Tourism Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the tourism advisory committee meeting. Um go around with introductions to Linda Reeseman Johnny Keith Chandler Seth Morsey Sat Ber Swson and our guest Robin Mont. Yes. Great. A view of the minutes.

I move to approve the minutes of December 17. Second. All those in favor? I. Anyone against? Okay, that is passed. I want to review. Okay, let's take a look at report bunch of stuff. And you can really make this bigger because like I'm having trouble reading. That's how long I've been here. Welcome aboard. Yes.

Uh, okay. We'll start at the top and just go through these. I mean, sometimes these are really standard and I don't go over them, but there's enough stuff in here that there's talk about. I heart that's our Seattle radio. This is KBKS uh campaign. Uh Jair's office supplies. Little bird is our PR, but only a small fraction of that cost is our monthly PR retainer. Most of that cost is our broadcast commercials we are running in the Seattle market through them on on those three agents I talked about in previous direc condo association is our world market parking garage dues and power agency is our email marketing automation uh updates and leads processing coffee supplies for the office goat is is all paid search and it's we're basically reimbursing them for the things they spent on our behalf for paid search. They used to do web development for us, but it's all fully advertising now. Ken is uh is SDA meetings reimbursements November 6th through December 4th.

Just a guy. Yes. Community liaison seaside famous residents.

WTV is uh our weather cam and banners for Fox. The Luna Sentry Link is just citywide telephone that happened to be our kind of legacy lines that just we keep for I guess Media America is our November editorial. So three stories from us is doing every other month website maintenance for us. So they built their website and they're updating things making sure things are working correctly every other month. The cadence we've sort of fallen on at least while that website is really fresh. patch marks. This is our first of two uh treasure quest new treasure quest patch designs. We'll pay the second one when we receive our treasure quest patches. Hopefully hopefully next week. Um US Bank is our copy release. Worthy marketing is December work for the Oregon's North Coast which is a story seaside Canada beach works county for that as well. Your news. So this is once per year. We split this with the with the city admin. So you all basically this is basically a monitoring service that just picks up um mentions of seaside and it and what's really nice about this it gives us clips of our web and stuff. I don't think it picks up all of them but when they use it in like a newscast it'll send us an email and it will list out here are your TV mentions, here are your web mentions, here are your stories. It links them to them and gives you some data around things like what is the publicity value of this roughly. But what it really is nice for us is it gives us a lot of ability to see clips from our

Yes. So is that stories that the city's produced or all stories? Yeah. It's just looking pick up and see on the beach story right all the time. There's tons of aquarium stuff in there. Yeah. or if there's like you know crime stories or hopefully the aquariums aren't the crime stories. Wasn't there a crime like the octopus could have been?

I heart is again that's Seattle radio. This one though was KG and we were in heavy heavy radio rotations there this winter. Laser printing copy is a whole bunch of envelopes and labels. We ran out of Holly Bay guides this year and so Ken was scrambling trying to make [laughter] sure we always had enough things to stuff our guides into and send send to for a while. But uh that should all change tomorrow. We won't need laser print for a couple years. Yeah, probably not.

Agency tourism marketing. That's our leads and email platform. Again, coin is our weather cam and and our banners. We also get some commercials through that. Little bird is again this is going to be a small portion of that is our PR retainer but most of it is November broadcast back in Seattle and Portland. It's we ran a lot of commercials and I I I if you're interested in I don't know if it's in this No, it's not in this one. But if you look past back a couple packs, you'll see all the breakdown of the different shows it was running in sports games. Um, it was running during Thanksgiving parade and all sorts.

Oregon media that's via this one right here. January, February. Continue to get our awesome first page placement. Really nice. Yeah, he's over at the office right now. He looks kind of like that actually as I was eating. She looks like

Yeah. are Washington

Seattle chamber of seaside chamber of commerce that is the track grant for the arts grant sda is the alley beautifification for uh the arts grant and the tsunami skippers is the organ classic or the events you look at the expenditures everything's looking good I will point out that there's Some of these are over spent for the year already. Um, grounds maintenance, that's just because this year, um, the finance team has decided to put this grounds maintenance in as one payment. So, they paid the whole year immediately instead of doing it every month like they have in the past.

Plus, there's a 3% contract increase for her year-over-year, like in her contract, but it wasn't budgeted for. So, that's why it's over the account, basically. legal services that that's all related to a a uh the uh property acquisition and chamber lease negotiation stuff. We got a bill like five months after it occurred, you know. So that's actually all from last fiscal year, but there's nothing you can do. That's the only place we could put it. Computer services, it's just an increase in citywide costs that Zach will have to remedy. But as far as things that we have control over, everything

I know this is self- serving question, but the 30,000 for building maintenance, what what did you anticipate having to do this year? Well, there's just placeholders. Remember we had that work done? Oh, the outside window where the window we had Yeah, that bit where he's out there. on all that work done. I think that was the last fiscal year though, wasn't it? Or was it done this summer? I don't know. It was done this summer. It was. Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was just It was probably just hold.

