Wednesday, May 29, 2013
 
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City may vote next week on future of tourism bureau

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[May 29, 2013]  At the Tuesday evening committee of the whole meeting of the Lincoln City Council, Tom O'Donohue said he was ready to put a motion on the agenda regarding the future of the Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County.

O'Donohue said what he would like for the city to vote on would include taking the hotel-motel tax revenues from the county this year. He also wants to keep the distribution of the cash as is, with a large portion of it going to the tourism bureau until December of 2014.

He said the city could evaluate the situation then and determine if the bureau is living up to the expectations the city has set forth for it, and if not, the city could redistribute the funding in future years.

O'Donohue began the discussion by talking about the list of expectations that had been distributed to the aldermen and media on May 13. He said he, Mayor Keith Snyder, city administrator Sue McLaughlin and Alderwoman Melody Anderson had drafted the list and asked the council to review it and make suggestions.

This week he asked for input from the council on the list.

The first question came from Marty Neitzel regarding the specification of two city representatives on the tourism board. O'Donohue said the board currently has a voting member from the city, which is the position he recently filled, and also an ad hoc committee member, so that really wasn't much of a change from the present board structure. He said the county had the same thing, a voting position and a nonvoting position.

Neitzel then asked about the other communities in Logan County: Were they to also have voting members? O'Donohue said his position on this topic is that the city should take over the money but that the funds should continue to go to the bureau "as is." He said there would be no actual changes in the tourism board; it would just be the city funding it instead of the county.

He went on to say he wanted to keep things as they are through the end of 2014 and then look at the situation and see if changes need to be made. He added that if the city has control of the money, he's not sure it would even need two people on the board. He said he imagined the county board would want to maintain representation on the bureau board. The list of expectations also includes representation from the motel industry, but O'Donohue said he didn't know if anyone would be interested in taking on that position. Doing quick math, he told Neitzel there would still be room on the prescribed 11-member board for representation from other entities.

He said the representation might be from communities such as Elkhart, organizations such as the Heritage in Flight Museum or people like Ron Keller of the Lincoln Heritage Museum, all of whom are currently active with the tourism bureau.

O'Donohue told the council that the issue at hand was to have a smaller and more focused tourism board.

Jonie Tibbs confirmed that O'Donohue was now attending meetings. She then asked if he sensed the tourism board was concerned about this or if they were comfortable with what was happening.

O'Donohue responded empathically: "Oh God, no, they are not comfortable with it at all." He went on to say there is great concern on that board about the changes. Big concerns are that the outlying communities will have no part of the board and that they won't get any money. He finished by saying: "But I think more fearful than that is the fact that they don't know what is going to happen. That is as much, if not more of a concern, as the expectations."

He also said that he felt the Logan County Board was in the same position of not knowing. He told the council that if they had not read the article in Lincoln Daily News on Tuesday, they should pursue it. He commented that the county board "would like for us to make a decision."

O'Donohue said that taking the money this year and giving the tourism bureau another year after that would give them the opportunity to know whether or not they (the bureau) want to work with the city.

Snyder added to that, saying: "The issue had been cast incorrectly that if the city takes over the money, the bureau is gone."

The city of Lincoln has no authority to dissolve the tourism bureau. However, without the funding the hotel-motel tax would provide, the bureau would have a great deal less to work with in their budget. They do, however, receive one grant, O'Donohue pointed out, that would go directly to the bureau.

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The mayor also mentioned that making a decision now would be good for the bureau as they search for a new executive director. He noted that in their search, the board will have the ability to tell a candidate that they have guaranteed funding through 2014. He said it would be a "win-win" situation for everyone.

David Wilmert said he believed the city should take a "wait and see" attitude toward taking the money. He thinks it would be good to leave everything as is, give the bureau the list of expectations, and if they can't live up to them, then do something else. Wilmert said he knew the money was leverage, but he just didn't know that the city should do this.

However, O'Donohue said he felt the city should go ahead and take the money and have that leverage.

Snyder said that in addition to all this, he had talked to Chuck Ruben of the county board. Ruben would like for the city to let them know by August what they are going to do. Snyder said this was because the county has to build a budget for December, and they need to know if this hotel-motel tax will be part of that process.

Jeff Hoinacki asked if the tourism board had been presented with the expectations list. O'Donohue said they had not officially; however, the list has been published by local media, so they are aware of what the list says. He added that they had also been told the list was a draft.

It was then suggested that the list of expectations should be added to the voting agenda as a separate item from the takeover of funding.

Tibbs asked O'Donohue if the bureau had their own list of expectations. O'Donohue said he hadn't discussed that with the bureau, but he knew they would be content with making no changes whatsoever.

He said a big concern for them was funding, and it was a valid concern, but another concern for them was the loss of board members. He said they are concerned that people who have been on their board for a long time will be gone. They are also concerned that the prescribed 11-member board is not large enough.

In the end, it was concluded that there will be two voting items on next week's agenda. The first will be a formal adoption of the expectations list, and the second will be to take over the hotel-motel tax and leave the tourism bureau "as is" in its funding until the end of 2014.

O'Donohue said: "If those of us who think (taking) tourism is wrong, is wrong, they should be able to show us, and there wouldn't need to be any further changes. That is why I really encourage you to look at these expectations. They are going to be important; they are going to be the basis by which we determine what happens going forward."

Snyder drew the conversation to a close by telling the council that he knew the city's expectations for the tourism bureau were higher than the bureau had for itself. He told the council that he and O'Donohue had gone to the Holiday Inn Express for a meeting of the bureau. In the lobby was a rack of brochures from all over the state. He said the one item they found in the rack representing Lincoln and Logan County was a flier about the Route 66 Garage Sale in 2010. "That was the only thing in the rack at Holiday Inn Express," he said. "So, I think we have higher expectations."

[By NILA SMITH]

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