Seaside-Sand City Chamber crawls back from the brink.

The heads of the Seaside-Sand City Chamber of Commerce are the first to admit it: As of 18 months ago, the chamber pretty much sucked.

But now, they say, the organization is financially stable, growing its membership, preparing for a building remodel and proposing a world farmers market.

“We unknowingly stepped into an organization that was on the brink of bankruptcy and ready to give up after 63 years of operation,” says Patrick Orosco, the chamber’s new board president. “Now, a year and a half later, we’ve buried all the skeletons that we found in the closet and settled all our debts.”

The chamber, headquartered in a shabby building across from The Dunes bar on Broadway Avenue and Del Monte Boulevard, was teetering on the brink of collapse in early 2008. Its creditors were fuming, its membership was dwindling and its website had been hijacked by a disgruntled former board president.

Then a group of local business leaders intervened. One of them was Orosco, a thritysomething redhead with a bourgeois-hipster fashion edge. Patrick, his brother Chris and their father Don comprise The Orosco Group, the local developers who built Sand City’s bustling Edgewater Shopping Center and Seaside’s struggling City Center.

Orosco and his three fellow board members hired Tony Price as the chamber’s full-time executive director. Under Price’s leadership, the chamber lowered its fees, boosted its membership and launched a radio show on KNRY (AM 1240, Fridays 3-4pm).

The chamber’s board has grown from four to 20 members, including Monica Mapp of The Village Project, Scott Grover of The Alternative Café and Jorge Covarrubias of AAA Auto Insurance. Orosco and Price are proud of the board’s racial and socioeconomic diversity, which they say is essential to serving the multicultural cities.

To that end, the chamber is proposing a local farmers market with a spicy kick. The event, experimentally called the Sea-Sand World Market, would be held in Orosco’s largely vacant City Center complex on Broadway and Fremont Boulevard from 4-9pm Fridays. In addition to the traditional produce vendors, the board envisions live music, dance lessons, art showings, wine tastings and ethnic restaurant stands.

The chamber will present its market proposal at the Seaside City Council’s Aug. 20 meeting. Around the same time, the chamber plans to unveil its new website (www.sea-sand.com).

The organization’s URL is another tender spot.

Former board president Dietrich Albrecht took over the chamber’s former web domain last year, Price says, when the board – which had not authorized the work – refused to pay him for creating the chamber’s site. Now, www.seaside-sandcity.com advertises for Albrecht’s tech company, Reliable Systems Enterprises Inc. Albrecht declined to comment.

Earlier this month Price, who says he took a 75 percent pay cut to take the position, moved to step down. But a pep talk from Orosco – and a raise – changed his mind.

The chamber is now working to repair its reputation, win the city of Seaside’s support and double its membership for each of the next three years, Orosco says: “We want to get to the point that becoming a member of the Chamber of Commerce is on par with obtaining a business license.”

The organization’s transformation will be reflected with an office remodel Orosco describes as “a very cool, young, modern, clean design.” Pacific Grove architect Eric Miller donated the blueprint, Harvest Construction and Granite Construction have offered labor, and Graniterock will contribute materials for the effort, he says. If the chamber secures matching funds from the city of Seaside, he expects to break ground by the end of the year.

And if the chamber can bounce back from the dead, perhaps the battered cities of Seaside and Sand City – and their economies – will follow.