Okay. Um, well, I don't know how much Josh is going to say about things, so I'll go with I cleaned out our storage unit yesterday. Survived. I did not have haunted so far. Um, no, it wasn't that bad. Just a lot of trash cardboard. Yeah, it's a lot of chewed up cardboard. Uh, but all clean, ready for our new guides that are arriving tomorrow. So, Thursday and Friday, I plan on being out and about delivering guides um everywhere as I usually do. A lot of fun. Glad the weather's going to be okay. Uh we have been seeing a couple visitors a day. Generally there a lot of day trippers from Portland or Washington. Um there have been a few people that are staying a couple nights. Um but a lot of it's just been you know a lot of people actually looking for the 2026 guide and they're like oh well we're staying this week. We'll come back Thursday. So that's kind of cool. They're staying a few nights. Um we do have governor's conference on tourism coming up in March a little earlier than usual. Travel Oregon and the welcome center is doing something a little different this year. Usually we attend and we go to breakouts and then we go home. This year to switch it up, uh we're going to set up a miniature welcome center in the vendor area. Uh it's a big breakout place. And if anybody's ever gone to something like that, you have, you know, 50 or more booths of people throughout the industry. So for us, we're going to be setting up a welcome center. And every welcome center uh in Oregon will take turns with staff that will, oh, it's your it's your shift. and we'll all I'm ready to do the whole thing in the welcome center. I think that'll be a lot of fun. Uh so looking forward to that. Just doing something a little different. Uh as usual it's in Portland. Our night out is at Blazers

against Charlotte. What are they? Hornets. Yeah. So who knows? Um and then uh last week I put together um another radio prize package. This was for Portland Radio Z 100, right? We have one left that's going to be uh back up in Seattle. Uh and again, Ed Tide was one of those that provided a couple of overnights for us on that. I appreciate that. Um and then staff, you mention ahead. So, uh welcome to our new part-time employee who had been our fill in Jim Beasley. Uh will now be working Mondays 10 to 2 and Saturdays and then Sundays when we open.

Uh and then we have Nate Burke as our new filling. if anybody Nate Nate used to work as a visitor information specialist. He wrote most of our blogs. Uh and it was at the convention center for a while. So he's super excited. It was great to see Nate. It's been a long time. Uh and um that's all I have at this point. That's great. Do you do you want to give a quick update on like what the status is of the welcome centers just in general? Because I remember you I've heard you talking about Travel Oregon went through their still going through some changes. Um, obviously if you read anything last year, um, they've switched, uh, can't remember his name now. Who was the head guy?

Todd Davidson. Todd Davidson. Um, he stepped down. Uh, he's helping with an interim, a new guy that's going to come over and run the show. Uh, they've made a ton of staff changes. Um, basically that also cut back budgets. And for the first time since it's been open, the Brookings Welcome Center is not this year. So, usually in the winter, Ontario and Clamoth Falls, they close. Uh, but this year they chose to close Brookings down for the winter months, which kind of a bummer cuz we send people there all the time that want California stuff. So, well, right before you get there, stop in in Brookings. Um, so kind of sad that we don't have that. Uh, and I know that they cut back some hours at one of the others. Um I think it might have been working in the city, but that's part of an interpretive center anyways. So they have their own thing going there. But

yeah, because Brook has just closed for the winter time they'll be like like Ontario and Clamoth. They just closed for a few months in the winter. Um but Brookings was one of those that had never happened. They're also in like the Forest Service building and some other things. So there's a lot of foot traffic through their building, but traveling decided that here they didn't be there. We might be there. Thanks. Thank you.

Let's take a look at them. December, very positive month in general. Our, believe it or not, our visitor center foot traffic was up 11%. It did not feel like it. I think a good chunk of love for chamber people coming in for the chamber, but um I guess that's pretty normal. Actually, what it might be is the some of it was Yeah, that was noted. I mean, that's Well, I guess that that only accounts for the 40 like 43 or something. That's December.

One day in the summer, but a month in December. But I will say I mean if you skip down to the website sessions they were up 31% over last December. And so I mean yeah it's just you know that's that continuing trend that we're always seeing. But we ended the year today we ended the year 2025 about equal with what we were last year.

