Tourism Advisory Committee - Regular Meeting

Graduate advisory [Music] start with introductions. Take a look. Bruce Swson, Satie Mercer, Seth Mory, Keith Chandler, Kenny. Yeah. Okay. There's going to be some growing pain. At least we know the audio is coming through.

The minutes. Okay. Worth noting that in here it says the minutes were approved last time when the spelling amended and I actually went into the minutes that were recorded on the city's website and amended the minutes fix them. So in the public record will show the correct spellings to two a few days right I've been writing everything. Was it wrong? No, I just I move to approve the minutes of September 17. I second. All those in favor? I Anyone against?

Okay. The security has to hear the official aquarium dog. No, the the he misspelled the official aquarium name. Oh, I see. And we had Morrisy with extra s or something. And I misspelled it based on the spelling on the aquarium's official Facebook. Spell it, Matt. So, so Tiffany misspelled. All right. Now, she's staying out the car. Too much of an ass. Financial review.

The financial report is not very long, so I'll just go through it. These are just the the bill that have been approved by city council but since we last met. So just thank you from it as our coffee relief agency tourism marketing is our email platforms and lead processing. So our guide orders um and then also the emails we send out. We have we send out a lot of emails. So most of this charge is for these. I think we have I think we have more than 43,000 followers on our email list.

Nice. spam is we got a bunch more seasides for fun stickers from Dom. Got coffee for the office. We have um paid search. Um a little bit of retargeting in there as well, but mostly paid search. Have our Fox 12 cam or coin 6 cam. Uh we have printing envelopes and postage stickers. We ran out of our poly bag guides. Wow. Yeah, we ran out of them and so we're we had to buy some envelopes. We've actually already ran over these envelopes and we're now waiting for a new order of envelopes to send out. So, we're having a good decent year

with mail order guy. You don't usually when we do polyagging, we have to undate the amount of polyagging. That's more more often the case. We've done this poly bag less this year than normal. I think the last two years we poly bag less. Yeah. So, it's kind of a balancing act. And so, next year we'll That was a pretty fat stack of them going out. What? Today or yesterday?

Well, that was 250. So, that's nothing because usually it's, you know, I got a back up of about 700 because they don't have the right envelopes. I finally came over to city hall, went through their upstairs and found a couple boxes of envelopes that would work. And so, I had the old school stamp the old school stamp address in the corner, every one of them. It's been fun, but at least we got 450 out. both 500 500 are out. So, okay, we were just sitting there and they were three weeks old, so it made it.

The civic office automation is our quarterly ink usage for the least copier. We have our um travel Portland guide and then negotiated vendor positioning this year. So you probably don't remember but in the travel Portland guide which didn't print for many years and reprinted either last year was the first year or the second year. Seaside's ad is about page seven. So this year they were re uh reup I wanted better positioning. So we're we're going to be few pages up even then. So we'll be page three. Um and one of our competitors had that space and so I was like let's do that. We're going to move up just a little tiny bit. A little small wind.

Leaving city. I'm not going to say

uh the seaside condo association. That's the public parking dues and the power for the world parking lot level one and level two. Thirdly is the Oregon's north coast with that story can beach and and clip county uh regional advertising. Ken is reimbursement for SEDA uh in months of breakfast. Little bird is our great PR firm which is just you awesome. They are so awesome. Um SDA is the Halloween happiness grant that you gave out last last month. And then Greg went to the travel Oregon fall welcome center. If you remember um they have two conferences a year, a spring conference and a fall conference. And because we're one of the state welcome centers, we are required to send somebody to those. So Greg went to this one. It was in LA Grand. So most of this is mileage and a few meals, but Travel Oregon covers um the cost of the conference, covers the lodging, and covers most of the meals and um expenditures. Everything's looking good. Nothing really to report here. I know that's a personal services line hasn't been adjusted since I pointed out month or two ago that they're going to have to adjust that because there's money allocated for the year but you know nothing to report here any questions you have anything related to that

staff report I am uh well I've got the whole prize package together for a uh radio giveaway in Seattle market in November Um uh we are going to have some closures coming up obviously Thanksgiving and Black Friday. We are now closed on Sundays through the off season. Uh we will be open Veterans Day 10 to 2. Um we are seeing lots of people. Uh and obviously we're still getting lots of guides order this time of year. We wouldn't even break 200 and we're over 300 every week. So that's that guide thing is just like wow. And then Mondays and Tuesdays are still just super busy where they're

filled the whole sheet the other day. So, it's like my gosh, it's pretty neat that and they're still from all over the place. Um, so just wanted to share that. Uh, and then, um, uh, I'll be at the OA Summit in Reedsport next week, Tuesday, Wednesday. Um, the Oregon Coast Visitors Association summit. That's all I have. Good. Yeah. Monthly stats.

