California Identification Remote Access Network - Regular Meeting

We're good. All right. Welcome, everybody. Let's see here. Call the order. The El Dorado County Strategic Economic Enhancement Development Committee of 20 August 2026. Roll call.

Chair Roboto.

Here.

Vice Chair Spahr.

Here.

Member Heinzen. Abstent. Member McLean?

Here.

And Member Nunez?

Here. Very good. Can I get a motion to adopt the agenda and the approval of the consent calendar?

I move we adopt the agenda and we approve the consent calendar.

I'll second it. OK. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. OK. Open forum. I got $0.02. Oh, hang on. It's got to go that way first. I think I've got to go to the outdoor for the outside guys.

But we're coming from those in the room.

Somebody's in the room.

And not saying coming from those online. And we don't have any online right now.

Okay. Mike, you're up. Okay. Karen, I came by the other day. You did a great job on getting Kathleen's. Kathleen, is it? For the. The movie program.

Oh, yeah.

You did a great job presenting that. But I had a comment, though. And it's good for the record. You know? So we've approved a certain amount of budget for her, which is kind of down the same line of what her budget has been. Oh, this is the film commission. Okay, right, right, right. Down the same kind of path that her budget has been for some time. And that's fine, but it kind of keeps the status quo, all right? And so I looked around a little bit, and the greater LA region has 3,500 to 5,500 film producing units. And it seems to me that it would be prudent to go back to the supervisors with some kind of presentation about what's available there and try to get some money to assist her to solicit or at least make El Dorado County known to the majority or significant majority of those film producers. When you're talking a number like that, I can guarantee you that 50 or 70% have never even heard of El Dorado County. And these are film producing companies that are making advertisements, they're doing you know, very small sets to movies. You know, the movie thing is great, but these smaller companies that want to sell something, some product from somebody, they need a place to go, and they don't know that we're here. And I think it would be, just as business would have it, my two minutes here, the business would have it, I think, a little wire or something put together and distributed to the majority of the major ones down there, And then enough money for somebody to travel and go knock on the doors and say, did you get our flyer? If you know about us. Yeah. Just enough said. I said in the form of business, I think. Good point. It'd be worthwhile to effort to package something like that up and put it in front of the supervisors. It's not going to be big money compared to the kind of stuff they waste. Okay. So, okay.

Good point. Thank you. Any other on the open forum? Anybody? Okay, moving on to our agenda item 26-1260, discuss seed committee board of supervisors update.

So the last meeting or the meeting you weren't at, I know I got really good feedback from the group on the end of presentation. So I just need to probably work with you to finalize those slides based on that feedback. But really, then it's just who's going to be there and speaking. What's the date? 15th at 2.30?

If we could get everybody there, that'd be great. But I know that's a tough one. I also don't remember. What? 15th? 2.30.

That's the...

To so probably yes, yeah, because it's most of the committees and commissions all day doing presentations.

I'm 15 right.

To 30 to 30 that's our scheduled time to get your board. It's about 20 minutes for your presentation.

For the presentation.

This is this committee's presentation to the board.

What time?

2.30. Not in the morning. No, I won't be there in the morning. Okay, I can be there. If you guys can make it, that'd be great.

Yeah, so if everybody's okay, I'll just work offline with Carl and finalize PowerPoint. I'll send it out to everybody when we're done so you can see it and then go from there.

Okay. And do we have a written document that you've been working on that's going to go or just the deck?

I think just the deck. It seems like a staff report would just be completely repetitive of what's in the deck. So it's just attached that.