So um that's actually that's actually decent given that the trend has been down of the last decade. Phone volume for the month was up a little bit, but still pretty pretty subdued. Visitor guide lead volume from our website was down and we saw that kind of decrease in like the web traffic there at the very end of December as far as guides ordering. However, some of that is because we literally put a disclaimer up saying, "Hey, you're ordering the 202 guide. It's not here for three more weeks. less, you know, if you want a 2025 drive, we're happy to mail it to you. Some of that kind of pushing that off distribution though without a ton 452%. Again, I've talked about this many times before, but that's just kind of the luck of a draw on whether certified comes by in the end of November or early December. That that number would have been in in November.

End of the [clears throat] year 94,000. I think maybe I think one more box went out. Didn't you take one more to World Markers? Yeah. Yeah. Last week. That's about That's about right for the year though. And how many did we order? 100,000. A lot of these were uh pre- shipped. So that 94,000 is just ours. That's just that's just what went out the door.

Yes. 6,000 were to drop somewhere. They get shipped directly. Total web sessions for the year were up 10%. Users were up 13%. So we're we're nearing half a million [clears throat] individual users web users here. Email signups were up thanks to in large part our radio packages that Ken mentioned earlier. They're up 60% for the year. Organic visitor guide requests were up 21%. Used for active users were up 60% off for the year as well about 60%. Engagement time down. We continue to see that especially with a lot of our campaign holiday traffic. We saw the time that most people were on the site were lower because we have such a larger volume coming onto us. Have not gotten updated bed tax or BRD totals yet for the next quarter. But we have countywide data. STR data for November showed a negative 0.2% change in occupancy year-over-year for November, but a 2% growth in red part and room. Any questions about those report? So we have the results of the give the gift of peside campaign that ran throughout November and into the first weeks of December. Um as a reminder our objectives with this campaign were to inspire audiences to bring their friends loved ones to seaside as of a physical gift and then sort of auxiliary to that generally inspire travel to seaside during the holiday season and throughout the winter months by celebrating the joys of the quieter offseason visit. We set up a dedicated campaign landing page on the site that culminated in implication to

order set travel guide. We pulled our November email blast in the mix and aligned our allocations across a broad spectrum to be print broadcast campaign all sorts of things. The main campaign was run via Meta Facebook with a $10,000 budget and targeted to six regional markets. Portland, Ben, Seattle, Tri Cities, Spokane and Indianapolis. For these markets, we built four ad carousels of images about five or six images each with the following themes. Get the gift to seaside, holiday getaways, winter getaways to younger with to people with younger kids, and winter getaways targeted to folks with older kids. We also built out single image ads for weekly use, and several stories involved. listed out here kind of the results from a landing page view total um ranked by by total landing page views basically. But the campaign directly resulted in 14,484 landing page views and reach almost half a million people in our target markets with a 2.2 frequency. Our overall impressions were 983,000. Clickthrough rate for the campaign was a strong 4.87%. Cost per click was a low 21 cents. Campaign showed no signs of creative fatigue throughout with metrics well above typical tourism benchmarks from our partners and indicating consistent sustained interest in our creative across all regions. Of course, things got a little more expensive in the smaller markets. That's why Portland and Seattle dominate that. It's just more people get. But um it provided meaningful delivery to the smaller markets and supported larger metro areas. Travel guide orders over the that period was a 28% year-over-year lift for the duration of the campaign. I got some more stuff in here that can show you just to give you a sense of what some of these things look like.

So these this these were I barted and you can't quite tell because of the way this previous but these are a whole carousel. So this was a gift to seaside carousel and there were like five images in here and this is just how it looked across different mediums basically. So it's kind of hard to get a total sense of what that carousel looked like. But this is the different ways this carousel was showing up to people. Our holiday getaway carousel showing up like this. This is our winter getaway to a younger crowd. This is our winter getaway to an older crowd. And then um we had a different variation on this for certain regions that were outside the metro area. We had single image um ad feeds.

Did anybody ever ask for a cup? No. No. If you look closely, you can tell this is photoshopped onto a hard book. But you know the people that were serving this to we thought somebody go I was going to ask if it was an AI generated image or it was an AI generated just it was it's a photo but it was it was photoshopped

isn't my favorite in the world but so for like for this in for instance this image here uh Greg and I took this image and our agency this bow and this bottom part and I didn't I didn't like it. So, we used our We actually used our real photo because it just looked cartoonish and there was this like it's almost like this bow. You can't see it because it's covered. They were trying to kind of cover it up, but basically it looked like it turned into a puddle. It's like it melted or something. It was just weird. And it was the picture that we had was just fine. So yeah, I try to stay away from AI generated stuff as much as possible. But that that Photoshop thing was I was like, well, it's just such a cute image. I think it'll pull up parents especially, so went with it. This was another story that we did. Did this story of course was ironic because salt line was not open during this time, but we didn't know that when we were setting that up.

