Economic Development Tours

Today we had a fascinating tour of Mail Services in Urbandale, one of our larger members who specialize in sorting and mailing pieces for businesses. The Chamber started organizing tours as a way to engage Public Officials into our area business community. We wanted to begin dialogue between the two groups so when issues come up that impact area businesses, our public officials, on every level, can fully understand the impacts to local business.

Today was a perfect example of how the Chamber can make a difference to our members. In attendance was Congressman Boswell, Senator Brad Zaun, Mayor Robert Andeweg, School Board Member Adam Obrecht, as well as staff members from Congressman Harkin and Congressman Grassley's office.

Once Mail Services presented to the group as to what they do and what makes them unique, the time turned to Q&A where our Public Officials asked questions.

The Chamber is setting up tours for other member businesses throughout the year to continue connecting business and government. Thank you to our Public Officials who participated today and to Mail Services for hosting everyone. It is so important to continue to connect and the Chamber is proud assist in these efforts by organizing these tours.

Thank you - City of Urbandale

As a follow up to the blog I posted earlier today, I wanted to write this one to say THANK YOU. Thank you to our City of Urbandale City Council members for adjusting the sign ordinance to allow businesses in Urbandale the ability to display temporary signs for up to 100 days in a calendar year. Our members spoke up as to the need of this type of marketing in today's economy and the City Council listened.

Thank you to our members and some prospective members who took time to come to the Council meeting tonight to tell their own personal stories of how these signs impact their businesses.

Together we can do great things! Your Chamber of Commerce IS the VOICE OF BUSINESS! Thank you to everyone who provided input on this issue.

Urbandale Sign Ordinance

The Urbandale Chamber is working to help businesses this month by advocating to continue allowing temporary signs to be available for businesses to use as a marketing tool for 100 days per year (4x at 25 days per permit) rather than back this down to the original amendment of 40 days (4x at 10 days per permit).

The Chamber believes this is an innexpensive way businesses in the community can market themselves to people traveling down their road. In this day and age, it is vital to businesses to have the ability to market themselves using innexpensive, proven methods. We are meeting with the City Council tonight to ask they continue to allow businesses in Urbandale the ability to do this.

Currently P&Z accepted City Staff's suggestion to back this down to only 40 days using the justification that "every other City around Urbandale doesn't allow businesses to put out temporary signs for that long."

Why try to fix something that isn't broken? By allowing businesses to promote themselves using temporary signs it puts the community at an advantage for attracting businesses to locate in Urbandale. Lets be Uniquely Urbandale and do something that will HELP our businesses during this difficult economy.