Members of the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce will not be voting Tuesday on whether to join forces with the Vancouver Board of Trade.
The Cloverdale Chamber board has decided to suspend Vancouver Board of Trade talks until further notice.
That means the information sessions that were scheduled for this week have been scrapped but the Annual General Meeting and board election will go ahead as planned Nov. 25.
“There will be a new, re-elected team in there. We don’t want to make a big decision prior to the AGM,” Brock Lazaruk, interim president of the Cloverdale Chamber of Commerce, told The Reporter.
The Cloverdale Chamber announced in August that the board had voted in favour of formally engaging the Vancouver Board of Trade to reach agreement on uniting the two organizations, following discussions.
Board president Brian Young – who stepped aside to take a run at Surrey city council – said the chamber was eager to increase member benefits and its ability to advocate on behalf of Cloverdale business interests.
Members were told there would be a vote on Nov. 25 – after the Nov. 15 municipal election – but learned last week the vote has been called off, at least for now.
Lazaruk said the idea has not been discarded; rather board members felt it was a complex issue that requires more time to consider and will be revisited in the future.
“It’s not to say that the process of merging with the Vancouver Board of Trade is dead,” Lazaruk said. “It’s a pretty big decision and we want to make sure we thoroughly go through the process of making sure the members are informed.”
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