Um, yeah, indoor font. So that's more of along the lines of just a general winter visit that we were trying to reinforce. And then lastly trying to get people to get um bright seasonal imagery with people enjoying winter or holiday experiences performed best. Carousels with multiple lifestyle frames and the winter getaway visuals consistently drove higher engagement. It was a fun campaign and fairly affordable and I expect we'll be repeating this with different seasonal focuses. I really loved the idea of give the gift of seaside as an activity to give rather than an item. I think it

Yeah, when I saw the campaign at first I was like absolutely. Yeah, that's great. Coming to note. So yeah, tomorrow guides are supposed to arrive. Um, said all about that. He's got it all prepared and ready to go and I expect he'll be running all over town Thursday and Friday deliver [laughter] I have a conference.

I have a conference next week um Oregon Destination Association conference tiger. These are Oregon DMOs. Um I'm going to be on a panel uh talking about branding the interest on Tuesday. February 12th is the winter waters. Uh this was a TAC sense grants recipient. Um for seaside specifically they have a seaweed danotype event and they also have a meal at Osprey Cafe. So those are the seasides that flow.

Do you need to make destinations and do they have limiting? I don't think the I think both of them you need to Yeah. But the Osprey Cafe one especially is is like you're buying a nice pair.

The uh welcome center will be open 10 a.m. and the two on resence day in February. I expected May 4th. No updates on the tourism grant. So I gave the feedback from the committee to uh the mechan council about the mural and they were like okay great yeah we'll work on it but I haven't heard anything yet. So I don't have anything. And other than that, all the grants have been distributed and I think all the checks have gone out and we did a press release for it on the city website, sent out to a local journalist and there's been stories about him and I think I think a like a weekend stories coming out too like a feature story.

Did you end up seeing anything come out of the interview that was about that? Yeah, I saw get that that your news thing I told you about earlier. They picked up a story and it was that and it was I think it was it was either the Atorian or the Ara coast people and it was like it was about the but it had stuff about from the chamber I didn't see it in the signal which is weird. I haven't seen much signals. Well, that's fair. There's only six pages. That's fair. Yeah. Oh, even even on Facebook they're not posting much. Yeah. and I feel like they're really consolidating towards the mainly.

Um, yeah, that's it for tourism grants. Unless you guys have any more questions about that. Okay. If if we hear from them about the mural, I will certainly let you know. And so it's it's rotating. So we're done for the year until until July. And then July is the next start of what is the next?

Yeah, we'll be so we'll be done now um probably until May. We'll open it up again and I'll probably do we'll have we'll we'll have scheduled time to talk about what we want to do like going forward with the different grants. But I think we'll probably open both up at the same time, have them both be open instead of, you know, the ARCs grant took longer to get through the budget committee and all that stuff. And so once we finally opened it, it was only a few months whereas the events were open.

So I think we'll talk about it, but I think it would make sense to open it in May and then have the money first be available in July, run it through the end of like we did on the um KGW weather cam. We have a contract now signed. So, starting February 1st, we will have a KDW weather cam as well. Um, we will get 100,000 uh banner ad impressions monthly or a TV commercial schedule every month. They will be up to um we have a schedule basically for these things. So, it will have uh kind of added nicities. What I thought was kind of cool, and I couldn't capture it very well for you, but earlier today I went on WGW and looked at their weather cam. Have you guys ever looked at their weather cams that they stream? They do it very different than the other ones.

They run like a continuous video loop of all their cameras. So, it's not like you have your seaside cam sitting there. It just runs through the through the loop. But, they've already put the seaside cam up, which I thought was pretty useful. This is the stand up. It's so it's already working you. You're gonna like the view before you head out. Not not this view. Before you head out. It was great. It like really good angle. So this is this is what this is what it looks like. It looks back towards town. It's very similar to the lai.

Yeah, but you can't. It's really high definition. Looks really nice. It doesn't come across on the screenshot. I tried to take it larger to see if it would work better because the first one I took um was this one and it it [clears throat] it just kind of Yeah, it's just kind of blurry. But when it's running and you see the waves coming in, it's actually I would say it's more on par with our coin camera than the Fox camera. It just it's very vibrant and pretty. So, um I miss where where is it mounted on the Oh, it's on the light, too. Okay. Actually, I think I saw it. Oh, really? Yeah. What will be fun is like sunrise shots that you can use. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see.

