Lodgers' Tax Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. I'm gonna call this meeting to order. We do have quorum. Three of the five could make us make it today. So I'm Jennifer Olson. I'm the chair of LTAP.

I'm Connor Tharp, vice chair of LTAP.

I'm Dana Even. On LTAP.

So I think all of us have an agenda packet in front of us. Let's if it's good, I just need someone to move to approve it.

I'll move to I move that the board approve the Lodgers Tax Advisory Board meeting minutes from our previous meeting on 01/13/2026. And I second.

All in favor? Aye. No one is opposed. So we will go ahead and move on to Destination IQ report. So you're up? Oh, public comments. We just did the meeting minutes. Oh.

Oh, there was none. I move to approve today's agenda as presented.

I second.

Okay. All approved? I. None opposed. So woo hoo. So now we can move to public comment for items not on the agenda. But I don't see anyone here, and I don't see anyone online. So we will go ahead and move to the destination IQ report. You're up, Lindsay. Thank you.

Can I share oh, you got it right there? We'll use your deck. Perfect. Well, thank you, everybody. I am filling in for today who is traveling in Japan. So, I'm pretty up to speed, but forgive me if you have a question, and, I'm not entirely prepared to answer it. But I think I'm pretty good. So we can go to the next slide. As always, these are links to your very detailed reports, your website data report, your meta ads report, and your Google search ad reports. Those are the two, marketing strategies we are currently running.

These are available for anybody to click on. What I'll do is go through some highlights for these rather than go too deeply into the weeds. So we can go on to the next slide. K. So we love looking at website user traffic, especially because we are running digital ads right now. It's the mainstay of our marketing strategy with Los Alamos. We are looking at year to year traffic. So as you can see, your total user traffic for February versus, February 2025 versus 2024 is up, a 141%. So we saw, over 8,300 website users in February '25 this year, because of the ads that we're running. So that's a great number.

A lot of eyes are getting on the website. But in conjunction of with that, because we're getting these ads out there, we're seeing an increase in your brand awareness. And so we can assert that based on your direct traffic. So that's also up over a 140%. So, over 1,900 visits from folks just typing in visit losalamos.org into their browser versus seven eighty eight last year. So people are seeing your URL. They're remembering it. They're wanting to go to it, and they're typing it directly in. We love that traffic. That is free traffic.

That's brand awareness. We're not putting it in someone's face, essentially. So if there's a little a bit more, agency in going to your website. Like guys with organic search, not quite as high as a of a bump, 10%. So we saw a little over 1,600 last year, and we're over 1,700 this year.

The organic search traffic comes from folks that are searching for terms, and your website is showing up organically as opposed to the paid search ads. So, what this tells me is that folks are looking for terms that they're likely hearing or seeing from the ads, searching for them, and finding our website organically. So 10% is still a huge bump. We love that number. It's it's just it's just small when you when you see the others are are up over a 140% year to year.

So exact paid search numbers, you're at 2,100. You were not running them in February. Same with your paid social ads, 948 visits for zero. I think this we're having an issue with our tracking, which Ellen is working with with your IT departments with paid social, this number is actually should be bigger. That nine forty eight typically is larger than your paid search number.

And we can look in that meta ad slide next to know for sure. But this is really nice. Your organic social. So the goal of organic social is not to drive website traffic. It really is to increase engagement on the social platforms and then, again, increase that brand awareness.

And when Al and I met the other day, we saw a big leap in website visitation from your organic social accounts. So I thought maybe it was brand awareness where folks are on the account via meta ads. But she made a really good point that you had an influencer come in February and post some content via the New Mexico True Co op. So that drives traffic to your organic social channel as well and thus link people are linking out to your website. So even though that's a small number, it it does paint a greater picture.

So okay. Let's go on to the next page. So this is some, specific meta ad data. I think what's interesting to point out here is that is is how the different geographic regions are responding to the ads. So your Albuquerque, Santa Fe bud audience does have the highest click through rate.

So, they're showing a stronger engagement. So they're reacting more to the comment that they're reacting more frequently to the content that they're seeing versus your Texas market and your Colorado market. But what's let me just read through this. But what's nice about your Dallas market is that it's your cost per view is less. It's on par with your Colorado market as well.

So you're paying more for your cost per view with Albuquerque, but you're getting your higher click through rates. And your Colorado market is pretty much on par with your your Dallas Fort Worth or your greater Texas market. We've actually expanded this to include some other locations in Texas based on our last meeting. So, but you'll see here, your campaign did receive a total of, 1,544 clicks per the Meta platform. So we're having some tracking issues between Meta and Google right now.

You can go

on to the next slide. So what we like to do when we share our Google search ad data, at least at the high level, is to look at what sort of keywords are performing and what their click through rates are. If you if you look, you'll see the Los Alamos branded keywords. You're not competing against many other websites for that traffic, so you are gonna have a much higher click through rate. You're gonna show up more.

You're gonna be in a higher position, and the copy of the ad is gonna be highly relevant to the terms that people are searching. When you start getting into keywords like Bandelier National Monument, you're competing against the national park system and other greater kind of travel sites like Expedia, But you're still garnering your most clicks from Bandolier, so folks are definitely landing on your site to find information about visiting the national monument. A click through rate of 6.39 is actually still above benchmark for travel, which is about four and a half percent. So, still a great click through rate, but, of course, when you compare it to twenty seven percent, it feels low. But I promise you, it's not.

So, what's great is that you are competitive then with some of these broader or, keywords where there are lots of other websites out representing that, information. So we'd love to see that. We're also seeing in February a decrease in interest in your winter travel and an increase in your interest in spring summer travel, specifically mountain biking and hiking. So we've since turned off these winter ads, and the budget is now shifted to all that summer activity. So looking forward to bringing lots of hikers and mountain bikers to the to the region to explore your outdoors.

Next slide. Let's see. So just an overview of some of the projects that we've been working on and the ones that are finished.

I think

most importantly, we some we or Ellen, I think I would I'll give Ellen this credit. She distributed our stakeholder tourism survey, again, more recently, and we got a total I think it was 87 results. And so we were able to really dive into that data and get a sense of how folks are feeling about tourism in the area, what they think we need to focus on. And so right now, I'm working on your animal and annual marketing plan, which would start May 1. And I'm using those survey results and some of the input from the community to make some decisions in that annual marketing plan.

So that was really fantastic. So thanks, Ellen, for getting that out to more folks. In the meantime, we've wrapped up your interim marketing plan, your initial marketing market assessments, and your tourism marketing data plan. Pardon me. So the marketing data plan really dives into all of your data sources, from Discover Los Alamos and the county's, visitation numbers to placer.ai and your your older Datify data that you had from your previous contract, your GA four data, as well as state data, spending data, lodging tax data.