Okay. All right. Moving on to item 26-1403, discuss El Dorado County Visitor Authority. I think I put together a little deck that we're going to look at. You probably have a copy of it. And just to be completely upfront, as many of you know, I own a tourism industry consulting firm called SMG Consulting. And this work was done absolutely pro bono. There's no money, nothing, just my experience. So I don't want anyone to get any weird ideas. This is totally pro bono to help the county as a resident so thank you my pleasure thanks i i mean can you not submit something and just write it off i'm not worried about it that's fine that's fine all right so um in talking with karen you know we've been focused on the t-bit but the t-bit is a means to an end And so we thought it would be good now to at least give this thing some form and function so everybody can see it. This deck will be available if Ag wants to see it or this group wants to see it or whatnot. And so that's why this came about. So I'll just walk everybody through this. While we're here, county funding for tourism promotion has ended. The previous organizational model is no longer sustainable. Tourism remains one of El Dorado's counties that comes largest economic drivers. But without coordinated leadership, the county risks losing market share to competing destinations. And I've heard stories anecdotally that, you know, we're out of action. You know, we are out of action. And so I think everyone sort of understands that issue. Next slide. The opportunity is rather than recreating the past, and I appreciate all the work that has been done with the El Dorado County Visitor Authority that was operated by the Chamber of Commerce, but we have an opportunity now to build on that and take the elements that they've had, but really begin to build on this and create something new, an organization that can represent the county, align all the tourism sectors, which is something I don't think that has been done. Create stable funding, which absolutely has to happen. Strengthen advocacy and build a unified destination brand. Sort of one county, one voice is the way you have to be competitive nowadays in a very, very challenging tourism industry within the state of California. So go to the next slide. Why does tourism matter? We talk a lot about economic impact, but I don't want this to be just about economic impact. There's visitor spending, jobs, tax revenue, business vitality, but there's also a key quality of life element. that is critical to El Dorado County. And one of the things that I also see that I have put on this deck is we need the networking capabilities of an organization like this to get all these different parts of the county related to tourism under one roof, talking to each other, building synergy, swapping ideas, and just becoming better at understanding what everybody does and working on things in a cohesive way moving forward. Next slide. So the new model or the old model was the county funding chamber house, the visitor authority. What we're talking about today is a new model, which is the tourism industry, which is all the elements we've talked about, lodging and ag and wine and Apple Hill and outdoor rec and whatever else is out there coming together, developing the tourism business improvement district, which we're moving down the road with. and creating a countywide tourism organization, which we got a great suggestion from Derek at the Ag Committee to call it Visit El Dorado, which I shouldn't have done, but he had the insight to pull it forward. And I think that creates a good separation between the old El Dorado County Visitor Authority and this new concept called Visit El Dorado. And that group would be in charge of marketing, destination development, research, advocacy, and education. And I don't want to lose sight of the importance of these kinds of organizations educating visitors when they come here to take care of the place, to pick up their trash, to pick up their dog poop, to park where they're supposed to park. Don't feed the bears. Yeah, definitely don't feed the bears. And so I want to make sure that it's not just seen as just a tourism promotion element, that there's a wider swap to this whole thing. So this is sort of this new model. Go to the next slide. So the purpose of the organization is promote El Dorado County, strengthen the visitor economy, increase overnight visitation. And I specifically said overnight visitation. because that is the key revenue generator, overnight visitors spend geometrically more money and they spend it on lodging, which is a transient occupancy tax collection, which is what this county needs. It needs more transient occupancy tax collection, whether it's more people coming or more hotels that we probably need to build, and that's a different initiative we can get into another time. We wanna support the tourism businesses. We wanna make the destination as competitive as possible We need industry leadership. We absolutely have to educate local stakeholders. We do need, you know, unified advocacy for tourism. And, you know, we've seen over the years it falls into housing, lodging, all these other pieces that, you know, we need to kind of, you know, bring together. And then finally educate visitors in the stewardship piece. And at the same time, while we're doing this, we have to keep residents safe. in the loop, understanding what the deal is, being respectful to their perspective, but also understanding, hey, this is what our part of the county needs. You know, how do we make tourism work for us? And so forth. So a lot of things going on there. What is a T-Bid? We've done this. I don't need to spend time on this. You guys have been through several of these meetings. Okay, go to the next slide. Who participates? And the core funding partners, as I see them, and we can adjust this, tell me what you guys think. The lodging industry is critical. And, you know, I'm thinking the lodging industry external to the municipalities. The unincorporated parts of the county, whatever. Placerville is its own thing. South Lake Tahoe is its own thing. But sort of everywhere else is what we need to focus on. I can see a point in the future where Placerville may want to join our effort. I don't think South Lake Tahoe will. But I think Placerville would make a nice partnership down the road to be involved here. And they should because they need help. Exactly. Obviously, Apple Hill, the wineries, outdoor recreation. There may be a few other pieces that we can bring in here, but I see this as the core funding partners. And I think as we move forward with the TBID process, we'll sort out what the potential revenue is or contribution is. But at this point, this is sort of who probably belongs at this table in terms of where we're going, okay? The governance philosophy is really critical because we have to gain trust. We have to gain trust with the TBID supporters. We have to gain trust with county supervisors, and we most certainly have to gain trust with residents. And so we need transparency, accountability, representation that balances things. We need strong strategic leadership. We absolutely have to move away from a mindset of we need to fix something by the end of the month. Where do we want to be in three years, five years, 10 years has got to be the vision. Collaboration is the entire secret sauce to this whole thing. We've got to get along, work together. and everybody participate. And then finally, unlike the old model, this is industry driven. It's not organization driven, it's not county driven, it's industry driven. And that I think is a key differentiator of what we've done and what we're proposing as we move forwards. Proposed board structure, and this could change. I just threw this up here. You could have a couple lodging representatives, some wine industry representatives, Apple Hill, outdoor recreation. Maybe you have an attraction experience sort of thing. I do recommend we have at least one or two seats for community representation. I think you need just people who are smart decision makers. You could get economic development, tribal representation. Some of these can be ex-officio. They don't all need to be voting. They can be ex-officio. But this is the platform of inclusion. So this is what a potential board structure could look like. Obviously, there's probably a lot of discussion to be had as we go down the line, but this is the potential. And if we could get everybody rounded up with these groups working together, we'd be heroic. It would be heroic, this effort. And then I think it's key to have standing committees. And these are definitely not finalized. But I want to just put forward the idea of standing committees because it's another opportunity for inclusion and participation throughout the county. You may not get a board seat. But you could be on the marketing committee, or you could be on the special events committee, or maybe we decide to have a destination development committee or a research and strategic planning committee or another committee that's industry engagement. I'm not saying we should be locked into all these specific committees, but I do want to make the point that we do need to create as much avenue for for the community to participate in this beyond the board. And this is a great way to just get very smart people engaged in the organization and they can come from all walks of the community and chip in whether their interest or expertise is in special events or marketing or what have you. So to me, this is a really critical feature that has to go broad, okay? It has to go, you know, as broad as we can get, you know, from different parts of the community, different perspectives of the community, different segments of the community. This is really the opportunity to bring everybody sort of into the fold, right? Core responsibilities, and again, this will change with the board of directors, been going through the process, but here's my laundry list that I think is closed, but certainly we can adjust this destination marketing, brand development, digital marketing, research, visitor intelligence, industry education, stewardship, advocacy, grant development, and partnership building. And partnership building is critical. You know, we have to take this organization and it has to have relationship. Everywhere from Folsom to South Lake Tahoe to Sacramento to Amador County, we have to have a whole regional network because we will be competing not just as the county, but we will be competing regionally. And so we want to have as many partners. The Forest Service could be one. State Parks could be one. You know, it's a good mix in terms of partnership to get as much support as we possibly can. And relationship with the county. The county does remain an important partner. The county could appoint an ex-officio representative, which I probably would recommend. This can coordinate with economic development. You know, a lot of times tourism is the flashing red light that a potential person wants to move a business here for. And most importantly, infrastructure discussions. You know, where's the county looking at infrastructure? And how does that now play? Or does tourism have at least a voice in some of the infrastructure discussions the county may have, depending on where things happen? But the organization is independent. You have to not lose sight of that. Yeah. And it's industry led, but the county is an integral partner that we do, you know, that this group is going to want to work with.