I think it's going to surprise a lot of people who haven't seen this view of where's the where's the turnaround? I was watching their other cameras and their even their other coastal cameras. You know, the ocean's like well back. It's kind of gray out not horizon. This one it's like the w it's like the waves are lapping right. Well, it's mounted lower, I think. Right. I don't know exactly what the lam's up on the second story and I believe I saw it like kind of below the second story top of the first. It's not close enough for vandalis it was pretty low. We'll see. Yeah. Well, I did communicate with them that they keep looking this direction and not pointed out at the point.

Just a slight suggestion. It might I mean I don't think you lose a lot if you just tilt it slightly more see the beach and you could see the turnaround and everything and you're not really missing turn the turnaround's there. The dunes are just in Okay. Well, I guess you you'd be able to see the turn around if it wasn't for the dunes. These these these cameras they'll likely they move around a bit and we'll see what they settle on. Like I said, we're not even under contract with them yet. They just put this up early. So, we'll see how it goes because it's going to supposed to be called the visit seaside camera. So, we'll see. You can swing it right in on Robin's house. [laughter] Not suggesting that happen. How How long before we hear like that's not sees? Yeah. Right. Yeah.

I think if you look at the left, you're not really missing a lot. It ends at the World. Ends at World. Oh, and 2026 guy. Talk about it. Do you know how much the the cost is for the Channel 8? 2,000. 2,000. It's kind of in the middle between the two. It's a little bit more expensive than corn and not as much as 12. No, it's half. Well, can I ask an old business question that isn't on here? Um, yes. So, [laughter] you know, I'm going to do it anyway.

Unless you want to do it during the committee and stuff. Um, it just depends what kind of discussion you want to have. Uh, I was just kind of going to see what the status on the on us submitting what how we want this. I'll talk about Sorry. 1026 guy. I don't have any updates beyond that. It's in. We're just waiting for it to arrive. And then new business. It's a new new year. You guys got to pick a chair and a vice chair. And unfortunately, we're down a member. So, I have to pick whoever they appoint. We don't know when that will happen.

All right. Are you being for another year? No. [laughter] Too much pressure. Where's Where's the coin? I'll flip you. [laughter] Are you Am I I'm still here. I'm game for another year as vice. What if we reversed it? Fine. Okay. [laughter] I would like to uh I would [laughter] uh there's there's next year. Yeah. [laughter] I would like to nominate Ruth as vice chair. I'll second that.

Thank you. I'm sorry. Make a motion. Yeah. All those in favor are you going to I'll nominate S chair. I'll second that. [laughter] All those in favor I I got to make it weird. [laughter] Keith Oh, both. No. Yes. Keith loves coming in on the second. [laughter] [clears throat] You plan on missing any meetings next year?

I don't know. Learn. [laughter] And so I I'll add then Eddie what you're asking. You're asking something slightly different than what I was going to talk about. So yes, I submitted your um vision and statement for to the to uh city manager of city council and city manager will decide moving forward. And I don't exactly know what that process is. Maybe knows what that is. I think it's going to happen sooner rather than later because we discussed at the last meeting that we want to get on with it and get through it. So I think I I don't think it's on this agenda. It could be, but it definitely will be put up. Okay.

And I think we're going to invite either the chair or the whole committee to that meeting. So, couldn't have told me that before. I agreed. [laughter] It's an invitation. It's not a summit. [laughter] Be great to have you. Yeah.

Yeah. Our our initial ask was to produce that that vision and we've done that now. So now we're just waiting for what what what the followup is to set point. Is it to come to a meeting or is it you know the followup or what? There'll be more to come on that. What I did want to talk about though is um at the last meeting we um I asked if you would please submit budget requests and I so I wrote down all your ideas and I submitted those and they're asking me to ask you to rank them. So to remind the three ideas that came up and I I was cringing when I watched the video because you were like pointing out my face and I was like you're you're right. I'm very bad at ochre. I was very tired and had to eat bumps [laughter] and I was like no this just seems horrible but like

I got nothing to say. Straight face anything. You have you have the uh 101 highway signs increasing accessibility, landscaping and stuff just to make them more access people. That was the first one. The second one was uh the Y sign at holiday and the third one was the archway. So those are have all been submitted um and will be part of the budget deliberation process, but they want you to rank those from like most highest priority to lowest priority. So, you're going to have to agree amongst yourselves and then communicate that to me.

And actually, uh, one of my waking thoughts at 4:00 a.m. this morning was that I didn't talk about the, um, uh, sand bony, the sand cleaning machine at that at that meeting. Right. Right. At that meeting as a suggested budget request for for next year, is it still possible to add? I'm pretty sure at this point just the TAC and one other committee are the only ones that have actually put in the requests. So maybe you could convince the parts committee to do it. I mean we are past dead.