Okay. Take a look at it. Visitor center foot traffic was down a little bit in September, but still pretty strong. over a thousand people came in. We're up for the year about 3% for the year. Uh lead volume continues to be strong as we've touched on quite a few times, 63% up this this uh September last September. Total distribution even with last year, but we're up a bit over last year. Um as of the end of September, we have 80,66 guides out the door. So four out of every five guides we currently are already distributed. That's pretty typical. we start to see it fall off pretty quickly now. We haven't seen that yet mail orders, but um you will start seeing that in some of the around the office or around the town kind of things where we're just not moving as many through town. The mail order mail orers have continued to pace web sessions and web users are looking really good September. I was showing Greg and Ken uh the website uh charts for the last 21 days and they're very strong getting a lot of inbound traffic and a lot of that is because we're paying paying for search leads and inbound links and stuff like that but um a lot of organic traffic has been down for a number of years. very interesting seeing AI agents on our uh search results on a regular basis now and there's a sea change going on and how people consume information and that's to include information about travel. So it'll be interesting to see how that you know where that goes but we're certainly seeing that traffic as well. When you think about it in the context of AI, you're not seeing all the influence. You're only seeing like if you ask an AI chat something, it's pulling in all these disperate sources and we're only seeing people that click through then into our site. And so conversationally, our content is still showing. We don't see it. So, it's really it's

really going to be quite a quite a sea change if it continues. But like I said, our website's very healthy right now. Email signups are good up 100% over last September organic visitor guide requests. So these are very specifically people ordering guides through our site directly about 33% over last September. And the views proactive user engagement time. A lot of this is just kind of the difference between the current site and the old site, but it's views proactive views are up. Engagement time tends to be down. But both of those are about pretty solid year-over-year. We have August stats for lodging for Clatup County. They're very positive. 3.4% change in occupancy over last August. 6.5% change in revenue upwards. So that's July and August are both positive numbers. So theoretically, I mean, if September is a strong month, should get us off to a good start, busiest quarter of the year for next year. I've updated a quarterly room in BRD tax tools here and like we've talked about quite a bit, we're operating under a kind of new understanding with the finance team here. So anytime they make a change to allocations to the quarters and everything, they let me know that so that my records match the city's official records. It has this and there have been changes. Changes come in. um they allocate money uh money comes in late or it's been allocated the wrong quarter. So for hotel tax we ended about even the 2025 fiscal year ended at uh down about 1% 0.8% but the VRD side ended up down 2.6%. So combined that's down 1.27 pretty much pretty much equal year-over-year.

Any questions about the stat?

Yeah. Um, okay. So, starting this month, we've got tourism commercials appearing on in prime time on stations in both major Pacific Northwest metros. This is in addition to our weather cam stuff on coin and KPTV which also um you know makes makes a difference but these are these are very specific schedules will be running in October and November booked on uh Cairo and King in Seattle and KTW in Portland. Cairo 7, a CBS affiliate will air 49 1 minute commercials, 10 15second commercials and 12 5-second shorts. Highlights of this schedule include the Amazing Race, Air Force versus Army football, NFL Today, Seahawk Post Game, and

it was filmed in Fort Stevens. Did you know that? Yeah, I learned that just up. I didn't know that. Watched it a long time ago. It's pretty It's desolate. This is tough. Yeah. Um, King Five, an NBC affiliate, will air 41 minute commercials, three on their sister station calls, most of them are on King. 10 15second commercials and 10 5-second shorts. Highlight of this schedule include Kraken Hockey, NBA game, Saturday, Saturday Night Live Thanksgiving special. Anybody been watching Sent Live this year? Yeah. No. What's going on? It really fell off clip. I can't tell if it was just because I was getting

