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HomeMy WebLinkAboutM011111 TCC Minutes, 1-11-11, Draft Madrona Room, WSU Extension Members attending were: Chuck Russell, Bill Roney, Miriam Villiard, Diane Schostak via conference phone, Joy Baisch, Allison Willing. Friends attending were: Christina Pivarnik, John Austin Staff: Kitti deLong Unexcused: Amanda Lovelady Minutes, 11-9-10 There were no corrections. Miriam made a motion to accept the Minutes as presented. Allison seconded. Motion passed unanimously. End-of-Year Financial Report Report was accepted as presented. Miriam made a motion to approve. Chuck seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Interim Financial Report, 1-11-2011 Since BOCC has not formally approved the LTAC Budget Funding, an Interim Financial Report was made until a subcommittee meeting can be held to determine amounts in individual categories in TCC’s financial plan for 2011. Diane moved to approve the Interim Financial Report. Miriam seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Additions None. PT LTAC – Christina Pivarnik The City’s Lodging Tax was down 25%. County Lodging Tax is down 30%. Christina did some research when they found out about those numbers. On the web, about 12 Sequim properties come up first when you search for lodgings in or near Port Townsend on search engines such as Expedia.com, Travelocity.com, Hotels.com, etc. When the PT properties came up, you couldn’t book on line. Christina will be meeting with core accommodations to help them be more competitive and hopefully participate in Webervations, the online reservations system PT is proposing. Laurel Brackenridge has just been hired to work part-time with meetings and conferences. Christina’s contract changes this year to include two-thirds tourism marketing and one-third for the new Wayfinding Project. As part of that project, Port Townsend will be working with Microsoft on their new TAG, which is similar to QR codes, but allows more layers of info. The LTAC numbers in Port Townsend haven’t been this low since 2005. Port Townsend has lost some room inventory when the James House became a private home, along with the Ravenscoft Inn not being open full time for a good portion of 2010. Fort Worden’s numbers have actually gone up slightly. Restaurants and bars have remained level. Christina will be addressing these issues in the LTAC meeting this afternoon. She wants to see if various properties can possibly sign up on the search engines such as Expedia or Travelocity, however the cost to the property is anywhere from 10-25%. Christina is trying to find out how many people book on line nation wide to be able to come up with solutions. Port Townsend’s LTAC budget for 2011 is $325,000. Discussion. Bill Roney arrived at 10:35 am (he had to change a flat tire). Commissioner’s Update – John Austin John showed the contents of a plastic baggie full of pills from a teen party. Today, the Sheriff and Police Chief are starting to collect old prescription drugs for disposal so they won’t end up in teen hands. Once a month, they will end up in Spokane to be burned. There are two changes for John: He is off the Substance Abuse Advisory Board, and he is now Chair of BOCC. The Book of the Wreck of Saint Nicolai: There will soon be a building for the tourist attraction, permits are in the works. County is going to work out a deal where the County will own the property but the attraction will be managed by Gary at Peak 6. And that way, the organization who is trying to put together this attraction can apply for loans from the Russian government. This will be one mile past the Rainforest Café. Will add six cabins and an office for the Hoh River Trust. If all goes well, Gary will add additional cabins. Ferry: Governor suggested we have a ferry-taxing district, which will include nine counties. Consensus at the meeting was that it was not a good idea. Larry Seacrest stated that we already have a ferry-taxing district. It is called “the State of Washington.” Joy added that we also have the Department of Transportation. Discussion. BOCC voted to support Proposition 1, Transit Sales Tax Proposition, which will be .03%. Pad Map – Bill We decided to make a few minor changes to include a list of Restaurants in Jefferson County on the back of the map with 23 entities, with icons on the front. Printing costs: We have recognized a savings and will be able to print more than last time. 2010 Meeting Schedule: It was pointed out that the meeting date on the Schedule of Feb. 15 was in error. Discussion. Diane made a motion to have the next meeting on February 8, 2011, instead of on February 15. Bill seconded. Passed unanimously. John left at 11:00 am. Spring Campaign – Debbie Black via Conference Call Our overall