So bear that in mind.

Benefits of the new model, stable funding is probably the most critical.

Yes.

You know, we have to be able to make long-term strategic decisions. We have to know that, you know, we've got five years, 10 years of funding. We don't have to go and appeal for funding every year. And depending on 10 million other things, the county can allocate this much or that much or not at all. So the stable funding model is probably been one of the best assets of all of these T-Bids that have been done. And I think Maya has told us there's like a hundred and something of these things in the state. It's industry driven. I hope it has broader representation than maybe we've had in the past. Greater accountability because it is separate. It's its own organization, its own board of directors, its own accounting functions, its own oversight and so forth. Unified marketing, which is absolutely essential in this ruthlessly competitive industry. We can focus on long-term strategy, reduce the political risk of the changing dynamics of this county board of supervisors to a future one. Somebody likes tourism, somebody doesn't like tourism. We've got to reduce that risk. And, you know, one of my key features is better collaboration. We just have got to collaborate better in a rural environment. The unity of competition is a county level. You know, we don't have enough critical mass like South Shore does to be its own thing. We need all parts of this rural county to work together. to give it some critical mass. So in some ways, that's a little bit different for maybe Apple Hill or some of the other elements that carried a lot of their own weight, which we still want them to do, but we also want them to recognize we got a whole team here. We want you out as part of the whole team and you keep doing what you're doing, but let's get it all incorporated and focused in one direction. So I think we can get a lot out of that. So what is the organization and what is it not? The organization is countywide, it's industry-led, it's partnership-based, it's strategic, it's accountable to investors, it's focused on economic vitality and stewardship, What is it not? It is not City of South Lake Tahoe focused. We're good up there, okay? We're good. I mean, obviously, I think there's an opportunity for this organization to work with the Lake Tahoe Visitor Authority. They got a lot of horsepower up there. Makes sense to work together. It is not county controlled or managed. It's not controlled by one sector. And that's great because we need the leverage of all these different sectors combined. It's not just tactical, like we need a coupon for the end of the month to gin something up. It's not politically driven or it should not be politically driven. And it's not a replacement for county government. It's sort of our own thing. So I think that really begins to separate what we are and what we're not. So the implementation roadmap is organized stakeholders, develop governance documents. Phase three is establish the TBID. Phase four, launch the organization. Phase five is develop the countywide tourism strategy. I see this over the next year, this sort of thing evolving. And at a certain point in time, we're kind of controlling this at seed, but at a certain point in time, maybe in a few months or three months, we begin to form a steering committee. And that steering committee can, you know, we can figure out how that gets put together, but I don't think we're quite ready to do that just yet. I think we need more community meetings to get support, to get buy-in, and then we can see where we're at. But I see that as a critical next step for us, as well as simultaneously the formation of the t-bit. Again, this may change a little bit, so don't hold me to it. The end of the county funding is not the end of tourism leadership. In some ways, this is a huge opportunity for this county. I think at first when the county made that move, there was a lot of angst and a lot of grumbling and a lot of whatever, but I think we're now got some distance between that destination and we see a potential bigger opportunity to work together. From what I'm seeing, I think everybody's getting with that and understanding that. And working together, we can build a stronger tourism economy for all El Dorado County. I see this opportunity is much more significant than what we've had with a much bigger funding strategy than what we've had in the past. And so to me, this is very, very opportunistic, not just for the industries, but there's, you know, El Dorado County itself, I think, in can really benefit as well. Anything else? Comments, questions, thoughts, suggestions?

I think it's very well thought out. And I like the approach that it is inclusive and it's industry-driven. Everybody needs a framework. So the industry needs a roadmap, a framework. And this provides the roadmap.