So it kinda dissects all of that and looks looks kinda where you stand, and what we can maybe work to improve in the near future based on some of these new marketing plans. Initial marketing assessment kind of goes through the current marketing strategies or what's been done recently and what we're seeing and and, again, making an assessment on what we can do to improve that in the future. So what's nice is now I'm working on this annual marketing plan, and I have all these previous plans and research that I've done that are coming into play to develop a full year plan. So the strategy of doing those pieces first was very useful. So thank you to whoever came up with that idea.

Appreciate it. So this was just completed. It's listed as a future task. But we had Brian and Tina come in, and they met with a couple groups on March 11. I think it was Discover Los Alamos in the morning, and they gave up they gave a presentation on kind of what we've been up to and an overview of some of the data that we've seen.

And then in the afternoon, they met with, a county group. I don't know the specific name. Ellen, maybe you can jump in and and give some more information on that. But that was a smaller, more intimate meeting where we dissected the results of the survey that I mentioned earlier and really had a kind of a roundtable discussion about tourism in in the area in general. And so Brian came away with lots of notes and and fully enlightened and and excited to continue moving forward.

And then the the last thing we're working on currently is the upcoming New Mexico true co op. Ellen has put her choices in, and we'll probably review I think by our next meeting, we'll probably have finalized options, but kind of heavy on social media, which is exciting, which we hadn't been offered before by the camp by the state. So we're looking to lean into that, but that's moving along really well. I'm going to the next slide. I don't know if there is a next slide. No. That's it.

Looks like that's it.

That's it. And lots of talking by me, so I will stop and, open the floor to any questions.

Are there any questions? Thanks, Lindsey.

Yeah. You bet.

I actually do have one. Were you cross posting with any of the other entities for the county, like rec department or CDC? Yeah.

So we currently do not manage your organic social media. And so that's when you cross post, that's where you would that's the platform that you would work on. So our second year contract, which picks up in October, that's the major change is we don't do as much planning in year two, and we use that budget to take over organic social media management. With meta ads, which are on social media platforms, you don't there's there's you don't cross posts with other organizations.

Yeah. To kinda tie on to that, so counselor Neil Clinton, because it's not a part of their contract, it's something that I manage as a county employee. I do try to work to share the information that is published on our other entities, whether that be the library, community services department, or the county in general, depending on the information that's being shared about upcoming events and opportunities. So so we do kinda work in that sense. But in terms of truly cross promoting or having posts that we kind of share together, for example, on Instagram, you can have a post that technically has two names on it.

We have done it for kind of bigger events, for example, Halloween weekend or I'm drawing a blank WinterFest. I forgot what it was called, I don't know why. But with those, we do work together and that's kind of a conversation with staff at the county as to, you know, so to best utilize our resources. We don't wanna have, you know, three different videos on social media when we could just have one person running around and putting that content together on behalf of both entities, if that makes sense.

It does. Thank you for the clarity.

Alright. Any other questions?

I had a question on slide three, which Ellen was page nine for you. There's a nope. Down.

Sorry. You're

good. The first bullet on the left says that you guys had to clean up some bot traffic. How did you identify that, and do you know what caused that?

That's a great question. So we keep an eye on your analytic data, at minimum monthly, but we're probably in there quite more you know, a few times each month. And we can tell when it's bot traffic, when there's, like, a spike in traffic for one day, like, an abnormal spike of traffic. Like, sometimes a campaign may increase visitation. So when we once we see that spike, we can dive deeper to see where it's coming from.

And, oftentimes, it's what's defined as a referral source, and we can see the website that it's that that referral the exact website that that referral is, And you can tell immediately if that website is a bot or not because it's usually kind of a junky site. We'll we can we'll go to it and make sure that for sure it is a bot. And, unfortunately, with bot traffic, you can't there's no, like, setting in GA four that you can just click and say, avoid all bot traffic. Like, it it it's just not possible. So the only way to do it is identify it once it happens and then manually block it.

So, we do this with all of our clients every six months or so. We'll get some bot traffic for a day or two, and we just go in and manually, block it. So, yeah. So we we and we always mention it because, you know, some some agencies would just say, we did great. And and we wanna be like, yeah. We did well, but this was contributing to those numbers, and let's keep that in mind as well. So it's it's fairly common, but we catch it once it happens, and then we stop it.

So is are the visits that you're showing on here unique visits, or is it does it count every time somebody goes to the website or reloads the page, like, on your direct

These this is user traffic, so it's not visits.

Like, every time I reload the Visit Los Alamos page, does that count as a new?

You count as, the same user.

Okay.

But then it counts as the number of visits. So numb if so if so if we were to dissect visit visit traffic or or in GA four, they call it sessions

Mhmm.

One user could trigger five sessions. Right? So that session number conceivably is is larger than the user number, but we'd like to look at the number of users that are coming. Now we could dive into your analytics and find all of this information. But for the sake of, like, presenting to large groups, we focus on user traffic.

Awesome. Thank you.

Yeah. For sure.

And and I do just wanna point out if this is something that you're interested in, that website data report. I don't know if you clicked on it before. I'm not sharing the screen, so I apologize for the people online. But if you click on it within that Word document I'm gonna let it load here. It's gonna take a minute. It breaks down all of this more so you can see new users versus sessions. Okay? So that's a great resource so you can truly see how many users versus how many views for each day in terms of if that's something you're really interested in and where they're coming from. All that is available within the main presentation.

And and I'd love to add to that as well is we curate that website data report. There's there's a lot more data available through Google Analytics. It's a we can't put all of it because it's, like, it's it's dozens and dozens and dozens of different types of metrics. But if there's something that you wanna see specifically and it's not on that report, just reach out. We're more than happy to adjust the report or add to it.

Thank you. Are there any more questions? Alright. Then we will move on. The Discover Los Alamos report. Thanks, Lindsey.

Thank you, everybody.

Mel is not able to make it today, so this is in here for reference. This is the 2025 year end review summary. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite give you any metrics yet for 2026 because we are waiting on the National Park Service to present some of their information online through their data reporting system. But did wanna include this for reference to see all of 2025 in review and how it kind of compares versus 2024.

Ellen, I'm just gonna have you scroll back the other way for just a second because you can see in there the White Rock Visitor Center and the difference in visitation, and I assume that's probably because we're not running the buses for Bandelier out of there.

That is correct. So the reason that the White Rock Visitor Center has such a large decrease is truly because of the Bandelier shuttles changing their location. Instead, they operate from freight of frijoles within Bandelier National Monument. That was a change due to a few different reasons with the park service, and it is it is planned and anticipated that that is the same way they will approach it this year.

Okay.

And so I am working with Bandelier directly into some initiatives as to how can we get more people to stop in our visitor centers, but also stop at our other attractions. By having White Rock as the stop, it kind of in a way sort of well, it was a mandatory shuttle, right? So it required them to have people stop at that location, and therefore they were given the opportunity and chance to kind of have some of this other information in front of them about the other things, attractions to do and things to do in Los Alamos County. And so without that, we saw definitely on the White Rock visitor side that decrease. What I will say though, on the flip side was the Memorial Day weekend for Bandelier this past year was the some of the largest days they've seen in the last five years, and they feel that is due to the change in not having a mandatory shuttle.

