The West Plains Business Association and the Cheney Chamber of Commerce are considering forming a new chamber of commerce that would represent the business interests of western Spokane County.


Although theyre still in the early stages of discussing the idea, support for at least studying it seems strong.


The West Plains Business Association is polling its 92 members to get their sentiments, and so far they favor, by a 3-to-1 ratio, doing more research on the potential of starting a new chamber of commerce, association President Dick Russell says.


Russell says the idea of having the West Plains interests be represented by a chamber of commerce isnt new. In its efforts to support and encourage development on the West Plains, the business association is doing kind of what a chamber does, anyway, and the organization has kicked around the possibility of becoming a chamber of commerce several times in the past, he says.


The West Plains Business Association was created in the early 1980s as a group focused solely on Airway Heights, but that community turned out to be too small to support such a group, so the organization expanded its reach to include the rest of the West Plains area, Russell says. It now includes members from throughout the West Plains, including the communities of Airway Heights, Cheney, and Medical Lake, as well as Spokane.


Currently, the Cheney Chamber of Commerce is the only chamber based on the West Plains.


The Medical Lake Chamber of Commerce disbanded early this year because of lack of participation by its member, says Roseanne Elg, former vice president of the organization.


Last fall, the Cheney chambers board of directors asked the West Plains Business Association to consider merging with it to create an organization to represent the larger area, prompting the current round of discussions, Russell says.


Now that the associations membership has voiced support for studying the idea, the next step probably will be to set up a committee.


The committee would explore how a new chamber of commerce could be organized, what areas it would represent, what its goals might be, and how it would continue community activities the current groups sponsorsuch as an annual rodeo in Cheney thats supported by the chamber there, Russell says.


He says the new organization could take shape in one of a number of ways. For example, either of the existing organizations could expand its scope, the two could merge into a single organization, or they could work together to create a new chamber of commerce while they remained autonomous.