Yeah. And I think we make it available. So if somebody wants to download it.

Basically, I won't let you start.

Yeah. So you can, and you can download it for Apple Hillers and, you know, yeah, yeah. We can start circulating it. And if anybody has any questions, call Karen or me or whatever, you know, I'm happy to sort of walk them through it. Or if somebody wants a presentation, happy to, you know, do that as well. But I felt that we were at the point where we needed substance, you know, and so, you know, here it is, visit El Dorado.

Yeah. It's going to be interesting. And I think what I, I mean, this is exactly what I was kind of envisioning in my hope when I moved home. I thought, I think there's always needed to be like one, you know, marketing tourism thing. association that kind of has everyone under it because we're so much bigger than what how we market um i do think it's going to be interesting because as you guys know it all comes down to money like who's going to get what and all of that so i think you said it at the last meeting that i could like it's going to have to be super clear for them to like i think the wine industry is going to be a little bit easier of a In just my kind of talkings, a little bit easier of a pull, but obviously we all know if we're being blunt, we have to get Apple Hill on. From a sales tax perspective, they will be who's deciding if this passes or not. So we've got to put a lot of effort in explaining to them And unfortunately in their minds, not at Delphina Farms, because we want people there year round. Like we, you know, we have a winery, we have a bakery, you know, but in Apple Hill's minds, they're like, we're fine. So why would we, but they're going to be the ones that have to vote. Yes. So, and Carl, you do a great job of explaining what it could be more. You're not even capitalizing on what you are and explaining that to them. And so I think there's going to have to be a lot of like explaining and like You know, letting them know.

It's a great point. Let me give you a working example. For years, I managed the ski industry. Yeah. And there was Heavenly and Palisades. They didn't need anybody else. No. But they wanted everybody else because it rounded out the experience. Yeah. And they benefited from that rounded out. It made them more competitive because it wasn't just go pick an apple and go home.

Yes.

It was, God, there's this over here. There's that over there. Wow. Isn't El Dorado County an interesting place?

We could get people there in spring. You always talk about your, what do you call them? Shoulder season. Shoulder season. We've wanted that for years and it could happen if we just, so yeah, I think having you go visit and like all, obviously I've already been for years, been talking about this, like, and some people are very for it. some people are very against it i have an inkling that the ones that will have the most poll are going to be very against it but i think we can we can do some good work so um yeah and part of it too is you look at fair play you know i was down there fair play needs help no they would be they should all be voting yes well and fair play should all be voting but fair play you know that region is a challenged yeah region yeah

They may have to ship their whole farm product. Maybe they become another Christmas tree place. I don't know. But we need to have everybody working in tandem.

And understanding. I was talking, I won't say who, but after the Ag Commission, I was talking to someone that's against it. And I was explaining too. how we need funding for all these associations. Cause we can't keep running off volunteer. Like that's just not sustainable. I mean, like you're burning everybody out and we have this healthy brand right now, but like my kids aren't going to volunteer as marketing chair. Like my mom was working in chair before me. And then it was me. I was like, is my daughter going to even like, it's just not gonna like, it's not sustainable. Like, and so we need money to sustain these associations and, You know, Derek is the president of Edwa. Like, it's just, we can't, it has to be stained. So that kind of resonated. It's not, just explaining to people, it's not a tax on your customers. I understand your business is doing fine, but if we don't market as Eldorado, you know, even Apple Hill and Eldorado Wine and whatnot, like we could be so much bigger. And so I think we can get there. It's just going to be a lot of conversations and a lot of explaining. And you're great at that. We all are great at that. And I just think getting us all together. Yeah.

You know, one of the key factors that I brought up with the Ag Commission is right now El Dorado County spends X. Yeah. they're not getting any leverage from those dollars. None. They get X. When you have this group effort, you're getting leverage from all these other dollars that are combined. That's something you can't match when you are competing as a sole source or focus. It's the same thing when Heavenly and Palisades compete. say, look at all the leverage we get. Not only are we spending our money, but we get the tourism to Lake Tahoe Visitor Authority and North Lake Tahoe and the Reno Airport and all these other people pulling in the same direction. That's something Apple Hill does not get. And it won't get standing by itself.

Yes, and I think just the health of the apple hill growers will really resonate with them because they care about that. I think, too, another thing we need to talk about that will resonate with just everyone is like, we now if we have money control like things you know like infrastructure and things like versus the county putting an assessment on us because of traffic issues or whatnot you know we now have the ability to fix those issues versus the county being like you're not fixing these issues now you all are going to have a tax or whatever and we're going to take that money and we're going to fix the issues or whatever it may be and i think that's a good that's a really strategy no it's too it's

It's... Keep in mind, I'm part of the county. The county doesn't know as well as the growers what is needed. If they're being honest with themselves, they'll have better ideas of how to fix the traffic issue. 100% county coming in and saying, here's what we're doing.