Their overall visitation was up even with a government shutdown this past year, and so they definitely have their reasons around why they're kind of changing their shuttle operations and how those are are done. Thank you, Ellen.

Does anyone have any other questions over this data? And so now we're on to the year seven progress report.

We're on the one before that.

The work plan.

Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah. So now we're on

to our work plan.

Awesome. Thanks, Ellen.

Yes. The fiscal year twenty twenty six Lodgers Tax Advisory Board work plan was approved by council earlier this month, I believe. So that is in here for reference. And additionally, I've updated the Lodgers Tax web page on our website. This work plan was also utilized in some of Lindsay's reports that she had that were regarding data and that sort of thing as well as to planning for the future. Great.

Alright. So now we'll go ahead and do the year seven progress report.

Sorry. That one's also me. So we do have a recommended action here. We started this project back in 2025, and the recommended action is following a discussion of the implementation action plan and status of the items. It's recommended the board provide counsel with three to five immediate items they would like the county to focus on completing.

In addition, it is recommended the board identify three to five items as part of a phase two for county staff and council to complete. These items should be identified and voted upon with the understanding that the chair and or vice chair will bring these items to council for recommendation of completion. Some back history is what's included in the body. So just a reminder for everyone, in 2018, Los Alamos County adopted the tourism strategic plan to guide long term tourism development, marketing, and visitor experience improvements. The plan established a coordinated approach to strengthening the visitor economy while ensuring tourism supports community priorities, preserves local character, and contributes to economic vitality.

An implementation action plan accompanied the strategy and identified a range of projects and initiatives to be pursued over time by county staff, partners, and the Lodgers Tax Advisory Board. Since adoption in 2018, several initiatives have been completed or advanced, while others remain ongoing or have yet to begin. In addition, tourism's priorities have evolved. County staff conducted a review of the tourism strategic plan implementation action plan to assess progress and identify the current status of initiatives in July pardon me, it should be 2025, upon the request of Lodgers Tax Advisory Board. Following status updates, Lodgers Tax Advisory Board will have a discussion, as mentioned in the recommended action, to determine which six to 10 items the Board feels are high priority to complete during a phase one and phase two.

Included in the attachments for this are the entirety of the 80 plus page Tourism Strategic Plan from 2018, as well as the Year seven progress report of the Tourism Strategic Plan Implementation Action Plan items. At this time, I'm going to allow the members of our board excuse me. I received a few responses in advance. I did recommend if they were able to to submit those to me to just identify which ones they felt might be high priority. So currently, just so you guys are aware before we open this up for discussion, I did receive two responses of our five different people on our board.

Two people identified that it was very important to identify desirable locations for future lodging development and promote these to encourage full service lodging and boutique hotels in Los Alamos. In regards to that, a couple of the questions that did come up, I wanna address these now just so you have some backstory as you're thinking about what your priorities might be. One of the questions in here was about, is it required that hotel operators need to have a banquet room and full kitchen services? The answer is no, it is not required. I believe that may have been something people thought of due to the plan that did not come through with the 20th Street project because that was in the RFP that was sent out at the time.

I can tell you that what has come to planning and zoning since then is the project that is at what people consider the Old Hilltop House. They are anticipating a 1,000 square foot space for a conference room. That was something that project had identified as a private agency as as something they felt the community was asking for, and so they wanted to include it. But that is not something that is required. Truly, look at the plans and ensure that they are following everything with code compliance, zoning, that sort of thing, and safety when when these plans come to us.

The other plan that has been identified, but we have not received any sort of information on it, it has not come to our planning and zoning yet, is the project at the old CB Fox location. That one, at this time, from our understanding, we do not believe that they will have some sort of conference space. However, that could change as their plans develop. I did want to put those two out there in terms of some of the the questions that were kind of around hotels. So just something to think about as you're kind of determining what you're going to discuss here.

The other items that were identified was reducing blight in the downtown districts. That came up by one person so far as well as identifying parcels for new RV parks. I can tell you at this time, there's not currently any plans in the works regarding more RV parks. As it says in that same one, you know, we're kind of working at identifying potential locations before we get too far along. But one of the concerns was not just water and electricity, but offering full hookups.

That's something the county, I believe, could definitely probably take into consideration if you determine that that is one of the priorities you would like to see. In addition, the other one that came up was creating an event fund and marketing support opportunities so event organizers can apply for grant assistance through an application process. That's in 2.2. And I'm just kinda gonna leave that one there because I know the person that submitted that one probably can speak to it since she is in the room. So at this time, I'm just going to kind of open the floor for you guys to have a discussion around which ones you feel are top priority.

And then again, a reminder, kind of two phases to this project, you know, three to five in a phase one, which are you feel are the highest priority, and then another three to five for kind of a phase two on that next level once that first set is kind of complete or worked on, what you would recommend.

I think it continues again and again that we request that we somehow get more hotels in the area because that is the only block, I guess, that we continue to have. I know that we can't force, more Marriotts or more Holiday Inns to open up, but I'm sure that there's ways we can incentivize people to come here with looking at the tourism plan that the 82 page behemoth that you kindly print out for us. It was just insane how many day trippers we have that we're missing out on to Santa Fe or to Albuquerque. And even looking at Melanie's report today, the amount of people who are staying elsewhere and just coming for the day whose dollars we're missing out on. So I think that that it's a big phase one, but I think that that phase one could could cover three items even because it's it's a big undertaking.

I agree with the co chair in that. I think that is the number one thing we think about is that we can't until we have more hotel space in the county, we can't look at increasing different events in the county because we don't have anywhere for people to stay for those events. We have our in the winter, when the laboratory is closed, we have our, hockey event down at the rink, which is great. At the same time, during the rest of the year when a lot of our hotel space is being taken up by lab visits, I I just think we need to look at getting hotels. I mean, from what I understand, we run at 90% occupancy most of the time.

And most places, when you're looking at 60% or 70% occupancy, they're looking at building another hotel.

Okay. So I will tell you this. We have talked about additional hotel building up here. But just like the apartments that just opened, it took them five and a half years, and they're not even completely finished. Most of that is due to the the cost and but also getting labor up here.

So that is one of the things that, is looked at. And, like, their ROI down there is gonna be years and years and years no matter what they're charging for rent. But the other problem too is that it's not just about the hotels. People typically and and we do fill up on the weekends when we have the hockey tournaments or we're closer to full on the weekends where, you know, like, right now, we are experiencing some good traffic from Texas because it's spring break. But most of the time, the times that we would be putting forward events would be the weekends.