budget is $69,000, with 60% dedicated to the Spring Campaign ($42,000) and 40% dedicated to Fall Campaign. The time frame for the Spring Campaign will run from March to May. Debbie proposed to continue with the Fisher radio station promotions, and is proposing to schedule using Portland media. We need an incentive, giveaway or discount for e-Blast on Komo. What’s Going On: Each festival gets its own page with photos, features, can have give-aways and links, etc. There is an opportunity to have give-aways on Facebook page. Can have one-paragraph of information about give-aways, and then tell visitor to click and then provide a link to whoever is doing the give-away. Another opportunity is an on-line survey to collect date with 10 question-survey to target on kind of information we just placed on KINK website. To encourage doing survey we can do drawing. We would be including in one of the E-blasts. Survey costs $5,000. If is included in $5500 Alpha line. Also, permission based email through BELO like we did in 2008. Would include Snohomish, Thurston and Portland metro area. Will target 175,000 unique users through E-blast. One E-blast will be sent to half the names 2-3 weeks in March, the other half 2-3 weeks in May. KING will give complementary banner ads. Seattle Dining already told Culinary attractions in two counties. Motorcycle pub crawl, Café to Café. WE can select 10-12 locations on the Peninsula we would like people to visit: restaurants, wineries, cheese makers, etc. Seattle Dining would decide a campaign where motorcycle riders would travel to Peninsula. They would send photo and receipts to Seattle Dining and get extra points. Seattle Dining would host a luncheon at one of the restaurants and provide certificates, also give prizes in May. Can do the same thing during the Fall Campaign. To promote this, we would include first in Editorial as a new event that they are considering starting on the Olympic Peninsula. We would be included in three of spring advertising packages as we have done in the past with an ad on the website for one month and an E-blast to up to 15,000 users. And would have a six month banner ad up for Seattle Dining website promoting this event. Debbie feels it is a good idea to do some sort of outreach so venues understand the value of this. Diane asked if Debbie Black had checked into Facebook advertising. She will look into that. Diane asked if any TV components of BELO were available? KING Radio is not part of KING TV. BELO is KING TV. Debbie will check into the TV possibilities. Diane will look into Facebook advertising. Contributors to the Spring and Fall Campaigns: OPBV $27,000 Jeff. Co. TCC 27,000 Port Angeles 5,000 OPVB Additional 5,000 OPTC 5,000 Total: $69,000 x 60% Spring Campaign Portion = $42,800. That leaves $17,000 for the Fall Campaign. Bill made a motion to accept this portion of the marketing proposal. Chuck seconded. Passed unanimously. OPTC – Diane Last week’s meeting was at Port Ludlow with good attendance. Next meeting is in Sequim. Marketing Committee meeting will talk about different things we can do. Have agreed on Sunset advertising and several other things. Bill stepped up to lead the web team to see where improvements need to be made. People will make comments and give to Bill. Have been working on leads and things, and have talked about moving the Travel Planner over to storage at the Coho. There is one pallet left and will need to be reprinted. Gloria will need changes. There was a question about separating Sequim and Port Angeles lodgings. Are looking into BELO radio and TV, Oregonian, St. Guide, Sunset (3 issues). Clarification on LTAC – Joy The first issue is that LTAC “dollars are to be collaborated but not given.” RCW questions: We can not gift money from taxing district to taxing district but can collaborate or share expenses. The second issue is how much can County hold. RCW says County can not hold more than one years worth of income in reserve. Diane pointed out that a lot of that money was being held to build a new facility for Gateway VC. Diane felt that it was up to TCC to make recommendations to the BOCC regarding use of that money. Bill stated that considering the surrounding wetlands and difficulties in building, and the fact that Gateway VC is open and functioning well leads Bill to now make a recommendation that that money be put to better use for tourism marketing. Diane moved to form a work group to look at clarification of use of LTAC dollars and outlining a preliminary recommendation about what to do with accumulated LTAC funds. Bill seconded. Passed unanimously. The subcommittee consists of Joy, Bill, Allison. Diane will try to attend. Miriam moved to adjourn at 12:10 pm. Allison seconded. Motion passed unanimously.