They are going to want control over that. Even Del Vino Farm, trust me, we get the letters every year. You guys got to do it. If you're not doing this, you're going to get fined. You're going to do this. That's only going to get worse. If we have money to fix things, then that kind of alleviates issues you know what i mean if we have full-time employees that are working with the county and like doing things and like it's just and i think that will really resonate with apple hill because they feel the pressure of like we're gonna start getting in trouble you know what i mean or we're gonna we're not fixing our issues the other good parallel with with tahoe i think is that yeah being very collective about what type of visitors you want yeah because

Yeah. Frankly, I think some of the visitors that Apple Hill is attracting, they're not doing us any favors. And so it'd be better to have fewer visitors that are spending more money staying overnight and just a bunch of day trippers coming up and buying a bunch of crap and a couple apples and going out.

Well, and that's that's our we have to compete with that.

You know, I will tell you, I will tell you that in South, we moved away to, we moved towards a yield strategy where we have fewer overnight visitors, but they spend way more dollars.

We're able to do that on a day. Ability. And then with Reno and Sacramento and like Tahoe, we do out on overnight. We, we have so many dreams and stuff. And so do the wineries. I think we can really get people there. Um, just explaining why it's needed. And I think too, you made it very clear. It's not a tax. Maya did great with that too. It's, it's to allow us to be healthier as a tourism association. But then always just keeping in your mind, because that apple hill will have to be on board. The fact that it's based on sales tax, we could do all this work and they could all vote no, and it will not pass. Here's the comment. And I'm talking like. three businesses that are like that main drag there. Like unless every single other person votes yes, because I was doing calculations and I'm like, okay, if they all vote no, which I think we could get one of them to vote yes, then every other Apple Hill farm would have to vote yes. So it's like, you know, we're going to have to really do some lobbying there and like just really explain to people what this is for.

There's also a concept of opportunity cost. If you don't do this, you got what you got. This is it. For the next generation, this is what you have. You haven't alleviated some of the challenges. You haven't got the right marketing mix. You haven't leveraged other people's dollars. You just have what you have.

You can't be bigger, which we all want to be bigger.

And when I mean bigger, I don't necessarily mean volume. No, no, me either. We're talking about targeted times of the year. Yes. We're talking about attracting certain visitors midweek as opposed to jamming weekends.

Off season.

Off season. Yeah. You know, it gives you having dollars gives you more flexibility. You come from a position of strategy as opposed to I got to sell Apple Saturday.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and I think that puts everybody in a better position. strategic position to make good long-term decisions.

I'm all for it. I think some of us are definitely all for it, you know, cause we have a winery and an apple hill park. So of course we want to grow and be year round and have overnight visitors and everything. It's just, yeah, we're going to have to do a lot of talking. I think the infrastructure thing and kind of being like, now we don't have to have the County fix issues or maybe assess us. We have the money now to fix our issues. We can have full-time employees that can work with the county and lobbyists and things like that. And just kind of explaining it in more that way, they'll be like, okay, yeah. Instead of assessing you as a grower more, now we can have money where we're not going to put more money on you.

Assessing feels like a punishment.

Yeah. Yeah.

We've done in other counties where I've worked is package this as an investment.

Exactly.

And here is the multiplier effect of the investment. And here's how this is going to benefit you if you participate and invest. Each year, it's going to grow.

The grower I talked to, and obviously he doesn't represent everyone, but he was like, I just don't like that it's mandatory. Because it's going to benefit all of the...

At the same time, you're going to get board seats. You're going to have representation on the marketing. Nobody likes mandatory. Especially in this country. Whoever Apple Hill puts on the board, it's up to that board member at the Apple Hill meetings. What do you guys think? Put their input and bring it back and all the rest of it.

I have a question for you guys under culture on that page. Economic impact on the last item was business vitality and quality of life. When I think of that, I think of how proud we are in Placer County of the things that we have to show and that we take care of the environment. There's places to see and the same thing in Monterey. Is everybody really proud of what's in El Dorado County? The rivers and the mountains and the hiking and the biking and the wine and the apples? Do they kind of take it for granted and that feeling of pride, I don't feel it in all the meetings I attend and the people I meet with when I come up here. I don't recognize how special it is.

I think. Yeah.

Do not recognize.

I think that's that whole.

I'm learning it's very special.

Yeah. And again, this could be a great thing that this could fund. But I think that's that whole, I've always said like the residents of this county like need PR about the county. Like it's almost like turned on its own. Yeah. And like just explaining that the reason we have all these great things is because of our visitors and things like that. And that is all, I think you have it, stewardship.

And great people and great businesses.

Yeah. So there's the stewardship and stuff like that. We definitely need a cultural adjustment in that way, I feel. That's going to be tough.

Yeah, but you know what's the education part that Carl was talking about? And this Carl guy has got a lot of experience with it.

