CHAMBER REFRAMES POSITION

Published in the Jan. 31, 2026 issue.

Months after the Bishop City Council voted to demolish the A-Frame that formerly housed the Chamber of Commerce and visitor center, the Chamber has formally called for a dedicated visitor center to remain in Bishop City Park – either by saving or rebuilding the building – as the city prepares for a lengthy environmental review.

Though the Chamber is actively relocating its offices to a new building on Main Street, its board unanimously adopted a Jan. 14 resolution urging the City to maintain a physical visitor information space in the park.

The resolution emphasizes that the park is the “most central, accessible, and highly visible location” for visitors, warning that losing a presence there would affect both a beloved community landmark and Bishop’s tourism-driven economy.

Chamber Board President Robert Sharp explained the reasoning behind the resolution during Monday’s City Council meeting.

Following that presentation, multiple council members suggested that the process could have, and should have, played out differently, implying that earlier communication or planning by the Chamber might have prevented the current standoff.

“My frustration comes from the idea that we spent many months asking and asking the Chamber what they wanted to do,” Councilmember Karen Kong said. “I would have loved a resolution like this back in September or October when we were really having the conversations. That would have meant something different then than it does now.”

Mayor Stephen Muchovej said the resolution as written didn’t make clear that the Chamber intended to be a partner in solving the issue.

“It just comes off as we [the Chamber] encourage you [the City] to build it, and then we’ll move in,” he said.

When Sharp reassured the council that the board intended to work with the City, Muchovej added that he would have liked if the resolution had a statement “of the relationship that we’ve had going back 50 years into now where the city has supported the chamber and the Visitor Center to the tunes of millions of dollars over those decades.”

The A-frame has been a flashpoint since the city evicted the Chamber this fall after an engineering report revealed major structural problems, including an unsafe second floor and deteriorating south additions. In late October, the Council voted to demolish the building, largely for financial reasons.

The city estimated demolition would cost roughly $150,000, while building a new visitor center would cost at least $1 million. A partial demolition, keeping the A-Frame but removing the south additions, could exceed full demolition costs due to the complexity of preserving the remaining structure. Muchovej noted that the city’s annual capital improvement budget is typically $1-2 million, making a $1 million project difficult to justify.

Regardless of what happens, any work, from repair to rebuilding to demolition, requires a full environmental review under California’s Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This is because the building sits on land leased from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, and its south addition extends over the South Fork of Bishop Creek, which runs through the park.

On Monday, the Council approved a contract with Helix Environmental Planning to provide CEQA support services, which could take up to a year and cost more than $50,000, excluding permit fees. The review will consider both the existing site and nearby locations where a replacement facility could be built.

Ideally, the city could avoid the CEQA review with a categorical exemption, which would makemthe various studies moot and reduce costs.

But residents wearing “Save the A-Frame” stickers saw this as the City trying to “dodge” certain requirements that would otherwise pause demolition.

A couple of residents hoped that the building, at over 50 years old, could qualify as eligible for historic listing, and therefore protect the building under CEQA analysis.

“Nobody’s considering keeping the addition,” one resident said. “It’s kind of ugly anyway. But the A-Frame, certainly.”

Unfortunately for the speakers, the Council wasn’t too interested in entertaining this hope, and clarified that CEQA was simply for environmental review and had no political intentions.

“CEQA is an environmental report,” said councilmember Jose Garcia. “Not a rebuilding report.”

Besides, the economic position of the City has not changed.

“If the City were the Town of Mammoth Lakes, with $20-plus million in TOT coming in every year and they were looking for ways to burn funds, this would be a completely different discussion,” Muchovej said. “The reality is that the City of Bishop is not that. Our budget is very limited.”

In the meantime, the Chamber’s phased relocation is expected to conclude in early 2026, and it intends to hold a grand opening once renovations are finished.