VALLEY GRANDE — Though the city of Valley Grande and the Selma-Dallas County Chamber of Commerce have always worked together, Mayor Tom Lee said there was never a formal contract.

During Monday night’s meeting, the council unanimously approved a contract drafted by Lee to add documentation to the partnership.

The contract, Lee said, was prompted by a ruling by the Attorney General’s office restricting the nature of partnerships between chambers and municipalities.

“Our ability to make blanket donations to the chamber is restricted by the State Attorney General,” he said. “I drafted a contract for services, which makes it legal. In exchange for us making a donation to the chamber, they, in turn, will participate with us on items like development efforts, ribbon cuttings and any sort of publicity through their website and links to the website.”

The contract, Lee said, will not change the relationship between the city and chamber; it will just keep everything in the open so there will be no questions.

Last year, Lee said they were unable to make donations to the chamber because he did not want to violate any rulings.

“They’ve been doing that pretty much all along, and we have been making contributions except for this year,” he said. “They were no longer included in our line item budget.”

Lee said they decided not to make donations when they discovered there was no partnership.

“I discovered that and I think it is one of the reasons we didn’t do it last year,” he said.

Lee said he felt a contract was important to allow the city to continue a good working relationship with the chamber and to make sure everything was heading in the right direction.

“It has to be done that way to make it legal that we distribute funds to them,” he said. “And this does. We dropped the chamber out of our line item budget because we didn’t have a contract. We just want to make sure everything is on top of the table.”

There is no specific law prohibiting partnerships between cities and chambers, but Lee said the attorney general “has an opinion about chambers of commerce.”