|
 Hoagland has been on the job since the day after he was hired.
The bureau office assistant Marlea Elias was also introduced. Elias
will serve as the recording secretary at the monthly meetings of the
board.
Board members present this week were Kevin Bateman, Emily Davenport,
Kathy Horn, Ron Keller, Steve Parrott, Gail Sasse and Shawn Taylor.
During the course of the evening, the board met and heard from three
prospective new board members, Marilyn Wheat, Kenna Shaffer and
Cindy Fleshman.
Fleshman has been serving as the Interim Director of the Bureau. She
has remained on the payroll to assist in the transition of Hoagland
into the director position. Earlier in the evening, she said that
she was now finished with her employment, but is hopeful that she
will be able to serve the Bureau as a board member.
Shaffer is the manager of the Best Western and Econo Lodge in
Lincoln, both owned by former tourism board member Paresh Patel.
Shaffer’s family moved to the Middletown area when she was a
youngster. They later moved to Lincoln. After she married, she and
her husband lived for a time in Bloomington, but eventually moved
back to Lincoln where they intend to stay.
 Ron Keller noted that having a board member with insight to the
motel industry is important to the Bureau as much of what the
tourism bureau does revolves around bringing people into the
community for overnight stays. The hotel/motel tax is based on
“heads in beds,” and the goal of the bureau is to help promote
tourist activity that will increase the heads in bed on an annual
basis, thereby increasing the revenue generated by the tax.
Wheat is a lifelong resident of the Lincoln area, who says she has a
love for the town as well as the county on the whole. Her
professional career includes years as an employee at Lincoln
Developmental Center in Lincoln and also eight years working for the
city of Lincoln at City Hall.
Wheat is heavily involved with the Humane Society of Logan County
and serves annually on the garage sale committee, and this past year
worked beside Judy Conzo in a new First Responder calendar
fundraiser, both of these events are highly successful for the HSLC.
Sasse explained that the board would discuss the three applicants in
executive session, and then would present to the Lincoln City
Council the names of those they wish to add. The council will then
provide their “advice and consent” to the appointments. Sasse said
the board would make its decision, and submit the names to the
council in time to have the council vote next Monday evening.
Hoagland presented an update on the hotel/motel tax, showing the
board that the dollars collected by local motels is trending
downward somewhat. Hoagland said he had met with Lincoln Treasurer
Chuck Conzo for a review of the numbers over the past few years, and
on a month-to-month basis the numbers have dropped to a point that
the total for this year may be about $30,000 short of previous
years.
Board member and Lincoln Alderman Steve Parrott said he was confused
as to why the numbers are down, when the local motels report that
they are often fully booked. He asked if the motels were current in
their payments to the city. Hoagland said that Conzo had reported
there were some issues that needed to be “cleaned up in December.”
This could mean a bit of a catch up on revenues in the January
report, which has not yet been completed.
 It was also noted there were a few months where the numbers didn’t
seem to be in line with what was going on in the community. The
question became, had there been an issue with the city making the
payments in those months, or had something else gone wrong the board
wasn’t aware of.
Sasse said she felt that Hoagland should look into this further, and
see if the questions can be answered. Parrott also noted that while
there were months that varied widely from year to year in 2014 and
2015, at the end of the year, the net difference was only $7,000.
Hoagland also reported that he had met with Lincoln Mayor Marty
Neitzel and City Administrator Clay Johnson regarding the funding
agreement between the two entities. He said during that discussion,
bullet number nine was removed from the agreement. Sasse would later
explain that bullet nine referred to the tourism putting money into
capital investments for tourism. She said the word capital implied
putting money in brick and mortar projects, and that was not in line
with the role of the bureau. Hoagland also said that the
amendments to the new Tourism by-laws that had been requested by the
city have been added, and the document is now ready for board
approval. The board voted unanimously to approve the amended
by-laws.
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The tourism board reviewed amendments to the mini-grant application
used when organizations apply for advertising funds for their
events. The application included a requirement that anyone
requesting funds must appear before the board with their request, so
as to field questions about their event and the intended use of the
funding.
A second amendment stated that the bureau would award mini-grants to one day
events, but that the amount awarded would not exceed $500 per event.
Ron Keller said he was concerned about setting a limit on what the bureau would
award to one day events. He said there were circumstances where even though it
was not an overnight event, something held locally could bring in a lot of out
of town visitors who would stay over.
Shawn Taylor agreed. He said that the city and county wanted the bureau to help
promote all local tourist events, and that what is considered should not be just
the heads in beds, even though that does generate the income for the bureau. He
also noted that some of the one day events go into the night, and there is a
chance that attendees do stay over and go home the following morning. He noted
as example the Oktoberfest at the Oasis where live music goes into the late
hours. Another example was the live concert at the Logan County Fair each year.
Tourism and County Board member Kevin Bateman added that even though the Up in
Smoke, and Pigs and Swigs is a multiple-day event, there are portions of the
whole that are completed in one day. Parrot commented also that there are
vendors who come to the Up in Smoke, and wondered if they stayed in motels. Also
what about the competitors. Bateman said that in all fairness, there are not all
that many who stay in local motels. He said many of the competitors stay
downtown overnight utilizing campers. All-in-all, he said he might guess that
there are 30 to 40 people who seek motel accommodations.
Keller also mentioned that he thought the mini-grant application should include
a request for a total budget for the event. In the past, the board has sometimes
wondered if they did not support an event what impact it would have. Their
concern is that they have a limited amount of money to disburse, and they want
to support the events that need it the most. If one event is able to promote
itself without help from the tourism bureau, then money would be freed up for an
event that cannot invest in advertising without tourism dollars.
Bateman said he wanted to look at that from another perspective. He explained
that in the case of the BBQ weekend, money received from outside sources frees
up the money made at the event so that it may be invested elsewhere within the
competition.
Parrott suggested that the $500 maximum be taken out of the application and that
awards could still be given based on a case-by-case method.
Bateman explained how the county board handles such matters. He said an amount
is set aside annually, and organizations have a one-time opportunity to apply
for funding. The board makes the decision of who to support, then the total
dollars budgeted are disbursed. He said the tourism bureau could do something
similar, opening the application process up only once, and everyone who wanted
to be considered would apply at the same time for these special funds.
Hoagland said that he would get together with Keller to discuss this further and
re-write portions of the application.
At the end of the evening Sasse said that it was now time for the board to go
back to meeting only once per month. She said that many of the issues that had
to be worked through had required more frequent meetings. However, the bureau
now appears to be on a steady course, and the board should be able to go back to
conducting business monthly.
The next meeting will be held on February 20th at 4:45 p.m. at the Best Western.
[Nila Smith]
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-Lincoln-IL/2831225863)