No, it's bad. I don't know what's going on. They changed this the whole staff. They changed some of them for sure. Yeah. And then Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade cover. So then on KGW, which is an NBC affiliate in Portland, they're we're going to get 126 one minute commercials. So that just kind of shows you the difference in cost between those two markets. Yeah. I mean, we have as part of our mandated strategy to expand our Seattle outreach and we have many different touch points up there, but this is one of them. But it just goes to show you how many more commercials you get in Portland compared to Seattle. So 126 one minute uh commercials. Did you say KGW? KGW. Yeah.

28 15second commercials and 28 5-second shorts. Highlights of this schedule include NBA opening night, Blazers games, Kraken hockey, that SNL Thanksgiving special, and Macy's parade, a wicked event special, college football including the Black Friday game, Incredible Dog Challenge, which I didn't know about that, but it's a real show. I look up and football night in America and an Olympic festival chasing gold. These one minute commercials, the one minute commercial airing will be a mix of our how to seaside inside, how to catch your dinner and see seaside. Um, so mostly seasonal seasonally appropriate, but also how to bike seaside because you know you can catch us on break and go for a bike at any time. And then also our kind of seaside sizzle reel that we have there on the website homepage just because it includes awesome locations from every one of our advertising photo shoots we did last fall and you know it's just a really strong visual 60 seconds I think. So we're running that as well. 15-second commercials will be the two Oregon's North Coast videos we did a few years ago in that should feature seaside and the 5-second shorts will be a rotating combination of existing 13 offseason appropriate short form voiceover videos that uh we put together for coin last year. So, it's a whole bunch of really short little quick snippets based on all of our other videos with new voiceovers from our creative agency. Look out. These uh schedules were brought to us by our PPR partner. So they negotiated these rates. We uh basically put out a bids to all the stations and set yours up what we're looking to spend. Give us your best deal. And we went through and they negotiated certain options and these were the best of the best. This is what we picked. So it's really kind of a cool just another

value ad for public relations firm. October 21 and 22 is the aquis limit that Ken's headed to. They do that annually kind of end of touris high's tourism season kind of you know it's there's some education it's really like a let's kind of get our heads together on the last tourism season following happens October 25th 26 on the 27th OSU uh Todd Montgomery the director there uh will be doing a presentation to city council about the seaside community sentiment on tourism results from the that we did it. October 29th, a haunted hotel at Best Western Plus Ocean View Resort. Uh, when I put the schedule together, we had October 29th as the first Beach Books um appearing on Coin Am Extra to talk about their 20th anniversary, but since I did this, we actually got them on Hello Rose City 2. So, October 28th, the day before this, they'll be on Hello Rose City talking about the 20th anniversary. in my next stable Karen will be on um coin and extra boo and bruise time theater October 31st first is the beach books 20th anniversary party at least the bulk of it um said there's some stuff the next

Saturday the first Saturday the first 6:30 to 8:30 good so there apparently just some other stuff on the second as well they're finalizing So, November 8th is fall downtown.

No way of getting that giant pumpkin on TV, huh? People can just drive it up there if they come down here. Yeah, it's going to be there for six days in the halls. Where's it come from? Milo, probably. I'm not sure if if the grower I deal with is in Milano. If he doesn't have one, he's got most of them are in that area. I know. Yes. Uh Oregon City. Oh, you're going to swing by the studio. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, just deliver it Monday. They would have to come to us.

Maybe next year. Well, we can send them a video of it Monday. Yeah. Brown new if you want to cover a grant application. Does everybody have what I sent in the email and then also it sent

yeah marketing plan a better budget that includes how they found that budget I know weird context can make it a little bit easier on you So the they're planning to spend 3,300. They're actually they're proposing to spend 3,300 on the Oregonian marketing package that is outlined in the in the other document that has bigger text for you to read. Thank you.

Um and that's what they're asking for the tourism brand. And then they also are saying there's a Jane Mount design and tote production. They're hoping to find the two of them. Those two items add up to more than $5,000. So, I guess they're saying that they Well, if they don't get the grant, are they planning on doing those anyway? The marketing?

