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WESTERN MARQUETTE COUNTY -- The Lake Superior Community Partnership has lost one of its members.

The Ishpeming City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night not to pay its membership to the organization.

Ishpeming instead is focusing its support on the newly formed Greater Ishpeming-Negaunee Area Chamber of Commerce.  The move saves the city $4,179.
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Keeping the business cooking in a tough economy isn't easy for locally-owned businesses, and surviving just down the highway from the U.P.'s most populous city can make things even more difficult.

Strength in numbers is a tactic that a group in the Ishpeming-Negaunee area believes will bring success to local businesses.  In just a few months, the Greater Ishpeming-Negaunee Area Chamber of Commerce has already grown to more than 100 members.

"It's tough," said Jubilee Foods Store Manager Dustin Gansineger.  "I mean, you really have to be on your 'A' game to keep people local sometimes when you're living close to a town like Marquette, where they do have a lot to offer."

Just months ago, an effort to reboot an Ishpeming-Negaunee Chamber of Commerce kicked off.  In those months, more than a hundred local businesses, like Jubilee Foods in Ishpeming, joined the Chamber.

The Chamber believes the rapidly growing directory of businesses proves their organization is filling a void experienced across the area.  They say the reorganization of the new Greater Ishpeming-Negaunee Area Chamber of Commerce helps to preserve the unique identity of the communities exclusively in Western Marquette County.

"The original version, there was a lot of people who were not happy with that because they thought everything would go to Marquette," says Board of Directors President Bruce Turino.

Turino says the two regions of Marquette County have very different economic bases and that makes a big difference when it comes to business.

"Ishpeming-Negaunee is a little bit more of a blue-collar area and requires different points of view," he said.  "Different avenues to explore what they are looking for."

As the Chamber continues to grow month after month, members are learning that they aren't alone.

For more information about the Chamber, click here.