You know, here's the deal, in my experience, All residents want is to feel like they're not taken advantage of. They just want to know that you have their interests at heart. And if you have a collective effort, that can be an integral part of your strategy moving forward. And I've done plenty of market research. I did this up in the lake. They all get that there's an economic benefit to tourism, whether it's Apple Hill or whatever. But in Tahoe, for the longest time, they didn't feel like the locals' interests were taken at consideration above visitor interests. And that changed up there. You know, that changed. That was a big, and some will argue it hasn't changed enough or whatever, but I know from working with the tourism organizations, they're very cognizant of local input and frustrations and traffic and And they are doing things to help mitigate. And I think that's key in terms of that quality of life and education is for residents to feel like, okay, they have my interests at heart. They're not just trying to jam it on Saturday in October to fill it. Exactly. They hear us. They have our interests. They got a new parking gig or whatever it is. But I think that's critical. Or you lose everybody. Exactly. You know, and I've seen this. I've worked in a lot of tourism destinations that have done this sort of thing. And I think there's a big opportunity. And there's an upside for everybody. Just do you want to see the upside? Exactly.

Yeah. And if you just get it passed, I think they'll immediately see the benefit. It's just getting there. Yeah.

I mean. And we need meetings and I'm happy to show up. Yeah. bring people here or whatever. You know, however you want to do it.

But I think... We can meet with key businesses too. Like at their places. But yeah.

However we need to do that. But that's this part of what we talked about. There'll be some official meetings that Maya's going to have as part of her contract, right? And then we can have all kinds of informal sky bar meetings and education and reach out and all that stuff. But I think... Six months ago, we were sitting here with nothing. No, this is, yeah, this is great. And out there, I hear from everybody. Somehow you hear. Well, but I hear from the wine people. I hear from apple people. Yeah. I hear from tourism people.

I hear from, I don't know. I was at the planning commission, and we had a permit for river rafting. And a guy came up, the parks person came up and did the presentation and opened it up. And- I had to ask the question, you know, it's got to be contributing to tourism and visitors and overnight stays. What businesses, what, you know, who gets the business? What are the most popular businesses? And he said, you know, they really don't spend a lot of money here. Their number one item is they go to In-N-Out. And the number two business is Walmart and Folsom. And I mean, my heart's sunk, but it's just like, what a missed opportunity. We need a coordinated visitor plan.

No, it's crazy. It's literally crazy.

You know, I did a lot of work for Folsom a couple of years ago. And when I started down there where they were, they're kind of the Johnny Cash destination. And my point to them was you got to dump all that. You really have this unique. what I call the urban outdoor recreation interface. Right on the river. You got a river, you got a bike trail, you got a kind of neat little downtown. Nobody cares about Johnny Cash. But the point is they took that advice and repositioned what they were And they, I think, benefited from that sort of focused message.

All the restaurants in the whole town.

Yeah, they focused that message. And that's something we can't do right now.

No.

South Lake Tahoe can do it. And they do it well.

We have no way to market.

We don't have a way. to have a unified El Dorado County brand, which benefits Apple Hill, which benefits lodging, which benefits all these different players. And if I'm looking at it from an investment perspective, if we could solidify a Visit El Dorado brand over the next five years, it's worth it. It's so worth it. It's worth it. Otherwise, we are what we are. And this is as good as it gets.

Well, like you said, a unified thought process. Then the county is like, okay, better businesses come in, a hotel gets built. Now we're like rocking and rolling. And I think we're all almost there, but we just need money to get there.

Targeting the right visitor, not the wrong visitor. Not that there is a wrong visitor, but I know... there are more visitors you want. Pebble Beach gave us a presentation at the Stillwater Club several years ago, and they said, our goal is to have golf at Pebble Beach be $1,000. And everybody's like, ass is going, what are you talking about? And they said, here's how we plan to get there. We sell the hotel room, we sell the bar and the restaurant experience, and we sell the golf, and we put it in a package. Now, we've been adding it up and tracking, and we know about what they spend. They spend about $900 separately on these different things. But if we package it, it's $1,000. That's our goal. We go up from $500 to $1,000, and we know who to attract to do that. And I look at El Dorado County and think, hmm, who would I like here? Where would they go? What would they do? And can they do three different things while they're here and spend the night for two nights? That's who we want. But I don't quite know who that is yet.

The other thing too is, The tourism industry here operates off of no market research. There's nothing. When you go to South Lake Tahoe, the LTBA, it's the most sophisticated analytics I've seen anywhere in the tourism industry. We have nothing.

That's another thing that's going to benefit. We bought credit card information in Monterey. We knew everything about where they're coming from, what weekends they're coming from, how much they spend, where they spend it, why they spend it, what do we need to tweak, and it about 12 hotels went to, um, demand pricing or something. I don't know the right term. Demand-based pricing. Yield pricing is what it's called. At noon on a Friday, they start changing the price of their hotel if they're not booked up. And they want to sell every room Friday and Saturday night because it's dead, lost money if it's not filled. And so they start adjusting it online. And it's crazy.

The last piece of market research Apple Hill did Was by me like 35 years ago.

But that's the thing.

My first client when I started SM.

Yeah, that's the thing too. I think people think, okay, the businesses of Apple Hill do well, right? Okay.

I mean, in relative. But they work really hard.

We do. The association does not have that much money.

Right.

Like we don't. Like we have not raised our dues for years. We're in a lawsuit, which everybody knows about. And we, the association does not have a ton of money. And that is my thing with Apple Hills. I don't want to raise your dues, but I want the association to be healthier.

It needs to be.