We are past deadline. We've already had our follow-up meeting which is why I'm asking you to but I mean you can always send an email to Spencer or the mayor. So yeah, there's always next year. There's got to check with state parks anyway if they'll even allow it. So we want to rank these three. Yeah. From highest priority to lowest. Did you also have the removing structures creating that didn't get make? I didn't make a formal request.

Did I make a comment on? We'll let you guys get through the cranking. I want to make a comment on that last one. flood and take a real good flood we take care of. So, do we want to rank them and what we want or what we think will happen or what or by cost being diplomatic, I would say what you want

and what you think will have to actually play a bit of role as well. Um did we uh sorry did you submit uh like actual numbers or approximate numbers? I had I had public works put gueststimates. Yeah.

Okay. Um did they guesstimate for uh digital signage at the any of those? They thought the Y place might be a a location to do digital signage signage for like upcoming events. Yeah. And it didn't really factor too much into the how much that would cost or anything. More about just building structure. Okay. I'm just wondering if if we had a budget request for Do you just recall off hand what that might have been for the Y? I do not. Okay.

No, I don't. So, I mean, say it was $20,000, but we know the sign is going to cost us $30,000 for a digital sign. I mean, so I mean, are we committing to Cuz I think if we're talking about a digital sign, I would say rank that number one would be how I would think about it. But a reader board. A reader board. Yeah. Um, do you do we know if there's power there? Uh, I don't know. Is there a light on that? I was going to say I thought there were no it would make sense that would be but I can't it's can't recall see there a pole there too there's something nearby cuz they have power to the Oh yeah

gas filler you know stuff so there's got to be some power

too bad Marcy wouldn't hear anything [laughter] she wouldn't know that she made she know anything about the corner Jeff Flory looked into it. He thought that we would have pretty good leeway to do things at this location. Like he thought it would uh it would pass the permissions test, but I can't. So, is this still here? It's funny. I don't even notice these signs driving the signs. Yeah.

Uh is that a light death right on the top shining down on it? Yeah, maybe not central. [laughter]

It's like there's a telephone pool right there. This area of town, I think, is subject to an urban renewal sort of situation. There [clears throat] could be a future state where this whole part of this road is much nicer, too, and it might be a nice inviting pathway. I thought the plan was to continue the holiday work all the way out. I think it is. You know, the north end. Say that one more time. You know how the north end of holiday they redid all the sidewalks and the lighting ring? I thought there was another step. I think it would have to be part of that improvement, you know, committee that we have. And I think right now we're focused on South Seaside.

So maybe the next one would be there. I don't know that do that without raising the funds. South Seaside Avenue have a new U area. But yeah, I think that's probably when it would get done, but I know there was plan to do that next. Cool. improving accessibility to the north and south highway signs. Think that's a higher priority than the reader board?

I think a reader board probably would be the higher priority and then I mean people can access it now, but it it's not I don't think it's the beautiful entry that we're hoping it is. um and not accessible people to take selfies, which they do, but I know my concern would be to make it to where it's more safe if they do [clears throat] it. For sure. To me, that would be a higher priority. Then to make sure people are they're doing it anyway, so it' be nice to make sure they don't get hurt doing it. Correct. So that's that's why I'd probably make it like a priority for the safety feature because you know Yeah.

It's an interesting point too because we've invested a lot of money in those signs. It would be nice to kind of it off and make it the whole experience look like it's deliberate. Yeah. So I'd put that one. I'd put the read two. And as much as I I'd like to put the archway one probably not going to have I still would like that we when we upgrade holiday but we put the archway there right by our reader board of course send them all down holiday historic arch was on

that' be a great way to clear some 101 but I don't think I think 101's going to want a lot of people that ODOT's gonna want a lot of people furning without a light. So, there's changes coming to that intersection here. Not that intersection, the Broadway intersection. Mhm. Yeah. Right. The Broadway intersection that was supposed to be done by now originally. Highest priority. Is it going to be roundabout? Well, it was that be great. There's not space. But they have a plan apparently. That ship has sailed on roundabouts since he signed. Yes.

Does anyone have a different opinion about the ordering? I know say you have slightly different opinion, but yeah, but I'd accept that. That's kind of the order they were written down here, too. So, the safety thing is what would drive me to make it a higher priority. Well, and just cleaning it up. So, he does look intentionally. Yeah, that's that's fair. It'd be nice to get both done. Absolutely. What do you think, Linda? Oh, no. I agreeable to that.

