 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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