It needs to be. We are a brand. We are a huge powerhouse brand that runs off views. Like literally fumes. Like it is insane what we accomplished for how, how like everyone's like, oh my gosh, it's like, no, no, no. High Hills rich. Boa's rich. Abel's is rich. There's a few of us doing great. Apple Hill is a nonprofit organization that needs to grow. And that's why I've always fought for the BID because I'm like, if we could just be more stabilized, we could be growing our shoulder seasons. We could be doing market research. We could be doing this and that. And, you know, like, it's just insane to me. El Dorado Wine Association, they literally just almost stopped. They almost stopped. We're not an association anymore. I get like, I get honest, but like Eric was like, I'm going to be the president. And now it's kind of like getting better, but it's like, I don't think people realize the farm trails. I mean, are they doing amazing? No. It's like all of these associations are just running on fumes. And then they're like, oh, we don't want to charge our customer.

Well, are you going to pay for it?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, are you going to pay $20,000 a year to keep this association going? Because Delphina Farms isn't.

And so it's like, that's... Well, I think the point is there's lots of conversations to be had. We at least have a concept out there now. And we can go from there. Let me open it up to guest comments. Michael?

Yeah. You know, a couple of thoughts come to mind. They're not all connected to each other. But In terms of infrastructure, you know, of course, they look to the county for roads and things. But, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but a lot of the challenges for Apple Hill, particularly during the four months that are really important, is parking. Well, the parking's on people's... The event parking is people's property. And there's not real incentive for them to participate at a higher... level to support everybody. And so there's an opportunity here bringing more folks into the mix to be able to deal with infrastructure that may not be the width of the road, the thickness of the surface, you know, pavement. And so that was one thought. The other one is You know, this is a great opportunity and the crisis, I'll call it that for now, the crisis from the sudden loss of the visitor's authority. Even with that, there's still a lot of people past and present who have still worked really hard to market their thing. And I think you want to move forward in a way that preserves what they've done. That wasn't all bad and now we're going to make it all better. You know, somehow, and I'm not sure I know the answer to that, but somehow their efforts need to be preserved. And respected. And the energy has to go into this new way. That's a good point. And so, you know, I see us doing that. But this brings me to the last thought. You know, there are some of you on the inside that really know the dynamics. I mean, Boyle's been really tight with each other for a really long time. You know who's... I could guess who's going to vote. Who has the right mindset, maybe a different mindset, I don't want to call it wrong, for the opportunity to be able to isolate them with specific outreach with a content expert like Carl, who's going to come to the party with a different experience than any one of us would. Mm-hmm. and influence them maybe in a different way prior to decision, you know, them having to make a business decision. And so, you know, that's a great opportunity. And we need to like, like moves on a chess board. How to make those, how to make the best moves. And just, I guess, lastly, you know, I'm here today because I'm not going to read this online and I did actually, but at, At this week's Ag Council meeting, there were questions about TBID, and they asked me to provide some links to the presentations that were given. And I'm thinking, okay, I asked presentation to this group and to the board, that's great information, but I don't think that that's really what they need. This information today, I think, is the puzzle piece that will help some folks. And so I'm going to fulfill the action that they gave me was provide some links to the material. But I am so thankful that this is now part of the mix. I think maybe I'm going to lead with that and not get them too mired in the process and the various ways to approach a bid at an improvement district. And that I would expect is going to generate some questions that I won't be able to answer. We need to be prepared for that chess moves there. And I don't mean chess moves in a bad way. I mean the ones that actually get everybody prevailing.

One more comment, and then we'll go to the outside. There's a wonderful Grateful Dead lyric, when life looks like easy street, there's danger at your door. Gilroy used to be a client of mine. They used to be a client of mine. The Gilroy Garlic Festival used to be a preeminent event preeminent in california ag and it is gone yeah okay so nobody's no and i don't wish it on anybody no no but i'm a i i'm a i i i think in terms of scenarios yeah and so just because you got it knocked now yeah you don't know what's around the corner you got one bad bull weevil or i don't know whatever else comes up in the ag world and who knows what Yeah, you're screwed. You really need to hedge all your bets, and you can do that with partners. So anyway, I'll let that go. We'll go to external.

If you have a comment for those online, please raise your hand if you'd like to provide a comment.

I'll just say what you just said, Carl. I kind of thought about what you were saying earlier, Christine, is that, you know, It can change rapidly when you're relying on a person who happens to have enough talent to keep things going for a small organization. That person leaves and there's no one to fill their shoes.

It's over. It's crazy. And also I try to tell them I'm doing a C minus job marketing. Like if that was my job, I would be like, you know, like I was paid. Like I would be like, it would be, I would give it my all. I unfortunately, not unfortunately, I love our business. I run our business and, um, you know, it's hard to get volunteers when they're running businesses and things like that. If you could even have one director, like a Jody Franklin running like each little association, think of like, and then obviously the visitors visit El Dorado would be like a huge, you know, the board and paid employees and stuff. But like, think of how much better these associations would be run and more smoothly and everything and like so yeah so but I think Mike you're totally right it's just how who we talk to and how we explain because a lot of times these farmers that you deal with are business owners or whatnot, if you just come out, then you kind of saw it at the Ag Commission. Derek, obviously, I've been constantly talking about the TV. Yeah, my mom knew all about it. Pam Harris knew all about it. But they all were prepped. But the farmers that were just hearing it were kind of like, wait, what? And so it's kind of like who you're talking to. Are they the business person at the farm you know like are they just a farmer like you go talk to my brother Peter who's the winemaker although he can get in that tourism mindset he'd be like I don't care about them he literally would be like oh talk to my sister like I don't care so it's like who we're talking to you know do they think in that business mindset and just kind of is there trust yes is there trust I did have one go back and it was to Dave's comment about pride you know

