- Meeting Agenda
- Watch the meeting streaming live starting 9AM
- Send questions or comments to visitgolden@cityofgolden.net
- Attend the meeting @ City Hall Council Chambers - 911 10th Street - (map)
The Marketing Stakeholder Group (aka, Visit Golden) has a $648,999 fund this year. Most of that is spent on consultants, website hosting ($65K) and paid media.
Their revenue derives from a sales tax rebate that was originally given to merchants (i.e. - the businesses that collected sales tax) for submitting their taxes on time. In the year 2000, the merchants agreed to forego the rebate in order to fund a tourism campaign. They agreed to let the City handle the fund through the Finance Department.
The City initially hired a half-time person to "coordinate" tourism activities. This soon became a full-time position to "manage" the tourism campaign. The manager hired consultants to define strategy, develop PR, and run the website. The Marketing Manager left the City's employ a year ago, and the consultants have run the program since then.
The merchants have not been happy with the City's management of the marketing program, which they have found expensive, cumbersome, unresponsive, and lacking in local knowledge and involvement. In recent months, they proposed spinning off the program to be a separate non-profit entity, similar to the Chamber of Commerce and the Visitors Center.
City Council discussed the proposal at their January 14th study session. They concluded that the program needs more city control rather than less. They proposed forming a new City Board, staffed with Council-appointed people, rather than merchants.
The Marketing Stakeholders expressed considerable dissatisfaction with Council's proposal at their February 13th meeting. They pointed out that they had agreed to fund this program with the understanding that they would control it. Now Council proposes to remove the merchants from the committee while keeping the money.
This conversation will continue this morning with the Council subcommittee members (Councilors Reed and Vitry).
Location:
City Hall Council Chambers
911 10th Street (Map)
When:
9-10:30AM on Thursday, Mar. 13th
