Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
The Convention and Visitors Bureau Inc.'s $140,850 request for funding was tabled Wednesday by the Kosciusko County Convention, Recreation and Visitor Commission.
Commission members questioned several items presented for approval.
Commission president Deb Wiggins pointed out the bureau has a cash balance of $70,000 as of Aug. 31 and nearly half a million dollars in assets.
Mike Stetzel, chairman of the CVB board, and CVB Executive Director Linda Arnold appeared before the commission with the bureau's request. Nonprofit organizations may petition the commission for convention, recreational or visitor-related event or festival funding. Money comes from the county's collection of an innkeeper tax. CVB Inc. is eligible to make funding requests of the commission, too.
CVB memberships in advertising co-ops and associations geared to promote tourism to the county totaled $47,025. In 2004, there were 50 trade show appointments; two overnight motor coach visits; nine day-trip motor coach visits; three three-day meetings/conferences/reunions scheduled and two five-day meetings, conferences or reunions scheduled.
Participation in advertising and co-op promotions totaled $40,298 for the fourth quarter, which includes $3,845 for payroll expenses. Fourth quarter operations of the office, building and grounds totaled $2,084.
Stetzel said the $140,850 would carry the bureau into 2005.
Commission member Joy McCarthy-Sessing asked if the bureau typically paid membership fees for the next year in the fourth quarter of the prior year and was told yes.
Arnold was questioned about a recent contract signed with an out-of-county printer for the 2005 Kosciusko County Visitors Guide. A communication from The Papers' president Ronald Baumgartner to the commission questioned the bidding process. Baumgartner indicated his company received confusing verbal direction and incorrect information about next year's guide.
Arnold said The Paper prints the guide in Wisconsin. She said the winning contractor would sell ads less expensive to the consumer and provide more returns to the bureau, which gets a percentage of the ad sales. She said the bureau usually receives $4,000 from sales but wouldn't know what the income was until the ads were sold.
"You're asking us to fund your letting of bids to a company outside the county?" asked Wiggins. "Were formal bid specifications presented to bidders?"
Arnold said no.
"And you didn't contact vendors in our county? We need an organization that does that. It's very disconcerting for an organization funded with tax dollars to go outside the county. It behooves us to try to work with our existing businesses. If The Paper has done the guide in the past, it should automatically go back to them.
"I don't see us reaching out. Have you met with city and town councils [about their tourism needs or ideas]? I asked you to do that a year ago," Wiggins said.
Arnold said this would be done in October.
Wiggins then asked about the bureau's $450,000 portfolio of assets. "You're a nonprofit organization with half a million dollars the commission gave to you; purchased a building with room-tax dollars and you still owe $120,000 on the building?
"You have $70,000 liquid and you're asking us for $140,850. How did ownership of the land and building come to be yours? It should be the county's. Our commission is funding you to have this as your asset."
Commissioner Fay Medlock said the building is a tool they need to do their work.
"If the county council decides not to collect the innkeepers tax. what happens to the building?" Wiggins asked.
Arnold advised the commission the building is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Employees do not work weekends or holidays. She said in 2002 and 2003 the building had 10,043 visitors (an average of about 16 per day.) The 24-hour lobby has a "touch-inn system" with a telephone that allows visitors to call any hotel, motel or bed and breakfast in the county toll-free.
Stetzel said the Visitor's Center costs $600 a day to operate.
Wiggins asked if the bureau could operate for another month and Stetzel said yes.
"Your organization does have assets," she said. "How your board spends them is not the problem of the commission. The commission is charged with tracking the economic impact of tourism dollars."
Carter asked Stetzel about Steve Hite's "derogatory letter about Mrs. Wiggins." Hite is a CVB Inc. board of directors member.
"He wrote a letter to the editor," Stetzel said of Hite's letter published in two county newspapers last week.
"If you're trying to make amends, make amends, don't write half-truths," Carter said.
"If your board has a problem, let them call us," Wiggins said. "The letter tells me someone doesn't want to resolve an issue, they just want their opinion to be heard."
A motion to table the bureau's budget request was passed 5 to 1, with Medlock voting nay.
"When you fund local dog and pony shows, you're not reaching out to visitors. You're entertaining local citizens," Medlock said.
The board also:
• Granted the CVB's request to pay off its last three pledges to the City-County Athletic Complex - payments for March and October 2004 and March 2005 - in the amount of $15,000.
This action completes the bureau's contractual obligation to the CCAC.
• Heard the Ramada Wagon Wheel Theatre is a featured attraction in the September-October Midwest Living magazine. The spot is part of the Northern Indiana Tourism Development Commission's four-page advertisement.
• Heard in 2004 the commission approved $20,235 in grants for local festivals and events. Reports from The Warsaw Breakfast Optimist Club, the Warsaw Sesquicentennial committee, the Fort Wayne Philharmonic and the Kosciusko County Historical Society were reviewed. Other events funded include the Pro-Life Music Festival, the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department's 10th annual classic rock concert and the Boys and Girls Club Crusin' Hoosier Car Show.
• Heard the commission has a $239,916 cash balance. The money is available through appropriations approved by the county council.
Commission members are Deb Wiggins, Jan Carter, Nancy Gast, Fay Medlock, Joy McCarthy-Sessing, Jon Sroufe. John Elliott was absent.