Of course, my private sector is far outside of this kind of thing. But it has been on multiple continents, across multiple languages, on some very challenging science and material science and technology changes. One consistent thing I've discovered is pride. People are motivated more by not failing. or by the opportunity to succeed or to be proud of what they've done or what they've contributed to their community. And those factors motivate people far more than scaring them in or don't do this, you're gonna miss out on something. That kind of motivation only takes you so far and it's not very far.

Just to kind of get a final thought on this, This is the biggest opportunity in this genre that this side of the county has ever come down their pike. And I have the benefit of having gone through this in South Lake Tahoe at a ground level thing. And I will tell you, it's game changing to be able to pull this off and do it. It's game-changing. Yeah. And Tahoe has way more assets than Apple Hill.

Yeah.

Way more. No, I'm so... And if they believe that this is the right thing to do, because, yeah, Heavenly could do their own thing, and casinos could do their own thing.

I think if you bring up the ski resort thing, that'd be really good. Like, it's almost the exact same mentality, you know? But, yeah, no, trust. You know, El Dorado County, we're still... We're still... When we've been for generations. And so we work with, that's why Apple Hill works is we all work with each other and we love each other. I love, we hate each other too. But like, so we trust each other and we all like out of control. But so like, I have more odds of getting like Michelle Visman to vote yes on this, on High Hill. Then I do, cause we've been in Apple Hill forever. Then I do a winery person in Fair Play because I don't have a connection with them. Right. Because we have our winery in, you know, obviously in Camino. So it's like, it's all going to be based off these relationships and trust and everything. But I think too, on the flip side of that, having a neutral source of like, this is my thing, you know, like I've seen it work. I've seen the, how successful these counties can be. And also it will resonate because we all grew up here. think of south lake tahoe when you guys were kids i i it is such a different game now and like as a business owner yeah like south lake tahoe was like oh you know like i loved it because i was a look you know a drive up there i go to like but like what it is now it's a well-oiled machine and if you owned a tourism business up there you're probably like oh my gosh and we kind of are like that you know like we're this like uh but we can become a powerhouse and it just takes thoughtful thinking and all of that yeah i think this is a great discussion and this is exactly why we put this piece out at this time i'll show this to the growers yeah whatever you need me to get in a conversation let me know

Any other comments? They're not dues, they're not fees, they're not fines, they're not taxes.

Really?

Your fees will go up if you don't put it on your customers. It's an investment, though. You're creating an investment pool to benefit all.

Yeah.

Any other thoughts or comments on this? I appreciate all the comments. I do. There's a good excitement, and we need to keep it going, and we will. Last item on the agenda is item 26-1404, update on TBID process. Karen.

Yes. We're still not signed on the dotted line for the contract, but we're just waiting for some information from Civitas. Carl, I need your help to.

We haven't got it started yet. Civitas, we haven't started yet.

No.

Yeah, let me know what we need. Is it going to, are you going to have opposition or are you going to be able to make?

No, it's, it's, it's at a dollar amount that it does. I have the ruling authority. So, okay. Yeah. So that is not the problem. It's just, you know, everybody's got to be in agreement on both sides with the language of the contract. And there was some language we were trying to get from Civitas, from that we can put into the contract and they haven't set it yet. So we're just waiting on that.

Sometimes David Lamb is cumbersome because he's an attorney. So every word means something. That's a language. Yeah, language can be bigger than it seems.

If any dots has been down this road, they'll get it. They'll get it dialed. All right. Anything else? Public comment?

Those in the room? and take public comment from those online, please raise your hand if you have a comment.

Okay. Good conversation. Good meeting. We're out early. I'm off to a reggae concert in South Shore. At The Hanger, one of our new music facilities.

They're a big competition for us. Oh, yeah. We get very smart acts sometimes.

The Hanger is really cool. They're great. Yeah, they're great.

Like competition and not. Basically, if we get an act, they can't get it because it's in our realm. But no, it's funny.

We now have, I counted them up the other day, like 10 music venues. Oh, I'm sure. It is going off. The Hangar is a cool location too.

I need to go up there. It's competitive though.

We have from Valhalla. You have to be attracted to Valhalla. We have a concert tonight too.

The Valhalla Estates, over by Camp Rich, all the way to the new Tahoe Blue.

Tahoe Blue, which is a great venue.

And everything in between. We've got like 10 different venues. There's music going. Maybe it's not your cup of tea of music, but we got music.

Yeah.

That's great. All right. Motion to adjourn.

Motion to adjourn.

I second. All in favor? Aye. All right, everybody. Have a good rest of the week and weekend. Thank you. There and I'm around next week. So whatever you want to get together, let me know. Good job.