Debate continues over Logan County Tourism Bureau website development

[August 25, 2017]  LINCOLN - The Logan County Tourism Bureau held their monthly meeting on Monday, August 21st. Board members present for the meeting included Gail Apel-Sasse, Kevin Bateman, Emily Davenport, Cindy Fleshman, Kathy Horn, Tom McLaughlin, Steve Parrott, and Marilyn Wheat. Shawn Taylor was absent for the evening. Neal Patel, the newest member of the board was excused for the evening, pending final approval of his membership by the Lincoln City Council. Patel was confirmed by the city at the voting session held later that same evening.

Among the items discussed at the meeting was the topic of website development. In the course of the discussion two motions were made then rescinded as board members debated how to move forward with the re-structuring of the tourism website.

The first motion was made by Bateman who moved that the bureau notify David Doolin that he would not be contracted to assist the bureau in website development. There was some discussion over that terminology and board president Sasse said she’d prefer to just tell Doolin that the bureau was going to go another direction.

The second motion made came from Wheat who moved that the council contract Paul Adams for the development of the website. That motion was rescinded when board members said they didn’t feel they had concrete information from Adams about what he could do for them, and what the final cost would be.

DCC Marketing

The group also discussed what to do about the fact that the current website is now under the control of DCC Marketing and that firm seems to have gone silent, not answering emails or returning phone calls made by Tourism Director Cris Wibben or Administrative Assistant Morgan Gleason.

Wibben reported that she and Gleason have made multiple phone calls to the firm and all they get is a phone tree and an opportunity to leave a message, but no one ever calls them back. She also said that she had reason to believe the firm has changed management, which is making it all the more difficult for the bureau to know what is going on.

DCC Marketing was hired at the beginning of the transition from the Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County to the Logan County Tourism Bureau, more than two years ago. The task of the company was to create a new website, populate the website with information about tourism in the county, and maintain the website, keeping it current.

Tourism staff has only limited access to the website, and the lion’s share of information placed on the website has to be put there by DCC Marketing. According to Wibben, the staff is able to create entries and change information on the calendar of events, and that is about it.

Bateman wondered if the business was not responsive to calls, and had changed hands, did it even still exist. He said that he would be willing to take on the task of getting the attention of the firm, even if it meant driving to Decatur and locating the office to see if it was operating at any level. Wibben said she too would go to Decatur.

Wibben went on to explain that the bureau does not have a copy of the contract with DCC Marketing, so she doesn’t know when it expires. DCC bills the bureau monthly for “website maintenance,” but because they are not responding to calls, the bureau has stopped issuing checks for the monthly fee.

David Doolin

In regard to the proposals presented over the last few months by David Doolin, Bateman said he was not in favor of hiring Doolin for a number of reasons. He first noted that with the Doolin contract, the bureau would have only a page within Doolin’s website – Explore Logan County. Because it would not be a true website belonging to the bureau, once again staff members would have no ability to add or edit information on the page, everything would have to go through Doolin and he would have to post it for the bureau.

Bateman’s final objection was concerning self-imposed deadlines Doolin has not met. Currently, Doolin is rebuilding his website, and according to Bateman has been for quite some time. Doolin had met with the tourism board and had given dates for his new website roll-out on more than one occasion, and Bateman said all the dates have passed and there is still no website.

Paul Adams

Intermingled with discussions about DCC Marketing and David Doolin, the board also talked about contracting Paul Adams to re-design the website and make it usable for tourism staff. Bateman, Davenport, and Sasse in particular were in favor of giving the contract to Adams based on information he had presented at a previous board meeting. While McLaughlin was not against hiring Adams, he did have issues with the information received, and the lack of some concrete details on the scope of work and additional costs beyond the website design and set up.

Sasse commented that she knew Adams would do a very good job for the bureau. She had contracted him for the design of the Pumpkin Patch website and was very happy with it.

Bateman and Davenport agreed, saying that Adams had done the remodel of the Logan County website and it was very good.

McLaughlin said he really wanted to have more information on the cost. Adams had quoted that he would create the website for an initial fee of $500. He had been asked at the previous meeting what would be the additional costs for adding new content and website maintenance. Adams had said that it would depend on the amount of work and time needed. So he couldn’t really nail that down without knowing more about what the bureau would expect from him.

Bateman suggested that the bureau could do the same thing the county did – set a spending cap, telling Adams he needed to hold his cost to no more than a certain amount. Parrott was hesitant to make that kind of agreement, as it could result in spending dollars that were not necessary. However, Bateman and Davenport both said that when they gave Adams a cap, the final bill came in “way under” that amount.

The discussion went back and forth for a while about whether or not to vote on the motion that had been made by Wheat. The conclusion was to rescind the motion and create a website committee. The committee will be tasked with figuring out what is going on with DCC Marketing, work to regain control of the existing website and website address, and meet with Paul Adams to discuss the scope of work and the costs for the work for a remodel of the website.

Committee members will be Bateman, McLaughlin, Gleason and Wibben.

[Nila Smith]