City of Sugar Land staff reported at a workshop that the city will contract with Lou Hammond Group for $120,000 to provide public relations services aimed at tourism and business development, and workshop participants approved the contract by voice vote.

City staff said the contract follows a redesign of the city's request for proposals (RFP) issued in September to narrow the scope to public relations only, remove advertising and digital marketing from the vendor scope, and lower costs. Staff told the workshop they received six bids; the RFP maximum budget was $140,000 and the Lou Hammond Group proposal came in at $120,000.

The revised scope, staff said, centers on traditional public relations work: media pitching and relations, drafting and distributing press releases, crisis communications for specific projects, facilitating familiarization (FAM) tours for visiting journalists, and promoting city leaders as thought leaders on redevelopment and business development. Digital marketing, social media management and advertising will be handled in-house under the new approach.

Staff requested that $40,000 of the contract be allocated from hotel-related funds and split three ways (the presenter described the request as one-third/one-third/one-third across the hotel-related accounts). Staff also noted that last year the city used $20,000 from Fund 4B for tourism services while hotel occupancy tax revenue recovered after COVID-19.

Council or board members present voiced the question about the three-way split (rather than the more typical 4A/4B split) and were told tourism had not previously been incorporated into the PR scope, which influenced the funding recommendation. Following discussion, the workshop recorded a voice vote with members saying “aye”; no opposition was noted on the record and the motion was approved.

The Lou Hammond Group, based in Charleston, South Carolina, was described by staff as having experience representing tourism and business-development clients, including work for Visit Baton Rouge and the Baton Rouge Area Chamber of Commerce; staff said the firm has pitched national and regional outlets such as Forbes. The contract will include management of FAM tours and regional and national media relations.

Clarifying details disclosed in the meeting: the RFP was issued in September; six firms submitted bids; the RFP maximum was $140,000; the selected contract amount is $120,000 (approximately $20,000 under the RFP maximum); the previous integrated marketing and PR contract was $257,000; last year $20,000 for tourism services came from Fund 4B. The presenter said advertising, digital marketing and social media were intentionally removed from the consultant scope so those services could be handled internally moving forward.

Next steps noted by staff: finalize the contract with Lou Hammond Group and implement the vendor-managed PR activities described in the scope. No implementation timeline or contract start date was specified at the workshop.