Okay. The actual cost for that is um all said it's dependent on when they reopen asphalt plan or something like that will set what the cost is but he's he estimated like 20,000 for one of them 25,000 for the other maybe cheaper if you're doing both at the same time but he won't know for sure until they open up the planning And he's talking about paving it. Paving it. And that's like put in a walkway.

Now there's no there is when we were discussing it, Spencer said actually at the south side there is property the city owns down there which I didn't know. Okay. Because right now everyone uses a relief pitch. There might be a bigger issue there. But on the north side that's all urban renewal property. And so from the sign if you go north it it becomes you know the tribe zone. You head south to the parking lot between there. The property is owned by like the urban renewal. It's like owned by the city basically. So we could pave that lot and run off. That would be good. Asphalt to it. But what on the south side? The south side?

Not yet. Not yet. I'm too early. 15 minutes. You're just Can I just Sorry to interrupt. I'll just on the south side. We don't own any. The city doesn't own property there on the the one by the really picture. Well, that's what Spencer was saying that we do live. We own some property down there. You know where it is. Is it is it on the other side of the highway? It is because I think when we originally put that, we wanted to put the sign on the other side of the highway because I think that's where the property was. Anyway, but if my memor is right,

the estimate includes like I think paving spots to and putting an actual parking handicap parking, you know, so be a lot more accessible on the on the south side but not on the north side on the north side. Yeah, but the south side. So I think I think we were operating under the assumption that there was nowhere on south side. You kind of have to partner with relief a little bit. So I mean north side is a lot to travel big impact visual. Get those cones out of there. Yeah. The mystery cones.

I brought those up again too. I asked Ed what those were and he's like oh I'll look it up. Yeah. I don't know. I'm assuming they're safety related. You don't trip over something. I don't no idea. I can't believe they don't blow away. I might have to investigate myself in the middle of the night. Careful. [laughter] Yeah, that's it. Yes. So, can I make a comment on this last suggestion?

I know it didn't rise to your top three, but the idea of uh enhancing the appeal of seaside front and removing structures and creating a park with river views on the south approach. We currently have the southeast seaside urban renewal plan. So, we're raising funds to improve southeast seaside and a lot of those funds are going to go for infrastructure and um improving Avenue S, adding sidewalks, things like that. But that committee meets and it's really up to their discretion where the funds are spent. So, one idea would be to try to combine the work of that committee with maybe tourism dollars and then even maybe the parks committee and do something to try to either remove or fix or something some of those dilapidated structures that are along the river. I think if we could improve the most blighted part of seaside then it raises the entire town up and that's definitely one of the most blighted parts and so if we could somehow kind of work on a solution um altogether it could possibly happen.

Interesting there. Well, and right on the other side is there's already a city park. So, my vision would be, you know, a walking bridge across to the, you know, if you're gonna expensive, [clears throat] if you're gonna have vision to to have that as a place where people could pull um pull off the highway and walk over to the park, I think it'd be gorgeous and then ultimately get access all the way down to the prom from there. You know, it'd be good. Yeah. back to a moving sidewalk. You know, since you're mentioning that end of town and somebody asked me the other day, Yeah.

what's going on at the old dentist office? I guess there's some tractors and stuff out there moving ground or things right on the corner of you and River. Oh, the old Donovan Clinic. Yeah. Yeah. They're doing some stuff there. That's not part of this. Nothing to do. Um, no. No. Yeah. Nobody knows. Just kind of curious. Something's going on there. It'll be interesting to see what they take.

Yeah. And the other thing to keep in mind here is part of that um Southeast side urban renewal district was bringing infrastructure along there because a lot of those houses have septic and when the river gets really high they actually could potentially leak into the river environmental nightmare. So if we could somehow figure out a way to deal with that maybe all working together that would be great asset city there.

So let me ask you this then. Is it likely that if if TAC requested funds in that direction to be able to allocate that TLT money because TAC is asking for it? Is that a way to get that money to the city for that for that upgrade? I think if it we could have a tourism use somehow, then I think potentially you could use those funds. And I I don't think it's going to happen unless there's other funds coming in because I don't think we have enough money in this with all the infrastructure we're doing. But there could be some money that could be allocated.

But could it be allocated to a specific part of it? So could we could we request um $400,000 for the purchase of property? I know I know there's one. Yeah. The reason say that this that you're reading this in the minutes and we discussed it didn't become part of the grant request is because this tool is not will accomplish that. They can take that money and do a we see a tiny tiny portion. Yeah.

