New Chamber Director brings heart, passion for community to Cashmere

CASHMERE — In an office right on the main drag in Cashmere, Cottage Avenue, nestled between the most unpretentiously-named restaurant of all time — That Pizza Place — and a beauty shop with macramé in the window that looks like it was made by the hairdresser inside, sits Jeff Jones at his desk. He is equally authentic.

Jones is not wearing a tie, which is a relief, because that really sets a tone. Instead, he’s wearing a Cougs jacket and a warm smile. We’re meeting with him because he’s the brand-new director of the Cashmere Chamber of Commerce, which looks like it’s going to have a big role in the shape of things to come in the sleepy-for-now town of fewer than 3,500 people.

The Chamber just underwent a big shake-up after a near-collapse at the end of 2024, when the Chamber was down to just one remaining board member. After restructuring from the ground up in January, the newly-formed Chamber hired Jones as its director, and by April the Chamber had filled out and begun to form a vision.

With a town in transition and a Chamber rebuilding from the ground up, the road ahead is equal parts uncertain and full of possibility. We sat down with Jeff Jones to talk about what comes next—how the Chamber hopes to bridge old and new, business and community, and what role it might play in shaping the future of Cashmere. Here's our conversation.

Do you have a long-term vision, as far as how the Chamber is involved in bridging gaps between business and community in promoting Cashmere?

“I think it’s a little bit early — the board is brand new, and I’ve been here basically a month, so we’re just now developing that vision, kind of recalibrating. We’ve been focused on Founders’ Day for now, so we have had some conversations about the future of the Chamber, but for now we’re happy to just reestablish connections that had been lost before.”

How do you plan on being a voice for new businesses like Cashmere Records and the rest of the Side Street development, when those are primarily aimed at a younger demographic, and Cashmere is a small town full of “lifers” — that is, older folks who may see growth like this as antithetical to the spirit of the town?

“It’s a collaboration, really, because it’s up to any entity or small town to determine what their vision is, in terms of ‘Do they want a lot of growth, moderate growth, or maybe even no growth?’. I was down in Southern California near San Luis/Los Osos, and they had a building moratorium, and you see people who want growth don’t appreciate that. But it’s up to the town, which is of course comprised of 100% of its citizens, but more specifically, the people who care enough about the town to get involved. Not just voice their opinions, but get involved in shaping the future.

“I think Leavenworth is a great example. A lot of people look at Leavenworth with envy, but if you talk to some of the residents, they complain: The traffic, the noise, the short-term rental issues where there’s a nice, quiet neighborhood and all of a sudden there are parties.

“Things are going to change, and younger people may be less resistant to growth, but I guess it just depends on what vision becomes predominant. If you don’t have a vision, what can you say about what happens? If you didn’t lend a hand in shaping the future of your community. That’s really the crux of the discussion is community involvement. In times past, people tended to be more involved in the community than maybe today. But perhaps that’s changing, because when you talk about those folks at Side Street and those other businesses, they tend to be, I think, more focused on community than a generation or two before.”

The reason for that line of questioning is just because growth seems so inevitable. The last city council meeting, they were talking about housing code updates and someone threw out the number 1,300 — as in growing by 1,300 people. In a town of around 3,300, that’s not just growth. A 40% increase is a boom.

Is Cashmere shifting in demographic?

“Even though I’ve lived here for seven years, I really can’t attest to what the sentiments are about Cashmere — whether it’s a sleepy little town that’s looked at as a place you pass by in between Wenatchee and Leavenworth. But if you get out of the flat of Cashmere and go up about 200 feet, there’s a lot more orchard than you might suspect. So it could be that the ag industry, the orchardists, will determine, in part, the future, because they have maybe the primary role to play in the availability of land.

“The possibility of growth in Cashmere is the same as every town is facing. The median price for a home in Cashmere is $650,000. Young people are going to have a difficult time being able to afford a house. I think a lot of people have even forsaken the idea of owning. There have been so many disruptions in the past 10 years, especially during COVID, where the paradigm has shifted not as a difference of degree, but of kind of growth.”

Beyond Founders’ Day, do you have plans to draw visitors the way Wenatchee and Leavenworth do? Are there events and programs that you’re looking at?

“The Cashmere Chamber is going to continue to do that, by having a hyper focus on being a benefit and support to the community. We exist to assist the business community and the community at large. It’s not always going to be the size of Founders’ Day, but it might be a fundraiser or a community event, it might be a high school band at the park in a concert we organize to help them raise money. Our general focus is traditional, but there may be new ways of doing it. In the past, if we wanted to promote the barber shop next door, it might have been getting an ad in the newspaper, and now it’s social media. We just want to make sure we’re making people aware of Cashmere.

“Cashmere is a great community. It’s a place that people really enjoy being a part of, and living here is idyllic in many ways. The Chamber’s role has probably never been to dictate the future of the community, but our support can enhance, to a degree, whatever vision develops around Cashmere. I think we can promote everybody enthusiastically and not decide who does or doesn’t ‘share our vision.’ I don’t think the young people now want to dictate, either. I just think they want to be part of something.

“We’re sort of reacquainting ourselves with what it means to be a human being.”

From your lips to God’s ears.

“The world has changed more in the last hundred years than it did in the previous five thousand. I don’t know everything about growth in Cashmere, but I know people are starting to unplug and get back to their friends and family.”

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media