(March 5, 2010) Victoria Salisch spent 10 years behind the scenes at the Greater Fresno Area Chamber of Commerce, networking, helping out at events and attending ribbon cuttings.

Then something changed. After chairing the chamber’s marketing committee for a few years and acting as a member of the board, Salisch was approached by the chamber president, who asked her to be the vice chair of the governmental affairs division.

“My first reaction was I didn’t have enough time,” said Salisch, who since 1993 has been a partner at the law firm Lang, Richert & Patch, responsible for real estate, business and financial transactions, having served as both a lawyer and real estate broker.

She accepted the invitation, however, and since 2005 has been a highly active business advocate.

“Victoria has proven to be a valuable asset for the chamber, and a strong representative for the business community,” said Al Smith, president/ CEO of the Fresno Chamber.

Public Safety Consolidation

Salisch helped spearhead an effort by the chamber to consolidate city and county public safety activities to increase safety and ease budget constraints.

Victoria Salisch

The campaign began after the former sheriff, police chief and fire chief came to the chamber asking for assistance in establishing a complete consolidation of public safety programs.

Consequently, the chamber hired a consultant to find the areas where the city and county could create efficiencies, and save lives in some cases. Consolidating property and evidence storage, communications and dispatch services, and joint prisoner processing, among others, became top priorities Initially, the goal was to have a single, joint dispatch center and to also work on some of the consultant’s other suggestions.

“The city and county were buying different communication systems. They put a lot of money into these systems that couldn’t be integrated,” said Salisch. The chamber helped create a Joint Powers Authority for the effort.

“We thought at least if they are at the same table, then they will be talking to each other before they make these decisions about big expensive expenditures of money. At some point, their communications equipment will be obsolete,” Salisch said.

Progress has slowed since some of the recommendations for governance were not accepted during negotiations between the city and county, but the chamber remains dedicated to the effort.

“We have pushed them further than we have before and we haven’t given up,” Salisch said.

Revitalizing Downtown

Having lived in Fresno for three decades, Salisch has a good grasp on the city’s culture.

“This is a community with many large city amenities, but it is very much like a small town in terms of the way people interact—everyone seems to know everybody,” she said.

Her local business knowledge, tenure as a resident and time on the Fresno Chamber Board of Directors led her to yet another venture: revitalizing downtown Fresno.

As a member of the chamber executive committee, she met frequently with the mayor about community issues, along with other interested parties. At one of these meetings, Salisch suggested to the mayor that due to term limits, there was a lack of consistency in the revitalization efforts. She further suggested that the chamber could be the long-term facilitator of a revitalization effort, and he approved.

“So I told him the chamber would be willing to put together a task force to try to keep everybody moving forward and he thought it was a great idea,” she said.

Salisch then helped create a task force (planners, people who worked downtown, people who owned property downtown and people who were just interested) that met twice a month to discuss possible improvements.

“Our feeling has been that the community must have a core central downtown that is lively and vibrant. You can’t just be a number of suburban communities strung together by roads and freeways,” she said.

The group of stakeholders worked at changing the zoning ordinances and creating a specific plan for the downtown area while Salisch led the effort. Since the start of the effort, the city has elected a new mayor who is continuing the effort and seems to recognize the value of the chamber’s work on revitalization, Salisch said.

“Some of the people on the chamber task force are now on the mayor’s payroll, including the chamber’s former governmental affairs manager,” Salisch said. “They have a new department there now and are continuing the work started by the task force.”

Salisch said she is happy the city has taken over most of the revitalization effort, even while the chamber remains a facilitator.

More Activities

Other community-building activities with which Salisch has been involved include:

• As the chamber board chair, Salisch created a relationship between the chamber and younger professionals by reaching out to existing groups, including Creative Fresno and Fresno’s Leading Young Professionals. Some of these professionals also worked on the downtown revitalization.
• In addition, Salisch recently traveled with a group of 10 volunteers from the Fresno Chamber to Washington, D.C. to speak to California representatives on the union card check legislation.
• She also has debated California representatives in Fresno on the pending health care reform bills.
• She created the Fresno Chamber Entrepreneurial Awards, including the Zinkin award, which goes to a local businessperson who has created something recognized beyond the Fresno area. In addition, cash prizes are awarded to a “rising star” (in business for five years or less), a college entrepreneur and a high school entrepreneur.

It seems she has made plenty of time for her chamber career.

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