit on the chamber board as ex-officio members in the coming months.

One member recently invited to join the board is Gene Hale, chairman of the Greater African-American Chamber of Commerce. "These ex-officio seats are long overdue," Hale said. "If you don't have representation at the table, the rest of the community tends not to think about your concerns."

L.A. chamber officials said its advocacy network is being set up to address another longstanding concern: the lack of coordination among the business community in the L.A. area where business groups have often tended to go their own ways.

Kieffer said the immediate goal of the network is to establish communication links with other chambers and, through those chambers, to the tens of thousands of businesses they represent. Through the network, the chamber can communicate with businesses throughout the county concerning local, state and federal legislation.

The longer term goal, Kieffer and Hammer said, is to mold the often disparate voices of the business community into a single voice on major issues confronting the region.

"We don't have a staff that focuses on public policy issues," said Century City Chamber president and chief executive Jim Lynch. "We're just too small. So this will be a great help to us."

But the new approach carries some risks. At times, there may be issues on which vanous chambers disagree, such as plans for the reconfiguration of Los Angeles International Airport or a major development like the proposed Playa Vista project.

"There's going to have to be some agreement ahead of time on what the issues are, so that when you press that send button, everyone is on board," said Harvey Englander, a political consultant and senior vice president with the L.A. office of the MWW Group.

Hammer said he does not expect these concerns to be very pronounced.-"Look, each chamber is an independent organization and will remain so, even as they join with us in this chamber action network," he said.