TDC discusses strategic plan, budget template and hiring a tourism director; consultant to circulate revised plan
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Summary
A consultant on the TDC strategic plan said he will circulate a concise presentation and a sample budget; members asked for monthly lodging-tax data, discussed performance metrics for a potential director and set follow-up steps ahead of a March meeting and a presentation to the county commission.
The Tourist Development Council reviewed a revised strategic plan and agreed to develop a formal budget and performance targets before presenting the plan to the county commission.
John Wizzner, a consultant who joined the meeting by phone, said he removed a specific budget from the draft at the TDC's direction and included a full lodging-tax request for the commission to consider. He urged the board to circulate a budget template and said he would prepare a concise 10-minute presentation for commissioners. "At your direction, I took out the specific budget plan, because you folks said you wanted to deal with that specifically yourselves and just put in the full ask," Wizzner said.
Commissioner Hartley raised concerns about prioritizing initiatives that will demonstrably bring tourists to Baker County, saying the board should "support things that are bringing in tourists at this point in our county" rather than speculative projects. Members asked for recent lodging-tax history and monthly income figures so they could craft a budget that reflected current trends, including new capacity from a recently opened Holiday Inn Express and additional park-model rentals.
Board members also discussed hiring a tourism director and how to measure the position's effectiveness. Wizzner recommended tracking hard metrics such as lodging-tax collections and occupancy-rate changes over multi-year windows and having the director report regularly to the TDC. "What you can do is say, you know, we want to see x percentage of increase in lodging tax collections within a certain period of time," he said.
The board asked staff to circulate the consultant's sample budget (noted in the draft as page 13) and to gather six months of monthly lodging-tax data from the finance director before the next meeting. The TDC tentatively scheduled further budget work for its March meeting and discussed presenting the finalized plan to the county commission in March or April, with the consultant available to assist or join the presentation by phone or in person.
Separately, members discussed Shoals Park and potential National Park Service involvement as a regional attractor and possible concession or kayak-access opportunities to build multi-day visitor itineraries.
Next steps: staff will circulate the budget template and recent revenue figures, board members will provide proposed adjustments, and the TDC will follow up at its next scheduled meeting.
