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Lathrop council may cut $24,000 a year deal with chamber
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The City of Lathrop has long positioned itself as a “business friendly” community. 

And tonight, for the first time in almost five years, the city council could forge a fiscal bond with the organization tasked with promoting the city’s existing businesses and working to attract more at the city’s population readies to explode in the face of massive residential development. 

If the council gives its blessing, the city will enter into a business development services contract with the Lathrop Chamber of Commerce that hasn’t been renewed since it was last signed in August of 2012 –  a lifetime ago for a city that has perched itself as one of the fastest-growing communities in Northern California.

If approved, Lathrop will provide $2,000-a-month as part of a one-year contract that will include business development work that will benefit Lathrop’s existing work to attract new businesses and retail existing ones – something that the re-organized chamber, which hasn’t been nearly in the recent years, requested. 

Before the period of inactivity, Lathrop’s chamber was active in the business community and also maintained a political presence as well – organizing an annual “State of the City” address that served as an organization fundraiser, and helped facilitate a link between the growing business community and elected officials who were working to maintain the commercial presence even as funding for promoting such programs were drying up in the wake of the housing crisis.  

And a lot has changed in terms of the city’s business landscape since that relationship dried up. 

In the time since, the City of Lathrop has secured one of the highest profile businesses in the world – Tesla – who moved into an old distribution center previously occupied by a carmaker to expand its production of components related to its popular electric car. 

Since then the city has also secured a distribution center for Kraft-Heinz – which will be one of the anchors of the business park being developed inside of the shuttered Pilkington float glass manufacturing plant – as well as UPS, which opened within the last year on Harlan Road to augment its existing Central Valley operations. 

The $24,000 contact would be valid for one year, and would be up for council review at that time. 

 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.