Well, um they they do say I mean I was reading through the grant. They do say that things that aren't covered they're going to just do, but that don't necessarily mean that they would do it to We have an Oregonian marketing package with the use for high volume exposure includes a sponsor content story on Oregon live 100,000 headline add impressions and co-branded post on here's Oregon social media pages let's go down the That was right. And then it says, "A limited edition tote bag featuring a Jane Mount book stack design will be produced mostly funded by tourism grant books will cover the excess as a commemorative merchandise piece. We're also having stickers from the GM design will produce will be produced and funded by beach sticker design.

We have 9,750 left in correct. Yeah. goes through May. The deadline is December 5th. December 5th for to apply. Yeah, you can spend it later, but

Right. So, so we did put a deadline on. We just moved it back to December. Did I miss where it said how many attendees are anticipating? [Music] Is this something they plan on doing in the future? Is it just a oneoff one year? I believe it's a 20 year

says says event will serve as a launch bag for future annual annual and bannual or bannual related

I mean they already have a pretty health sign like that should be more of a focus on we need Yeah, celebration, but also focused on bringing people in specifically for these kind of things. Be kind of a different twist on it. I don't know that I'm seeing anywhere, Satie, that says how many people they expect to or how many overnight guests they're just doing last night. But it sounds like it be just uh made up.

Yeah. I guess I mean they're looking for they're looking to make one to 200 promotional bookmarks if that's a show of how many people I guess I really value uh Beachbooks being in town. Uh, I guess kind of my question would be, um, does it set a precedent for any business that would be celebrating an anniversary to apply for a grant or a anniversary celebration?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean I I generally feel like 20 years in business as an independent bookstore warrants outreach of this kind. And um I mean I would have liked to see more development around the idea of bringing visitors in for this and the schedule of what's going on on these two days and stuff. And I would have liked to see more things in place by now because there's still stuff to be put in place like the schedule and some of the in like the Oregonian uh piece that they're asking for funding but you know it would be great if that were already running advertising. Yeah.

Open. But it but it is really nice if they got the uh hotel buying and the discount on that. I mean, that's really great and they're we're working our butt off to get them on, you know, TV and give them exposure and stuff like that. So, it'd be, you know, nice to I think it's worthy of getting in front of people and trying to and I would do that for any business that if I haven't found a milestone, I think it makes sense. But like I said, I kind of this is your decision. You know, I I it's a great thing, but I also would have liked to see more of the

and I understand it is a tight window, but you end 20 years and I think when you look at that, we look at the visitor that comes to seaside, maybe that will bring some people who haven't back in the Oh, I remember going to that book. Awesome. They seem to have a good amount of author participation coming in. I feel like I feel like while not everything's in place yet, I still feel like this is a great opportunity to support the fact that seats that you want to keep up, not just a one and done.

I think I think it's a great time of year to put on a band that I think, you know, I I more notice would have been nice, but we're the ones that changed the rules to allow them to do this, so I think that's fine. Yeah. The process would be over. Yeah. Yeah.

So, um, and the the Oregonian thing, you probably wouldn't want it advertised much before before the event anyway because people will forget. And I'm impressed that they're going to be on two TV shows, right? That's was our PR firm that opened that the entirely. Yeah.

I I I think it's a great it'd be nice if it was going to be an ongoing event, you know, and and it may turn out to be that. I I agree the precedence for from somebody's anniversary is really not what we should be doing. But in this case, the time in the year, the fact that it could turn into an ongoing thing, I think I think it's a good and for 20 years. Yeah. Business for 20 years and then, you know, they've done a lot of stuff for the community 20 years. They put on a lot of things and they've never asked for money before. Do you see a distinction? It's been for um media group and the tote bag as far as

there's they're going to be spending more money on advertising than they're asking for. Yeah.

Motion to grant the $5,000 to Beach Books for their anniversary event. I second that. All those in favor? Anyone? Yes.

I mean, take at least a full. So, most of us have or I'm pretty sure all of us should have gotten the email that you already thinking Is that what you're asking for is is five versus seven. Five versus seven.

