Council, chamber deal off

CITY HALL — The City Council on Tuesday chose not to partner with the charitable arm of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce, due in part to disagreements over the framework of its governing board.

The proposal was designed to combine the resources of the city and the Burbank Community Foundation, which would "create an additional platform for building a stronger community and would potentially expand funding possibilities," said Gabriela Flores, community resources coordinator for the city.

Since its incorporation as a nonprofit organization in May 2000, the foundation has raised money for vocational career programs for high school students, as well as other nonprofit programs in the community, she said. Funding was mostly contributed by the members of the foundation's board, she added.

Involving the city in fundraising efforts was meant to increase the pool of donors, reaching out beyond the scope of the board to other donors, such as city employees and employees of other companies in the community, she said.

But the plan started to break down when foundation Chairman Ernest Burger expressed reservations about some of the details of the agreement, such as city officials appointing nine members to the foundation's board.

"If it is seen as a city fund, contribution opportunities may be lost," Burger wrote to city staff members in an e-mail. "The appointment of three board members by the city manager and six members by the City Council tips the public perception dangerously close to being a city-run organization. It is important that the foundation be seen as an independent entity."

In addition, city involvement would trigger the provisions of the Brown Act, opening the goings-on of foundation business to the general public, he said.

"Applying the Brown Act to the foundation would seriously inhibit the function of the board," he said.

"By its very nature, the Brown Act slows down any process or action that the board would want to take. It would also diminish the privacy that the board should have in order to judge a grant request or evaluate a nonprofit's performance."

In light of an apparent inability to establish common working parameters, Community Development Department staff members were not inclined to further pursue the partnership, and the council's decision Tuesday sided with that recommendation.

But Councilman Dave Golonski argued that the failure of a collaboration with the community foundation should not sink the idea.

"Unfortunately, I think this was an excellent idea that had a lot of potential," he said.

"It just didn't work out with the particular partner that we chose in this case."

The proposal could be resurrected under different circumstances, he added.

"I'd like to see us reinvigorate this initiative and have staff come back with a proposal that we create a foundation or an entity to make this happen," he said.

"I think it will be successful; I think people will join it once it's successful, and we have, I think, an opportunity to kick off a tremendous amount of success initially with city participation."