The weekend is when we typically have the most availability. It's very rare, even with those, like the we have the youth hockey tournaments, and then we have the adult male hockey tournament. It's very rare that all three of us are completely full. We do tend to have the high or Holiday Inn, sorry, tends to have, the highest market share, and we run at about an average of anywhere from 80 to 85. We've had some difficulties lately in the last six months because of, you know, government shutdowns and things like that that has slowed down some of our Monday, Tuesday, Wednesdays.

But just to the people up a lot of times do not stay up here because on the weekend, we've got hardly any restaurants of it. You know? Like, there's just not what they can get down in Santa Fe. And so a lot of times, that's why that choice is made. So from what I see and from what I work with every day, we are looking at needing to have some things available, like, even just for kids, you know, having something a little more open for for kids to do, families.

Having more of that restaurant space. People wanna go to Blue Window on the weekend, and they can't. You know? They and, but Pajarita Brew Pub stays open. A lot of them are closed on Sunday. So that is a big part of the a big component to what we need to work with to create a more desirable location. Does that does that make sense? And it and, again, yeah, could we use some more hotel hotel rooms? Probably. But the other problem is our per diem is so much lower, and we have so much higher percentage of government people.

So per diem up here is one zero nine. Sorry. One ten. Per diem in Santa Fe is one sixty seven. I'm the only one with an indoor pool, hot tub, fitness center, laundry, big breakfast, all of that. So we follow Santa Fe. We cannot run on the 110 and have that be the majority of our traffic three days of the week. So there's a couple of things that kind of make our area a little bit less desirable. One would be availability of restaurants and things for people to do on those weekends. And and two would really be that per diem for a lot of these, hotel people coming up here.

If they're looking at that one ten, that's not, you know and that's hard that's something that would be very hard to change. Mhmm. But by the same token, our percentage of government is much, much higher than Santa Fe's, yet there's a bit of a you know, we definitely are hit hard with that. So that's just a couple of things from the hotel side of things. It's not that they don't wanna build.

It's how do we make this a desirable location both for our transient travelers, our Thursday through Sundays, and for hoteliers to want to come up here. So the biggest thing I think that we have talked about for a long time is really, really trying to figure out how to get these restaurants to where they're not closing at 09:00 or 08:00, and they're open, you know, seven days a week. And we've got the things for people, you know, to do.

That's great points, Dana. Great points. So if we're gonna I mean, I think what Connor and I've said in this space is building more hotels. And part of what we're looking at, like you said, in in doing that, if we advance that as one of our goals, is that we also have to have a broader look as to how you get workforce up here and how you get some of those commercial spaces maybe filled with other businesses is what I'm hearing from you.

Well, yes. That along with, like you said, getting more of the labor force up here so that these places are open on the weekends so that people can come up here and enjoy their time here. They can go to Santa Fe, and they can pick from hundreds of restaurants. But to come up here back if they wanted one or two drinks, they couldn't do that and travel, you know, feel confident traveling up here, back to get back to a hotel. And so and, you know, we don't have Ubers.

We don't have any of that where someone did end up needing a ride back to a hotel, they wouldn't really have it. We even struggle with I can't tell you how many times I and I'm and forgive me if I'm giving too much. I certainly can y'all can just say, hey. That's enough. But, I can't tell you how many times I've had to like, we had two people whose homes were in the path of the LA fires, and one of them, it was those guys that were here for the Circle Hotel for the college.

And one of them had to get out of town to get home because his was in the path. His nephew came later in the day and said my entire home just burnt to the ground. They had no way to get to the airport. So one of my guests gracefully took him the first one down to Albuquerque. I took the second one down to get a rental car in Santa Fe. They have no way to get back down if they need any kind of assistance. I've had people who sat in my lobby for two hours waiting on a one guy, he had invented some big machine that they were doing the ribbon cutting on at Lantel. He sat there for two hours. I said, is there anything I can help you with? And he says, yeah.

I'm just waiting for my Uber. And I said, well, they don't come. And he says, I'm gonna miss my own ribbon cutting. So I got him in the car. I've probably taken ten, fifteen people to Wanel because they couldn't get a ride any other way if they didn't call the shuttle or do any of that.

So there are some things that would be very beneficial to our guests that are coming on the weekends. And like I said, you know, sometimes we don't oftentimes attract families, young families, because there's really not anything for them to do up here. Taking them on a, you know, hike or whatever. If they're little, they can't they can't even go on the hike themselves because of the little ones. So we send them to Meow Wolf and things like that, but that's still sending them back into the Santa Fe market.

So it's just a it's kind of a big full circle, and it's trying to figure out, like I said, not only how to appeal to a hotelier's, but how to appeal to the transient families that are coming in on the Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Leave it on Sunday.

I just think we have to we do have to identify three different areas that we think we would like council to look at moving forward.

We can't quite mandate that restaurants be open late by you know,

that's Right. Which is why I will say Ellen mentioned one about blighted downtown space or something similar, which one of the things that I did write in to to talk about was has council looked at any sort of I mean, we can't tell private business or private developers how to work with their spaces or that they have to rent their spaces or that sort of thing. What I had put on there is has council looked into the fact that a lot of communities, I feel like, in our similar situation, have put a progressive tax on undeveloped commercial spaces and undeveloped commercial lands. And maybe we need to look at doing something like that so that we can bring down rents in those spaces and encourage more entrepreneurial spirits. Yeah.

Well and, Ellen, can I ask you part of the reason that I understood we were putting the water up towards Pajaritas Ski Hill and more towards Jimenez was that eventually we were hoping to get up a little higher than that ski hill and be able to put in some low income, true low income housing? Is that no longer a part of that, deal?

So the project itself is the Jimenez Mountain Fire Protection Project. So its true purpose is to help us in case there is another wildfire, and let's hope we don't have one even though, you know, there was just one in Jimenez yesterday. But that is its key purpose. Obviously, it does help that Pajarito will be able to make snow. There is some property up there that's been identified as potentially something that could be looked at for a space for housing.

However, obviously that comes with the fact that a lot of that area is National Forest Service. And so part of that is, you know, thinking bigger and having larger conversations around that and if it's something that they would be interested in or willing to partner with the county to consider, you know, potentially having some sort of projects up in that area. But from my understanding at this time, there is no current project that has been looked at yet.

And isn't it true that we are kind of built out and don't have a lot of space that is still could still be used for, you know, moving forward, we don't have a lot of area of land that we could use for commercial projects.

So it's actually great that you bring this up because we're going through an update to the comprehensive plan right now. And in some of those discussions, and also in the two open houses that happened last week, There was opportunity for people to share insight as to what they felt the county should be focusing on in the same way you're having this conversation now. There are some areas that have been identified. There's a lot of different ways you can look at it. Obviously, there is a decent amount of property downtown that is in the MRA District, and part of the reason we created that was to just try to help facilitate.

