An Interview with IB Chamber of Commerce President Olivia Pickerling

In July, as president of the Imperial Beach Chamber of Commerce after six years as a member.

Almost 30 years ago, Pickerling took a wrong turn and "stumbled into IB," and she never left. Today she works with her son's construction company based in Clairemont.

Pickerling would like to oversee changes within the Chamber of Commerce to make things better for membership and potentially for the local economy.

Imperial Beach Patch sat down with Pickerling on Tuesday to talk about the economy, redevelopment, about what she hopes to see happen during her presidency and how it should impact local businesses and economy.

Patch: One of the things I was really curious about is there's a lot of development ideas going around and projects beginning like , , , , … What's the future for IB in terms of its businesses and what should people expect?

Pickerling: A lot of businesses who want to come to Imperial Beach always look at the same thing: How is it going to benefit my business?

If we don't have a lot of people here utilizing those businesses, that's going to be a problem—ours. And I think that with the developments coming up, that is going to bring more people, more visitors. I think it's going to attract more business; business attracts business. Other businesses wanting to come into the town will see, “Oh, those businesses are doing well.” And I think all these development projects will help with that.

Patch: Do you think the current economy could put a damper on all of that?

Pickerling: It has. It has tremendously and I'll tell you, things are never going to get back to the way they were when we were in heyday of real estate and high dollar businesses and all that. But we're making slow little itty bitty steps, and I think that's going to last longer.

It's never going to be like it used to be.

Patch: What sort of steps?

Well, I think that these developments will bring a certain amount of people here. It's not going to attract a huge amount because we can only handle so much business development, you know, with there being very little properties left, that sort of thing. I think the commercial projects, if they see one commercial project up and going, I think another commercial project might want to come in.

All we can do is be here as businesses because we have a different status. We're a different type of nonprofit, and because we are supposed to be nonpartisan and we're supposed to be objective. I had a meeting with the San Diego Chamber president once and I asked him what was the difference besides size and the economic complex between the San Diego Chamber and the Imperial Beach Chamber?

He said you have a different focus than we do. He said we have large, large corporations so we have enough money to have a separate department that deals with all the political, all the codes, all the regulations and all the laws. Small chambers like yourself don't. So he said your best bet is just to try and bring all your businesses together and be a voice, and that's what we're doing.

Patch: For the smallest of businesses, somebody, for example, who doesn't even have like a storefront but there's still a registered business with the city—you know they still operate. Are there any initiatives that people should look for from the chamber to help them out or help in terms of bringing exposure to them?

Pickerling: Yeah, we try to get them exposure. First of all they all go on the website. Everytime someone calls into the office and asks for a particular business, we always give them one that's within our membership. All of our events that we have. We would like to get more people at the breakfasts, and there's a lot of networking that goes on within the businesses that do attend the breakfast.

Patch: If you left any sort of legacy within your term in office, what would it be?

Pickerling: I believe what I'd indicated: better communication between the city and the businesses and the chamber to assist the businesses, because I don't think we've actively taken a serious part in going to the city and saying, “Oh, well, you know what? These codes for these signs or these codes for these restrictions that you have, they're really not benefiting the businesses.”

That was not our focus and I was told when I joined that chamber that was not our focus. Our focus was just to bring the businesses together, provide them information ... but ... I think if we build a better relationship, a better working relationship with the city, I think it will benefit all of the businesses. But as the city has indicated to me many times, there are many problems that they're not aware of because they're not being told. So I think if we have an open forum of communication between the city and the chamber, I think that's really going to benefit everyone.

Because the city also wants to bring businesses here just like we do.

Patch: Are there any other areas of improvement that you'd like to see worked on during your time, aside from that improved communication with the city, or are there any other things that businesses are telling you they'd like to see changed?

Pickerling: Yes, and that is why we put the survey together. And once that goes out we're going to have a really good idea of what those problems are. I think that will make me feel like we've accomplished something. I think the survey is short and sweet and to the point and we've given enough information to try and get in there and get enough information so the information can be specific. Yes, I had a problem with this, this and this. I think between the survey and the open communication I think we're going to be, it is a short period of time, but I think in my year we can accomplish those two things or at least get it on the road.

Patch: Back to development: There's the businesses and there are the people who live here. There's always been at least the talk of or the concern of development gone wild, basically, that it changes the flavor of the area. How do you think the city grows and keeps that in check at the same time and how do you satisfy all those opinions because it's such a wide variety of opinions?

Pickerling: Ever since I moved here that's been an issue, and I don't think that's ever going to not be an issue. I think there's always going to be those who are pro more development and those pro less development. I think the city is kind of finding its own way, because otherwise that hotel wouldn't have gone up. I think it's going to take time. I think we all want to keep that flavor of the small beach town, so we all know that the economy says we have to have money. We have to bring money in.

Patch: I've always thought, for example, ... Chula Vista, National City and the rest of this half a million people nearby, it seems like they may make a trip up to Pacific Beach or something or Mission Beach before they come to IB, when this should be South County's beach. How does that change?

Pickerling: Now first of all, I think IB has always gotten a bad rap. It's a place where a lot of bikers used to be here, a lot of bars, you know, and all that. So I think little by little the persona of IB is changing, and I think that the more we get that information out, I think that's going to help. The city, I don't know if they have a PR department or not, I know that they used to have PR people, but I think they're still trying to change that.

But we still get articles written about us that are very negative, and I think that we will probably need, maybe not the chamber so much but the city or somebody to kind of counteract those by spreading the right information. A lot of people come here more than before, and I think that once they walk away they'll see that we have changed, that we have grown up a little. It's more of a family town now, but it's going to take a lot of outreach. 

And our funds come from dues from our membership. And we have directors. But we don't really have enough people to help us get to where we want to go, so the few of us that work really hard, you know, we have to kind of pick and choose what we want to work on.

Patch: Do you think a more engaged membership or more members would support that?

Pickerling: You know, I think it would be great, but like I said I've talked to the San Diego Chamber president and I've talked to a couple of other presidents and they all have the same problem: No matter how large they are, they always have the same amount of participation by their winners. So he said if you get x amount, if you get 20 out of this 100, you're in the same category that all the other chambers are. So he said I would love to be able to give you a formula that says how do we get more participation, he said, but I can't. So I think it would be good if we had more participation. … I'm happy when I see chamber members come to the breakfast. At least I know that there are some people that are interested.