And if those are the right category correct

that we had discussed in the earlier meeting. I feel like the earlier part of this is pretty much we already had all agreed upon um one time or another, but the five or the sevens is the one that depends. How much of a breakdown do you want representation from the different areas of business? Can you explain to me this? So what does that mean for three years for two years? So that part I I set that aside but that's the language that was the original

when they were putting it together and so it was like the original so that way you would lose everyone has to come out right but yeah that was the original plan was so that you would not lose your whole committee on one when everybody rotated out Right. So, and there probably should still be some kind of language lesson or just my opinion. You ever question whether the seven or five? Yes. Nobody.

I am nobody. Which is why you go to the Yeah. Yeah. You could be Technically, you could be the restaurant. Yeah, you could be the restaurant. She was in the chamber. Yeah. Yeah.

So, this here is a tax document, but I recall that you were going to go to and that you had laid out, right? I feel like that was the last of our conversation, right? like I went back and reviewed um prior and it's we did at one time have seven and not five as a suggestion. Oh. Yeah. Not as a existing. Yeah. That would be Yeah. And that is a new one. Right. Right. which is why I added that because you know you could have been retail at that point and there wouldn't have been a technically there isn't a restaurant that

iter food is a restaurant. Yeah. is that final at large position is that I can't recall did we decide it would be a business or was it

it could be it could be a citizen a business or a citizen at that time but I had just wrote in there um of a business that was not addressed in the above and just in case we had missed someone but it could be a citizen because yeah and it says it's recommended that committee members ers have experience in advertising marketing promotions. Okay. But it's not the required. You added that, right? Huh? Did you wrap that? Yes. Yeah. From our conversation. Yeah. Yes. Going to say I was like this looks very familiar, but that like I don't think that was in there. Yeah.

I looked at some of when I spoke with you, I said I had some other comments I thought was and then of course what the rep representative at large resides within the city. So this still could be a citizen. Where is that here? And it's in the seven. Is that currently occupied by that? Yeah. Oh, I see.

Okay. So again, we still would have that. So I didn't necessarily have to modify the other one because we would still I can't imagine where we would have a um a citizen that did notide and sees here. I mean I guess we could I just never that would be the case. Well I don't but you also have a right.

Yeah. Yeah. So the language is there. Somebody who lived and worked or owns business in Dear Heart would not be included. That's what I'm asking. I don't remember if we ever discussed that before. I guess I would advise it. So this a definition representative of the lodging business. It doesn't specify that that business has to be in seaside. Should we add in seaside in all of those

chamber the lodging business? Did that say a seaside logic business?

Seaside restaurant. said restaurant. I think that would make it more clear. if that's if that's what we're looking.

Well, I mean that's one of the questions in here. I think it'd be valuable to have a designated retail sector person and going to seven would be do that. And I think that was one of my concerns is that if we stuck at five, we wouldn't have that. No. Um probably should uh so that would change this. So then the seaside tourism advisory committee shall consist of seven members then and not five

of which at that point it says one must be a resident of seaside while remaining or so it would be one would be and then remaining six shall be residents owners or employees or businesses with them. So that covers all that down. You don't need to change it. Okay, perfect. And is there is there an application process? You go through in front of city council. So you apply through the website or something and then you interview city council just like all the other committ I didn't apply through website. I don't think they existed but there was three days.

Yeah. all that. Now we're talking.

And then do we need to also write in attendance in person or via Zoom? And that was the next question. Could you do you want it so that they could call or dial? Does it say in person? No. I don't think this committee has ever zoomed, have we? No, we've never strained either. Yeah. Right. So, I've attended one via Zoom. Then we zoom in and you say you attended one of these via Zoom. Yeah, I think that's the only trick. Yes. First one ever. Can we zoom in and stream at the same time? I think you can. Yeah, we do. We can get rid of the stream if we want to zoom.

Um, no. There's a way to stream live and zoom in for that takes some technical We're doing that right now. Yeah. and assuming. Oh, really? Who's assuming? Just us. I do wishes on the beach in the car.

What we did at the council is we limited the amount of times that you can do it. Just so someone zooming in. Fine. When I was reading through this Ruth, I saw about the vacancies.