And if people were interested in opening that toolbox, choose to have a project in that area to update. The other thing to keep in mind is technically, we changed in the last, I believe, ten years how how many stories high you can go. So so even though it might look like the physical space on these mesas is running out, there is the opportunity to still build up should people choose to do that. I think what we see a lot of is the same thing that you've already mentioned, which is the time that it takes to get the labor and the workforce up here to create or build those updates that people might be looking at for projects. And the other piece that we often see is having the monetary funds to do so when someone comes in here to look at a project.

And when they compare us to other areas, it is a little bit more to get those materials up the hill to get people here. We have had a few different hoteliers who have looked at coming up here, and unfortunately, they just can't find a site that they feel is worth their monies to put down on and create here. So the last thing I had heard was that we were kind of landlocked. And

so we do have some spaces that are still available. But I agree with you. It is gonna be building higher, you know, not wider. But, again, that problem is gonna be we still have no way to get people up here to work. And so that's that is the hardest part. And, you know, because I dealt I had a lot of the people who were here building that new hotel, staying at the hotel. And there was a lot of discussion around all of that and how hard it is even for them. So really, so much of what we deal with that really hinders us up here is labor, is labor force, which is unfortunate.

Well, and I think the other thing to also keep in mind is that a lot of the property is not owned by the county. And because it's private entities that own the property, it is up to them if they choose to just let it sit there or if they want to bring a developer on board to do something with the property.

Thank you.

To to tie back to your comment, I I was kinda looking through all of these, you know, 80 ish recommended action items that we had. And one and the only one that kind of stuck out to me from your conversation, I wish there was more about, you know, enhancing the downtown area and anything with economic development. But the one that I did see on here that might be worth you guys considering is under 1.2, which is explore the feasibility of and grant opportunities for expansion of Atomic City transit on the weekends. I know that wouldn't totally fix your issues that you've seen with people trying to get to the lab in time, but I I do think perhaps that's something to consider in terms of the current bus operations and not having Ubers if there's ways to maybe perhaps consider expanding the services there if that's something that, you know, you it's up to you guys.

Wasn't there a study done start in last October of weekend transit availability, whatever? That's why I didn't select that one because I was like, oh, it must be in in process.

Yeah.

Chair, board members. There we did a pilot last summer, and that I believe the results of that pilot because they did a post survey. I believe that was to T board this month. And then we anticipate, I think, the March, if I'm not mistaken. March I think it's March actually, I think it's April 7. They will go to council with the results of that study or that pilot and with some enhancements on how to maybe make it work.

And most weekend travelers are here with their vehicle. It's if there's an issue, oftentimes, it's during the week. So the weekend could be beneficial, but not it wouldn't really bring that much value because, again, so many of the people, they're here. They're traveling with their families, and they've already got a vehicle.

Sure.

Can can I ask us a question on that note?

Yes.

Do you provide information about the free the free Atomic City Transit?

We do, actually. We've got a bus stop that's right next to our our parking lot, and, we have the sheet out, for atomic transportation. But I think they had recently changed it to where before it was coming every half hour, And now I believe it's coming every hour, but then after a certain time frame, it's every half hour. So it's kinda hard to keep up with. But I do think that there is, a schedule posted on the bus bench, And then we do have one on our desk or near our desk at all times.

If somebody asks, we can pull it right out. And we've we've got a couple of people who actually ride the bus from Santa Fe almost at San Antonio Santa Fe up to work. So we've got a a little bit of that. And you know what? I've really only got two people that could benefit, but it would be as long as they could get from Santa Fe to here on the weekends. Right. And so it's it wouldn't be a a big benefit to to the majority. It would be maybe to and who knows? Maybe if we had that availability, maybe that could help us get more labor up here on the weekends. I don't I don't know how many people would utilize that, but it would be nice.

But I don't I just don't know what the numbers would be with that.

Right. The the original idea when that first that money was first allocated for this satur it was really weekend service. It became Saturday because we couldn't do both Saturday and Sunday. Really was when the Bandler shuttle was picking up and dropping off at the White Rock Visitors Center. And so we wanted to have a method for those people as they're dropped off at the White Rock Visitors Center to then come up to Los Alamos and do, you know, the museums and restaurants and such.

So that's really what the original intent was. It took many years for us to be able to do it. And so, unfortunately, now that we don't have the the shuttle stopping at White Rock Business Center, it it I I imagine that what they're gonna find in the survey is that it was mostly, you know, our residents that are utilizing it up and down the hill. Yeah.

You know, and I do wanna say one thing. I'm sitting here thinking, man, I sound really negative, but that's not it. Y'all, I've been helping with LTAP now for three and a half years, and it is a passion of mine to see this really cool, unique little city have available, you know, what we need to really have people come up here and enjoy what we have. And so I'm not meaning any of what I'm saying to be a negative thing or a we can't. I wanna figure out how we can.

You know? So and I've talked to my owners. I actually have an owner visit coming up in April, and maybe I'll see if we can't set up some time with is it still what is the name? Economic development or is it so I've we've met with economic development many times. And, you know, maybe we just need to figure something out and have them go meet with them again.

But it would be nice to, you know, get some of that up here. And and I would I would knock on doors. I'd do whatever we need to do because I'd love to see it happen. I'd love to see us have those people not want to stay in Santa Fe, but to feel like they can come up here and enjoy the same level of comfort and you know? You know what I mean?

So it brings us back to what three things do we want to trying to keep us on task to advance to counsel, to talk about that we would like to see them work on. And what I come back to after this discussion so far is that the issues that we have are the same issues that the county has as a whole. How do you get workers into the county? How do you get businesses started? So what three sort of priorities would you wanna see in that realm for county for the council to work on?

So I would say, that number one would be and I know. But number one would be labor because then number two is gonna open up more businesses if they know that they don't have to struggle to find people is what I would say.

And so in that space, I come back to maybe one of the things that comes out of this tourism plan is that identifying RV places. Because a lot of building workforce, from what I understand, uses their fifth wheels or their travel trailers, and that's their home away from home, and that's how they make that workforce available in many parts of the country. And so maybe looking at developing an RV park that has full facilities within the county limits to accommodate that workforce because I know some of that workforce right now is accommodated down in Pauwaki at the RV park down there. But being closer to the work they're doing rather than having to stay in hotels or do that kind of thing might be worthwhile.

The only bad part about an RV park is it's wide not high.

Granted, but it doesn't take up the same space as a house. Yeah. That's true. You know, an RV park, you can put in 60 spaces in a much smaller space, and people don't expect the same land usage because this is a temporary thing. What are your thoughts, Connor?

Have a lot of thoughts.

Sure. But they're not.

None of them are. I do

agree with that, though, on the RV park. It would help.

So maybe we need to that would be one of the options as to move forward is to look at if there are places in the community that we could look at doing an RV park that would accommodate both visitors and perhaps construction staff?

