The Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce installed its new leadership last week, elevating Steve Nissen to board chair. The transition, held at a packed room of about 1,600 at the JW Marriott downtown, offered an opportunity not only to hand the baton to Nissen and honor Vin and Sandi Scully with the chamber’s civic medal of honor, but to weigh in on policy issues facing the region and nation. Gary Toebben set the tone from the start, urging members to work for the passage of Measure H on the March ballot, throw their support behind the effort to bring the Summer Olympics here in 2024, advance international trade efforts, back education, and act as a voice for immigrants. There was one thing he urged the assembled to rally against: Measure S, the anti-development Neighborhood Integrity Initiative. To bolster support for the Olympics bid, the chamber brought out Olympian Janet Evans, whose remarks matched the evening’s leitmotif when she said, “The United States serves as the most welcoming nation on Earth.” While there can be no expectation that the membership will be manning the barricades in the current political environment, this is Los Angeles after all, and the tone struck by what in other cities might be a conservative bastion was downright progressive in many ways. Oscar Munoz, the native Southern Californian chief executive of sponsor United Airlines, risked what he called a “quagmire of political tweeting” by speaking out for immigration. Tom Sayles, introducing Nissen, his successor, said that “our differences are on the margins,” adding that what ties the diverse members of the chamber together is a desire “to work together to create more jobs.” When it was his turn to speak, Nissen opened by looking out over the packed room and quipping “It’s good to see the other million and a half here,” a poke at President Donald Trump’s comments about the crowd size at his inauguration. There was also time to acknowledge the newest additions to the chamber roster: the San Diego, er, Los Angeles Chargers. Owner Dean Spanos was in attendance, sharing a table with ESPN radio personality Marcellus Wiley, and Nissen announced that Spanos had kicked in $15,000 to the effort to back Measure H, a quarter-cent sales tax to fund supportive services for the homeless. Not in attendance was Steve Sugarman. Sugarman was set to receive the 2017 Distinguished Business Leader Award from the chamber at the dinner, but the week before the event he called to say he would not accept the award, which was dropped from the program. His call came shortly after he abruptly resigned as chief executive of Banc of California. … Dr. David Molina, an emergency room physician who grew a single clinic in Long Beach into a national health care company, has had a Long Beach park named after him. The park named after Molina, who died in 1996, is part of the Riverwalk housing project in Bixby Knolls. … It will continue to rain in Los Angeles. Indoors. Restoration Hardware made permanent its gift of the Rain Room, which has had a 15-month run at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “The response to the work in Los Angeles has been tremendous over the past year,” Michael Govan told the Art Newspaper. “The public here has come to ‘own’ the Rain Room, so it’s great that it will stay in the city.” … Rochelle Gores Fredston held the annual Winter Gala for the Philanthropic Society Los Angeles at the Beverly Park home of her father, Alec Gores, late last month. The charity, which has raised more than $14 million over its lifetime, backs initiatives for at-risk youth. Its next project will be a community center in Watts, which Frank Gehry designed pro bono. Attendees said to join the fundraiser included Ron Meyer, Sylvester Stallone, Susan Casden, Gelila Puck, and Monique Lhuillier.