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HomeMy WebLinkAboutM020811 TCC Minutes, 2-8-11, Draft Via Conference Call Members attending were: Chuck Russell, Bill Roney, Miriam Villiard, Diane Schostak, Joy Baisch, Steven Willing for Allison Willing, Mari Phillips,. Friends attending were: Christina Pivarnik, John Austin Staff: Kitti deLong Unexcused: Amanda Lovelady Minutes, 1-11-11 There were no corrections. Mari made a motion to accept the Minutes as presented. Bill seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Financial Report, 2-8-2011 Steve Willing offered his meeting area for any meetings where we need a meeting space. Thank you, Steve. There is no phone service in the meeting room at present, though Steve thought that could be changed. There were only two invoices this month: OPTC $1,623.49 Coordinator’s Services 805.49 Total: $2,428.98 Chuck moved to accept the Financial Statement as presented. Miriam seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Additions None. PT LTAC – Christina Pivarnik We have a new Chamber Director starting February 15. Teresa Verraes has been working part time and starting to get things moving. She will be at the next OPTC meeting. Our new staff member is Laura Brackenridge, who will manage meetings and events that are shared between the Chamber and the City. Things are clicking along well. We are working to get all public meeting spaces into the Webervations system. There is a huge fishing tournament over Presidents’ Day Weekend at Gardiner for Blackmouth and the north Olympic Peninsula is expecting about 800-1,000 participants. Commissioner’s Update – John Austin Just received yesterday the reports on General Sales Tax Receipts and also LTAC Receipts. Comparing this January with January 2010, receipts are up by about $2,000. LTAC did a little better than last year at this time: $11,507 this year and $10,732 last year. But both those figures were appreciably lower than they were in prior years. 2004 was a banner year. After discussion, it was determined that 2004 may have been the year that revenues were misapplied. Christina stated that the City LTAC receipts were not accurate. They did analyses, and Olympia was delayed in posting LTAC funds for December, so some of December’s funds were posted in January. PT altered their 2011 budget to $25,000 less to compensate for the decrease in 2010 funds, which was painful. Joy will check with Judy Morris to make sure that the numbers are correct for Jefferson County LTAC receipts. BOCC has been trying to lobby in Olympia for revenue for the County and for areas that need it. On the bright side for the County, an extraction tax seems to be gaining some wind and would be something like sales tax on gravel, which is one of the few natural assets now left in this county. We do have backing from our legislators. We are trying to get funding for public health. In March, John will go to NACO (National Association of Counties) and while there will lobby for the Dosewallips Road repair/construction. That would also have a positive effect on all of East Jefferson County. Final EIS that came out on the Dose in October can be seen on line. The Final Approved Plan would be a rebuilding of the road that is somewhat north of where the current road used to be with a terracing to improve the environmental effect. That project would improve employment and would be good for tourism. Joy stated that the engineering work will start in March. There used to be 55,000 cars per week according to Forest Service Count. One of the things John will do when he gets back from Washington, DC, is to ask each of us to write to our legislators to support this project. Joy encouraged everyone to remind the folks that that is the only high ADA-approved National Park entrance in the system. Clarification of LTAC Dollars – Joy/John BOCC just signed the agreements for the Historical Society, TCC and North Hood Canal. Joy asked if John had had a chance to review RCW 88.03 re: how the funding is supposed to be distributed. That reserve that was set up in the distant past, and according to State regulations, is not supposed to be more than 100% of the annual LTAC income. John will check into whether there will be a meeting in March of LTAC advisory Board to discuss that. John stated that the reserve was built up to do some improvements at the Gateway VC in Port Ludlow. There was discussion about the future of Gateway VC. Steve suggested a possible 1031 exchange with Pope for usable property. Bill stated that Gateway has wetlands on three sides that are getting wetter all the time. It doesn’t appear there could be a septic system there now. Discussion of possibly using propane toilets that are now used around Flathead Lake in Idaho. Bill will make some inquiries. Miriam signed off at 10:30 am for another meeting and will rejoin us after that meeting is over. Bill will look into different forms of disposal. John will request that the staff set an LTAC meeting for March. Discussion of Jefferson County Chamber Letter – Joy/John Joy asked how the Jefferson County Chamber is going to do its marketing. Christina didn’t know and stated that Teresa is working on that out now. Christina suggested tabling this until Teresa comes on board. That was agreed. OPTC – Diane Had a meeting last week and approved the budget for the year and the marketing program. Will continue outreach in Victoria. Adventure Travel support brought $8.8 million of exposure. Will be traveling in Victoria to continue our work there. Diane has put together a $69,000 marketing program with Deborah Black. Diane will get an email out to all lodgings on the Peninsula re: giveaways and participation in the Spring Campaign. The State Tourism Division, that was expected to be cut June 30, will now be cut earlier - on March 1. Washington Tourism Alliance, a 501c6 corporation, is crafting a system to be able to keep the State office in some form. Another proposal is to now dismantle the State Tourism office on May 1. Diane will forward information as st soon as she gets it. The State website cost $2.1 million to build and it costs $150,000 to maintain annually. This is an important asset and is doing what it needs to do. We don’t want to loose that. There is a talented group of people working on this and it is expected that they will be able to transfer assets and accomplish the change that is needed. OPTC business is moving along and we have large orders to move along. There is discussion of a follow-up trip to China and Hong Kong. Visit “Tourism Matters” website to see details of costs versus income for tourism industry. Tourism in Washington State brings in $14 billion each year. Tourism brings in $116,000,000 income for Clallam and Jefferson Counties. Steve volunteered to do editing/word polishing for any letter for lobbying. 