It says um the city council may remove a number for cause deemed sufficient by the city council. I wonder if it would be smart to say be more specific like a majority vote or something like just so the council of the city council like just so it's not that any member of a city council could remove somebody they would have to vote on it and a majority of the council would have to carry it you want to remove us is that I think it has to be okay has to about

I just think yeah we're being explicit in all this stuff and just as deemed sufficient by the city council. I guess they should just be clear what that means. I also thought it was interesting historically the way this was set up because it says the committee chair or vice chair in the chair's absence may cancel one of monthly meetings in the event of lack of business or in case of emergency

which brings me back to kind of just how this is really your meeting right but it seems like it's all right and so it's like But you can't we cancel it. The city cancels it. But this is saying T cancel. I'm just curious. I don't know. Is there anything to investigate later? No. Like the last one we contacted here and said this week people will not be here. So yeah,

that's contact people. It doesn't matter as long as long as the chair and together then cancel it. I guess I just if you like do you want to continue doing it like this where we're setting the agenda or would you like would you like to talk to the agenda in junction and you cancel or don't cancel it out? I kind of like how we do it now where you set the agenda and then we note, hey, we're only going to have two people here or something. Then we can refer back to you and go, hey, at this point as the chair, this should be it.

So maybe this should say um committee chair, vice chair or staff is cancelled. I mean, what do you think? Do do we have one month specifically where you go over your suggested budget for the next year? No, not really. I mean, I can't remember if that

the group the finance and admin at city hall has kind of changed it recently where they involve everybody in the budgeting process way earlier on. So those conversations kind of like start much earlier and then we have conversations at across a few meetings about things that we might want to do like the city welcome signs getting re you know fixed and then asking for budget but there's not one that you know there's not one where like here's our budget and then and honestly the way our budget forms it really isn't like I allocate every cent for the whole fiscal year. I allocate all these different categories across these campaigns and always maintain some money to do things in the spring and stuff that don't present themselves at the beginning of the year. So, it kind of is an ongoing conversation, not like one big presentation.

Yeah, I was just going to say like if it if that's something that you plan as a presentation, then we want to make sure that we don't cancel that meeting. Um, you know that if it was always in March, like the March meeting can never be cancelled.

I was curious, did you want the general manager of the convention center to be back in the mix here? Well, I think we've had it before. I mean, we used to have it was because he was the boss of the bureau. So yes. Yeah. Okay. Department [Music] I guess I missed that. The case. So then if not then I don't Well, we there was a conversation in here of how would we not wanted to bring in public work. I mean I know about that. I I just didn't realize that that wasn't but they can't be on the board

if they're sitting employees. So They're warmed to kindly the kind they wanted for Yes. But we probably wouldn't wait and so we probably wouldn't need them at this point. I just remembered that he'd been you know Russ used to sign like when I didn't realize that he was the boss over Yeah. I mean all of our all of our bills are still he would have to sign and I didn't realize that was it hasn't been that way for you know three years or something that was how it was. So if it's not that way then I don't know why we leave them on this.

Do we need to put the tourism director and the uh what Ken I can't remember your title right now. the community leaison could be. Yeah, because you can roll the meeting. Well, at the moment, I mean, I can't even input, you know, that's I sit here quiet. It's not just recording minutes, but I don't do that. I got you on the agenda, man. I Oh, that's true. Definitely.

But yeah, I mean, even now with that recording, it's doing a great job. I'm just making sure I get themes right. So like you know numbers and stuff that all but I can only speak happy.

So now our recommendations then go back to the council for approval. I hope this I think ultimately yeah okay I mean what the final document will be submitted to uh Spencer and John and he'll I think submitted to the council then I will also put one together and

what you do sorry so the powers and duties Like can I go back to that? Um like some of these seem seem maybe a little red like so should we refine that down to a paragraph statement that or do we need those specific? I was actually having a lot of fun trying to like logically pan out what the last one is saying. It's like advis the tourism director on directions for the city of Seaside Council staff. I know my words in there. I'm like I don't know.