I think the problem that currently stands the RV park in White Rock is pretty much empty a bunch of the time, it seems like. And what you mentioned to me was that it's not a full service RV park in the county also has limits on how many days at a time you can stay. So that limits our long term stayers, our TA 55 workers are, you know, the workforce that we're talking about So,

Chair and members, I think the idea of, you know, bringing the fact that an RV park could be beneficial, there are it could be that the county puts out, some kind of, you know, statement of interest for someone to operate an RV park on a parcel of land. So it'd be very similar to the RFPs that we put out for someone to maintain and operate or manage and operate the nature's an a nature center at our facility at this spot. So, again, that's how you kinda get that's how you'd get away from it's not a it's not camping, and that's the two week in any thirty day limitation. So if we put you know, if someone was operating an RV park, then the rules would be would be different.

I'd be really interested in seeing if that's if the county would be open to something similar. And is there a way we could collect lodgers tax on something like that, or is that out of our

of our scope? Stay because I think if it went over thirty days, you'd be out of the lodgers'

check anyway

because you're a long term Right. But, I mean, it would certainly be something worth looking into. But at the same time, I think that's one thing we can all agree on is that looking into maybe an RFP for something that would allow for an r RV park. That would give us our first one.

Yeah. Your first one. Our first one. Yeah. That sounds like you all agree on.

And can they extend that beyond the two week, periods at both the Main Gait and White Rock?

So that is in the code. So, yes, that code could be changed. So again, that's never been considered. So, that may be something also that you want to, you know, recommend. I mean, think the thought is that they really are for short term visitors.

So if you say long term, then you do end up getting they will you know, people can't come during Balloon Fiesta, for instance, because they're and and we don't reserve. So, I mean, I think if that's something that you're saying that we need another, you know, housing option, basically is what you're saying, it's a little bit different than for visitors. Yeah.

And we don't get a lot of Balloon Fiesta people that come all the way up here. We get some, but not not a lot a lot. So Overnight, you mean? Yes, ma'am. So if it's gonna benefit us more for labor, you know, we may have to look at, okay. If you're if the only week you're saying we're full in that lot is Bloomfest, which I don't think would be really a pull up here, then I think it is prudent for us to kinda look at that and see if we couldn't figure out a way to maybe make, the majority of it long term and maybe leave a few slots somewhere that would be, you know, more for a short term guest?

No. No. So what I'm hearing is that maybe we advanced two ideas as far as an RV park type thought is there, is looking at maybe changing codes so that we could enable long term more long term stays in our current situation, and then maybe also look at putting out an RFP or advancing that type of request to see about operating an RV park that would encompass both long term and short term people.

And I think what you could do is be a look much more broad than that and just say, you know, investigate the possibility of RV parks, you know, another RV park.

Yeah. Just hello. I'm sitting in the back room listening. So as a quick update to the RV discussion, there was a piece of property along 502 across from the airport, that I think prior to my joining the county had been a property that was folks were interested in exploring the opportunity there for RV park, and the thought there was sort of stays a little bit longer than you might have at sort of a more tourist oriented park. This would be for, say, workforce, whether they're tradespeople working at the lab or whomever that may want to stay up here for a longer period of time.

Something more similar to the RV park in Pauwaki next to the large gas station on what would that be? The West Side Of 285. So we hired Bohannon in Houston. We did a study looking at the potential for the creation of RV park, both at that location at on 502 as well as improving the RV infrastructure at Camp May. Unfortunately, the feasibility is challenging at both locations.

At 502, it's challenging for a number of reasons. One is the size of the the area. Just getting enough spaces in there would be challenging. And then access is also very challenging there. Getting sort of large recreational vehicles in and out of that site, having to potentially cross 502 if you were to come back towards town, just creates a lot of challenges.

Also, the amount of real estate you need just for vehicles to decelerate, as they're on either side of 502 to access that property, creates, some challenges as well. So that site's not looking super feasible. Camp May has its own feasibility challenges, not so much in the site of Camp May, but in some of the access to Camp May. For large recreational vehicles. It's a challenge to get things in there.

So we're in a bit of a holding pattern. This is not to say we wouldn't pursue either or both locations. It's just our initial feasibility studies showed that there needs some further discussion. It's not a slam dunk at either location. And so I just wanted to interject that into this conversation just as you guys are thinking about making recommendations as to what to focus on moving forward. There is some progress being made in exploring additional locations for RV accommodation in the county, but those two sites may be a little bit farther out.

Right. And that's what my next question was gonna be is have we looked at other locations within the county? Because we did used to have I don't think they called it an RV park in the day, but we did have that on DP Road back when there was a lot of building going up here in the late forties, early fifties.

So thank you. DP Road is probably not a likely location at this time. We are looking exploring some other opportunities on DP Road with some of the remaining parcels there. That doesn't mean that, you know, DP Road 502 and Camp May are the only locations in the county. Obviously, there's other locations, that could be explored. I don't know those off the top of my head, but that doesn't mean that there's not further study that could happen in trying to identify an appropriate location for an RV park

That's the great. That's great. Thank you. Appreciate it. I think that's one idea that we do wanna though, that would be one of the things we'd like to look at is say the council look at the feasibility of some of these other places too. I mean, there are other places in town as well at the end of 15th, not 15th, 20th Street where Marriott was going to build. If we aren't gonna end up with another hotel in that area, is there something else that could go in there? Liza is saying no, but but just general different places within the county, I guess, is what I'm saying as we're thinking through things.

And the only other comment that I would make on that is what we'd be bringing in with RVs is going to be contract laborers for Land Oll or for some of the bigger jobs, not necessarily the labor that we need to clean rooms or be a waitress.

Right. But, I mean, certainly people to come in and start building infrastructure and bring down the cost of building within the county. And that would be beneficial to to everyone within the county. Alright. You had another one, Connor.

I was just thinking about RV parks and the restrictions that'll need to go around that because there is a two week time cap currently for a reason. So I was just rolling that in my head of

Right. You'd have to have a management in Yeah. Agreed. You'd have to have management in there for sure. Other municipalities seem to be able to navigate that, not that it's not a little bit challenging. So if we submit that as one, let's go on to number two. I know. So let's try to other ideas for for something else that we could say to counsel as far as this is something we'd like to have looked at?

So I guess I would just go back to number one, maybe be the RV park. Number two, be labor because then we could work on number three, which is bringing more business into the area. And if that's not what y'all are looking at, that's fine.

Right. I think what they're trying to find is like, how do you specifically get behind something that relates to this that would bring labor into the area?

Yeah.

And that sort of thing. Which

yeah. I I think you could, you know, definitely, it was identified regarding the downtown blight. I think to some level that could be considered a part of that. But in terms of some of these other ones, when you're looking at 3.2, that's sort of where the downtown area kind of is identified. That's where I would kind of point you in the direction of if you wanted to kind of point them toward a specific, you know, action item that was listed, that might be the area that you would kind of consider.