You'd be asking to transfer it into the promotions committee to use elsewhere whereas they can if they can legally do it they can do that. And I think what I would say is to Seth's point is that we work together on that. Yeah. as we build towards that. But the money piece and requesting budget for it isn't really part of what that request is. Okay. Yeah. I'm I'm still trying to understand like how it is that I if if the if the tax funds

has to be used for the promotion of seaside and if that if we're considering that effort as a a way of promoting seaside getting people to stay rather than getting people to drive right through um you know does that money need to come through this um portion of the city in order for us to use it for that? Yeah, because remember Mark used to put all the money in our account and transfer it out as it is anymore. So I think a more likely scenario is that and [clears throat] hopeful scenario is that we work together with the council on their vision for that sort of thing. And eventually when it comes to steps or action it is

and the committee has a vision for like hey we want this and that part or something signage and wayfinding that we would request budget for that but we could just work together on the bigger picture of like how does the park form with citizens and public input and everything like we're just part of the seat of that table. We don't really control the money.

Yeah. part of the solution. And the other thing to consider is even if we were able to just, let's say, remove two of the dilapidated houses, it's quite possible we were able to put infrastructure in, the other two or three that are there could get cleaned up by predator residents. And you know, if there's a little park there and a nice sidewalk, then that would be more valuable property and hopefully that would get cleaned up. So, if we could just take care of a couple of them, I think we could solve the whole issue. But, um, it's going to take a collaborative effort of probably the parks, tourism, and the south seaside urban renewal. Just something to consider. And right now there is a piece of land that is for sale. Exactly. Yeah. Right now in flood zone. I mean I don't can sell that. Yeah. There's a lot of issues.

Well, it won't I mean it won't allow for structures, right? You can pull an RV out of but I mean but you know those if those pieces come another question, how much is that is Odog? Those things are pretty close to the handling. That might be those probably are building ODOT's right away. I think there is. So then you have that ODOT signing off as it's a complic complicated deal on green space. Their rightway I think goes into some of those properties. It's a really but I mean like ODOT would need to sign off on green space. I'm not probably need to sign off on anything there. Yes. If it's changed, you know, it's all grandfathered in, but if you change it,

I think ODOT's gonna have input. Does anyone recall if the city brought in all those properties because you know seven they could still be in the county seven years ago or something a bunch of those properties weren't even in the city limits but I know they worked on bringing a bunch of them in the city. Yeah. So we brought all that into the city all the way on the west side on the shacks

I remember that. Yeah. I think the problem with one of them in the corner, I'm not 100% certain if this is still the case, but one of them is very far back on like water bill and stuff like that. And so it has this huge lean on it and so there's a lot of that's why they're not getting bought up most likely is there's a lot of issues that need to be dealt with. It's very complicated. How do you see this committee moving forward to help with that effort? I would just say if it was one of your ideas that you wanted to some kind of tourism used there, then that that would be a start to have other groups start working on it as well. How would we put forward that idea though? Like what's the forum for it? Because I don't think it's the budget motions request.

It's a it's literally acquiring property and do a park, you know? It's definitely few steps out that help with I don't know. I I know that Spencer feels that parks are within improving parks are within our legal use of tax dollars. So, as long as it's a tourism use as well. Another thing to keep in mind is we also even more may have the estuary property. There's bunch of improvements in there as well, but that's not a hindrance for people driving through town. No, I agree.

Yeah. If we could, you know, it's welcoming to our city. I don't know how exactly you fit that into a tourism promotion, but you guys put your heads together and figure talking about the north end. So, I'm talking about the property by the old school. So, yeah. Okay, that one. Yeah, I think it's a great idea. Want to throw that out. Good to know. No, I just want to find out how to There's got to be a way to do everything. Just got to find her.

Why are you laughing? Well, because I'm being recorded. I can't say what I wanted to say. I'll tell you later. You can text me later. No. Just a nice want to finish this off. Yes. Public comment. Yes. You asked about the south sign by the relief pitcher. The relief pitcher owns their property. Where the sign is belongs to the city and below that is prior.

So the the area that's this big belongs to the city and that's it. And across the way belongs to the state on on that's where our arch goes. Hey 85 acres is for sale right there. We need a driving range [laughter] investor. Hey I gave that up. Investing golf. [laughter]

Any comments? Uh the only comment I would like to make is uh my wife and I stay at the river in because we had a a free a thing we won at uh ch or event at the convention center and first off town was absolutely packed this weekend. It was was wild. It felt like a summer weekend. But the other thing I noticed is it seems like about half the people staying at the river had dogs. So any of the marketing that you're doing related to dog friendly stuff [laughter] at the time I was in the elevator anywhere just dogs become a dog really use dog park

those got enough. Yeah. Now a real dog. Any other committee? Okay.