11:00 am Spring Campaign Update – Debbie Black The Umbrella for Spring Campaign will be “Nature’s Champion” so that we can include things like the Elway Dam removal, birding, culinary loop events, Hurricane Ridge, and other events and activities. Promotion with Seattle Dining for our Spring Campaign: Prospective visitors will sign up and receive information packets, at no cost, for an Adventure Route with 12 destinations. The destinations tentatively chosen include: Hamma Hamma Oyster Company Olympic Timber House Finn River Farm Fireside Restaurant at Port Ludlow Alderwood Bistro Olympic Sellars Wildfire Grill Merrymere Falls Linda’s Woodfired Kitchen Cape Flattery Trail at Neah Bay This promotion should encourage people to make multiple trips or one longer trip to the Peninsula. Visitors must take their packets at each place to each destination for a signature and then submit the signature sheets at the end. The Resort at Port Ludlow will be the location for a fun luncheon during which Seattle Dining will give out plaques for attendance for a couple of different things. Will include a list of trivia questions and answers will be earned by interaction with the staff at each of the 12 destinations. Everyone who answers all questions correctly will be able to enter a drawing. The Grand Prize will be contributed by the Resort at Port Ludlow and will include one or two night’s stay, dinner, and a cooking class with Chef Dan Radigan. This will be repeated for Fall Campaign but the destinations can be changed. There will be a web page that will be on Seattle Dining website which will explain the promotion. Will also be an ad on Seattle Dining for one whole month of March and also there will be an E-blast to Seattle Dining users. Each participant will receive a web banner that will link back to the webpage at Seattle Dining. We need: 3-5 gift certificates for dinner or overnight stays. By Friday, we need: 3-5 lodging venues for the March E-Blast. So far, we have Rooster Hill B&B, Adventures through Kayaking, and Log Cabin Resort. Joy would like to join that as well. Steve will contribute a weekend at the Beach Cottages, as well. 11:10 Miriam rejoined us. BELO: We need 3-5 packages. Joy will do the giveaway in Mar and May. There is still room for another couple of specials for the March E-Blast. This is most imminent. Reminder: If you want to be able to track results, you would need a special code or special name for the package that people will need to give when they call in. KOMO: We have the opportunity to do a Give-away through KOMO and would need a total of five overnight packages. Deadline is Feb. 25. STAR 101.5: This is another Fisher property that has given us an opportunity to get some exposure and we are looking for five packages and recommending something like dinner for four with an activity. Debbie thinks it would be a good idea to offer an overnight package as well. KING-FM: June will be changed to a listener-supported station. KINK-FM: Portland- We have an opportunity to do a promotion on Facebook and we need two packages with overnight stays or outdoor activities. Seattle Dining: Debbie thinks it would be a good idea to include a map with icons for destinations. Laurel Black has already produced a map. What would it take to use that map and add icons? It would probably take about $4-500 to create icons, modify the existing map, and produce the result in a pdf format. Discussion that the Spring Campaign budget is exhausted, so the funds for this will have to come out of the Fall Campaign funds. This map will be used for both Spring and Fall Campaigns. Bill made a motion to use some of the Fall Campaign funds for the creative work on this map. Diane seconded. Discussion. Motion passed unanimously. Next week is the culinary meeting. Diane asked if Debbie Black would make a presentation at the meeting, which will be Tuesday, 10:00 am via conference call. Mari’s left at 11:28 am because her phone died. Debbie Black is acting as the clearing-house for all giveaway’s and specials. One other opportunity that came up is through KMPS Country Radio Station, which has a new “Buy Local” promotion in a revenue sharing program. They are looking for overnight stays to promote on radio and web. Packages need to be discounted 50% and we must respond within a few days. They will handle all the fulfillment on their end. Income is split between lodging property and KMPS 50/50. If anyone is interested, please let Debbie Black know. This is an on-going promotion that they are going to offer and you would arrange the date of the offer with KMPS. Debbie will get detailed information and will provide it to anyone who requests it. Debbie signed off. Debbie Black’s Background – Bill It is important that this information goes to people on the LTAC committee who make decisions. Diane recommended Debbie highly. She has done a great job for Neah Bay, Crab Festival, Lavender Fest and has done a great job for all. Discussion about Debbie Black’s impressive background. We can all work well with her. She is very responsible and responsive. Visitor Survey – Bill Bill has collected visitor information for the last four years. Port Townsend Chamber is going to try to do a comparable report for Port Townsend VC but only has five years information. This could complement Bill’s report. Bill will add Canada for this year. TCC Accomplishments: Diane reminded us that we also had the benefit of $8.8 million worth of media articles from Adventure Media and $415,000 worth of articles for things we did not contribute to. We also printed 110,000 Travel Planners last year and contributed to the Chetzemoka Launch event. Diane will add some information re: the accomplishments of the OPTC. Bill announced that we will each receive a new copy of the Activity Map to review. Please send changes as soon as possible. Joy said that David McCullock requested funds to help with the printing of the East Jefferson County Bike Map. This matter will be discussed at a later date. New Business: None Meeting ended at 11:55 am. The next meeting will be March 8, 2011, at 10:00 am via conference call. John Austin will be gone during that meeting.