And unfortunately, there aren't any that are directly related to that I'm seeing at this time. You know, some of those other things of getting people open on the

weekends, etcetera. Great. And at the same time, we do talk about the downtown by blight in that 3.2 and maybe directing the county to look at, is there a way well, we don't own these properties within the county by having empty properties within the county and having developers who aren't developing those properties or renting out because they can't get the rents they want or what? Oh, yeah. Because they're as Connor said, waiting for Lantel or or that sort of thing.

Is there some sort of tax incentive that we can provide? And and incentive is probably the wrong word, but, like, a progressive tax for having an underdeveloped property that isn't being rented out. Could the county look at that? Because that place is taking up county resources. It is taking up an opportunity cost because without having a business in there, we aren't getting sales tax for the county. We aren't getting other things for the county in there.

While you're walking up there. I don't think it's just this Columbus capital area that Jenna's talking about. I know that there's a lot of commercial spaces in town that are just waiting for Landell to rent them out, and so they'd rather them go empty and write them off on their taxes at the end of the year than actually fill them at a reasonable price. So I think what Jen is getting at is Right. Not an incentive, but

So so we it's did it's it's probably been four years now, if not more, actually. We did look council did ask us to look at a vacancy, and I don't know what we were calling it. A vacancy fee or something because it's not a tax. And we did look there was some success in, I wanna say, Clovis or Roswell. I'm I'm forgetting where it was.

But they were having success. And, unfortunately, they were were doing it in their privately owned properties, so residential areas. So they were trying to kind of turn over houses. And then they were also in their business district as well. And so there was a couple requirements.

It was you had to have someone local that you could call if, let's say, there's a beep, you know, some alarm going off in this vacant property. There had to be a local agent that the the county could call to take care of this. So you had to establish that. And then the other one was it was charging you, know, every quarter that it was vacant. And in in investigating those, I was working with counselor David Israelovitz at the time.

It's the amount of money that you really properly could charge is so minimal. You know, it was like a $100, you know, for the first year it's vacant and such. And so it's such a small percentage of what they're waiting to make that you it really doesn't incentivize. We didn't felt like it was gonna incentivize. And then you're really looking at how do you actually enforce that it actually is vacant.

So if one day they go in there and move around some furniture, did they occupy it for that one day and then that starts the clock over again? So it's it's a little it we did look at it. It's a complicated issue. It's a complicated issue. Council looked at it a couple different times and have have never directed staff to continue to to implement it. So

Okay.

Again, it it could be looked at again, definitely, but it it actually has been looked at fairly recently.

And what put the cap on it as being like you could only charge so much tax if it were vacant?

Well, you know, I I don't really remember, but it really is just has to

be

reasonable. Right? You can't just start. So as a county, we, you know, we would have to figure out what the I forget what we were calling it, but it was that just you just can't start charging

Right.

Thousands and thousands of dollars. That's unreasonable for a

Right.

A county. So I think looking at what other people were charging, I think we were trying to be comparable. Okay. So

It does not deter me from wanting to look at it again.

That's fine. But no. I yeah. I just yeah. I kinda wanna give you that. And it's and

But I like the history. Thank you. I think it's hard to look at other what Roswell is doing because they have a lower income rate and rent costs probably than we do, just to guess. So I I would like to see if we can present that.

Then I'm good with moving on with that for our number two so that the council can determine whether or not it's it's worthwhile to pursue. Do we have a third?

I if you don't mind, chair, I would just Yes. Please do. Because from what I was hearing, I mean, a lot of what I heard, and I'm sure there's something in the plan that talks about this, it really talks about the visitor experience. Why, you know, aren't they coming up? Or what are the barriers to bring them for longer?

So, you know, is there something, is there a survey or is there some data that we could take over the course of X amount of months or a year to try and really hone in on, you know, verify what the hotels are hoteliers are seeing, you know, and then be able to share that data with entrepreneurs or other businesses to say, look, there's people that wanna stay. There's people that but they can't because the you know, there's no restaurants open on Sunday. So, again, I don't know if there's something there, but to me, kinda looking over that. And then the other only other thing that I know that the plan really contemplated is kind of kind of the outdoor recreation, the events, the kind of the tour tournament tourism kind of activities. And again, I know our community services director is really good, you know, is really focusing on that.

So again, is there is there more that we could be doing, more that we could be exploring? You know, we're we're gonna have that Trans Rockies race. So, again, using that as a jumping off part, is there others other areas where we could kinda generate

this discussion. Go ahead, comma.

Once Breweryna is online, I think it would be great to see if we can get some more rodeo type things up here, which that's a those people love to spend money. There's a lot of Yeah. A lot of opportunity in there. And I think as a as a person who owns a stable up here, we're not thinking forward about five, ten years what what can be done at that lot. We're thinking about ourselves and what our pony is like and are enjoying at the moment.

Could there be something around Some expansion broader, of you know, utilization of current facilities and expanding of programs and events there to continue to

Well, and I think that's a really good point that you brought up is that maybe what we need to look at for our third point is just that, is there some sort of data? Is there some sort of survey? Is there something we can do to gain the information we need in order to develop where do we want or where can we make improvements to bring that tourism dollar to Los Alamos?

Yeah. So I think that's something that you could potentially tie into 4.3 and the last one of 4.3 regarding conducting visitor intercept interview surveys. We do a little bit of it right now, but I will say, especially after that recent survey that Lindsay brought up, we saw it was a lot of locals that took this survey. And the internal discussion with the tourism working group was so we understand our how our community sees us, which is great information, but also then how does that compare to how a visitor sees us who isn't here day to day and may only be here for a day or two or three days, right? So I think that could be the one that you tie that back to.

And I think that would be great. I think that's those are our three priorities. Those are the three things that we can all agree that we really need to get behind and we can advance to counsel at this point.

Would you please do me a favor and just again reiterate what the three are? Because it was a lot of talk in

between. There was counselor Neil Clinton. So one is to talk about figuring out how to gain some of that data that we don't currently have as to how the outside world sees us. We see how our internal community sees us in those different recreation options or those sorts of things. However, it would be really great to garner some of that data, figure out a survey or something that could reach the greater New Mexico or Texas or Colorado community in order to figure out those areas that we could improve upon that would make us more of an overnight destination.

So that would be number one. Number two would be looking at developing an RV park that would allow a longer stay possibility for people in town or looking at changing code so that some of those longer stay RVers who would be part of the construction industry would be able to stay at some of our parks a little bit longer. So it's really the RV park aspect of what we could do here in Los Alamos County. And then the third one, I'm gonna let you say, Ellen, because you took notes.

Forgive me. So you said the RV. You said the visitor intercept survey. So that's counselor Neil Clinton. So that's coming from 2.1 item, a 4.3 item, and then the other one, it's my understanding, would be 3.2, which is around having the empty properties and developers that aren't moving because they can't get rent. Their questions were more about tax incentive, but really it was about reducing blight in the downtown area as a whole is the action item that that's related to. Right. Under 3.2.

Exactly. Thanks, Ellen. So does that all make sense, councilor New Clinton?

Yes. It does. Thank you.

You bet. And thanks for having us circle around so that we really express that all at once because there was a lot of discussion. All right.

I guess the question would be, do you want to just focus on phase one now and perhaps at the next meeting, due for the sake of time Yes. You discuss kind of the phase two?

Yes, please. So I think we've nailed down phase one and we can give it a little bit more thought.

Yeah, you have to take action

on Right. So with those three things being brought back up, being summarized, we need someone to say to make a motion to advance it towards council.

Following a discussion of the implementation action plan and status of items, it is recommended the board provide is this what I'm supposed to read? The board provide counsel with the three identified immediate items we would like county to focus on completing. In addition

I would just

We are skipping phase two. Yeah. Now These items, are being voted upon I move that these items be voted upon with the understanding that the chair or vice chair will bring them to council for recommendation of completion. Did I? I

second. All in favor? Aye. Alright. Passes. Great. Thanks. So now we are gonna move on to the lodgers tax revenue report and budget approval. It is.

Okay. Regarding the Lodger tax revenue report, that is just listed for you to see where we are at as of the February. The recommended action on this one is going to change a little bit. After I published this for your meeting today, I found out that it was determined that a reduction was not going to be needed for lodgers tax. So with that in mind, I'm gonna kinda give you the back story as you look to the second attachment, which is the proposed budget page. So the what you're going to be looking at instead of what's listed on that is you're going to be looking at the 2026.

Is it the actual? The Or

the adopted? It'd be the adopted. Right? Yep. So yeah. So due to the fact originally, kinda some backstory on this. I'm not gonna read the full full body for the sake of time. But the backstory on this was that the county was asked to if we could do a 10% reduction in every area regarding different different budgetary items. Right? And what was determined in toward the end of last week was lodgers tax isn't something we can really control.

Right? It's based upon the hotels. And with that in mind, that reduction would not be needed of the 10%. So instead of looking at the 2027 proposed for you to kind of prove here, instead we'll be looking at the 2026 adopted. So that would be the part around the $454,953 amount.

In terms of contractual services in printing and binding, looking at 41,200. In supplies other operational, that's stuff we use for the visitor centers. The 10,300, I believe that was due to a rollover that that number is so large while I'm looking at it here. So that I believe that might be less. But then we have the administration.

So that's regarding reviewing, like, the admin side of the budget, and that's about a little less than 5,000. So the grand total we'd be looking at to have you review and approve to move forward to counsel for the budget hearings happening next month would be around that $511,357 amount. Does that make sense in terms of where that number comes from? Yeah. Really, we're kind of anticipating staying perhaps flat for what we anticipated this year due to we did see a total of in visitation about a minus point, you know, point 1%, a very small decrease that was due to the government shutdown that happened and the national parks not being open and seeing fewer visitation.

So we're kind of anticipating that if we keep this in alignment with what we thought was going to happen without the shutdown, that number should should keep us kind of in line with how we're spending our funding this year. I guess, kind of the next thing would be, do you have any questions about that number before you go into motions? Yes, Connor.

What does the remind me what the contractual services are. Which ones which contracts we have open currently that we're spending money on. Obviously, Destination IQ.

Mhmm. And that so that's our tourism marketing services contract.

Okay.

And then we also have our contract regarding the visitor centers. That's also done through that funding. And then if you look at attachment a, it breaks down the rest of that. That there's also let's see. Yeah.

Those would and then, yeah, those would be the two contracts that are kind of considered open because if we're looking at the former fiscal year from 2026 and what we have so Griffin Associates is the old person who ran tourism marketing services. Right? The auditing, but but none was really needed at that time. Global Visa Technologies is what Destination IQ runs under in that item list. And the New Mexico tourism department, Currently, if there's anything above the 15,000 that is included in the Destination IQ contract, that comes from an economic development fund instead.

So truly, the only two contracts are Destination IQ for tourism marketing services and then our visitor centers, which is done through Discover Los Alamos.

And and I'll just add that the auditing firm Mhmm. There is a required audit every year. It's it's a small where they actually do check revenues and lodgers tax that have been paid. So that's a that's a requirement of of having the fund.

And LACDC is not included in this one despite it being on attachment a?

So it's listed as LACDC because Discover Los Alamos is under them as a company. Does that make sense?

This 294,000 is Visit Los Alamos.

That is the tourism. Okay. Yeah. The regarding the visitor centers.

Our agreement is with LACDC.

Oh, yeah.

Visit Los Alamos was just kind of a Umbrella. Program.

Yeah. In the same way that we see Global Visa Technologies listed, but it's really DestinationIQ. Does that make sense? Yes.

Kind of like the parent agency. Great. Any other questions? Alright.

So for the recommendation because of that, I would just say I move to approve the proposed budget with the understanding it will be the same as f y 2025. That's how I would say that.

2020

Because it would have been this or wait. Excuse me. 2026. Thank you.

Yes.

So I move that we go ahead and approve the proposed budget with the numbers from 2026 without the the 10% reduction. I second that. All in favor? Alright. It it passed. No opposed. And so I think that's it for today.

There's more.

There's more?

Yeah.

Fee. Oh, council report. Sorry. Alright. Councilor Neil Clinton, I missed your report. I apologize.

No worries. I actually don't have one. This is my first meeting. I believe we were scheduled to have one earlier, but for whatever reason, I don't believe we had a quorum. So this is actually my first meeting.

Terrific. Actually, at our last meeting, we moved to a bimonthly schedule. So in order to hopefully gain quorum on a more regular basis.

I completely understand.

Yeah. So thank you for that. So boards and commissions report. Do anything to add? We don't have anything to add there. And then so then the other announcements.

It was included in the email that was sent out that Lindsay mentioned in that quarterly report, but there is a public page. This was also mentioned Mhmm. By our chair at the boards and commissions meeting. There is a public page on losalamosnm.gov, which has just been updated from .us, FYI. This happened yesterday.

But there is a page on there that is called Tourism in Los Alamos County. Under that, you can find all of the reports that Lindsay had mentioned they were working on, so those initial data assessment plans, things like that, in addition to information about the rolling lodgers tax deck that Lindsay mentioned that she has available, as well as all kinds of information about visitation in the last few years, current initiatives, things like that. There's also a link to the report that deputy county right? Yeah. Deputy county manager Madison and I will be giving tonight at council about tourism as well as a link to the report vice chair Tharp and I gave last year to council for people interested in viewing that.

Anybody else have announcements?

And then our next meeting is in May. Alright. Is there anything as long as we're here, is there anything anyone wants in particular on that May agenda item, or are we good? Alright. Then great. Then I will adjourn us. Thank you. Thank you all.