We should just do adise period underlined vote on Oh, you need to put the grants actually. Yeah. Yeah. there. And I would just do I think that it would be a good idea to just kind of general language like grants approved by city council or whatever. That way you're doing both

and any new program that might come along. Yeah. Okay. So uh to C would read um the tourism director and community and wait and seaside

tourism community liaison shall be staff leaison to the committee. So So, and then we are advising the we're advising you on the annual budget to be submitted to the city. So that phrasing is a little outdated, but it's still true

because everything we talk about here becomes budget requests and the way that we allocate funds, advertisement, stuff like that. I mean, you could certainly rewrite it to be more money. It wouldn't be like approve if we don't approve the annual budget to be submitted to the No, because it's theuda, right? Tell them how you're going to spend and if we want over and above that, we have to request for the budget process. Okay, we can do that. We've done that successfully in the last few years, but it's not applicable

that you're not giving them a budget. You're taking and making a budget out of what they give you,

which is really Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because remember, it used to be set by ordinance that it was a certain percentage of tax. most of it went to the convention center. Convention center was fun and all that stuff got a small portion but that's not the way it is anymore. It all goes into this tourism activity fund and we get a lot of it. But who who who decides how much that is annually

finance director city council. So, if you had a budget that was $100,000, if you decided that you wanted to spend $100,000 more than you did the previous year, and we've we've got that money that is available to tourism uh advertising, it doesn't matter because the city council tells or budget committee tells you how much they want you to spend each year. It matters in the sense that if we wanted more, we would have to make a pitch for it. We don't just get it because we say we want it. You know what I'm saying? We say what are we spending on our employ? Yeah. And that's what those meetings are in February and city council the budgets committee get.

So previously with Mark we were given the budget and he would go through it line by line the budget committee and so we just he went through the budget and then we just said great good meeting. With Spencer we actually go through each department and have a debate and decide what we're going to do. Then the budget committee makes a recommendation to the council. So the council actually makes a decision but it's not like we're going to override the budget committee. So whatever the budget committee decides like if they decided they want to double the budget for tourism then that's where it would originate then it would go to the council firm but ultimately their option is give the budget to tourism or store it in the bank for future use on they're trying they're trying to find uses for it I can tell you that but they do have a huge

right I mean but is that the savings plan yes

because there's There's only so much turns of money we could spend in the offse. Well, yes, if that's being specifically allocated without the director's uh choosing to, right? I mean, if you're saying that that's all that can be spent, that's because if you only give him $200,000, then he can only spend $2,000. I think so. You're allocating the budget, right? Yeah. Yeah. We're bringing in a lot more than it's our budget. Advertising budget has gone up since I started. It hasn't gone up in the last couple years. So, do you think that the return on investment could uh prove that that needs to increase?

That's a that's a loaded question there. There there is a diminishing returns for sure, but I could spend way more money do a lot more stuff. But I think that the prevailing prevailing thought from our city admin and probably council is that um they have other things that they think would benefit the visitors and residents that they're hoping they'll be able to spend it on in the near future based on legislative changes and stuff like that. I think they are hoping that those things will adjust enough that they can do that time still a healthy budget especially for a town that doesn't advertise in the summer and some towns like Kay spend more but they also advertise year round. So, I mean, I certainly, don't get me wrong, I could spend you give me as much money as you want. I could spend it all, but we want to spend it as good as we can to serve effect. I don't think we're at that line necessarily right now. I can certainly spend more, but the city has priorities. I just think that if we found that if we thought that would be fruitful,

then we request extra money. Then you request specific and I think they would have probably allocated if you gave me a case. You said, "Hey, we need an extra hundred grand for this and gave what you're going to use it for." I'm sure they would. Yeah. You just have to know what it is the year before. I can tell you there is push to make the tourism benefit the residents more not just tourism. So that's why some of the money is being shifted into parks and things like that and arts and what arts? I don't know about art. Well, like the the um the grants and the grants.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't need to know if anyone knows about that yet, but I benched it and everyone's eyes kind of just glazed over. So, I don't think anyone knows about that one yet. I saw it at the meeting. I couldn't I was so baffled. I was like, you guys literally approved this grant. How do you not know about it? Really? Oh, you mean anyone on the council didn't know about? Is that what you're talking about? Or anybody? Yeah. They just they didn't know about that there was going to be art going on the council. Yeah. And then it's kind of like, okay, well, what is the requirements for the art and what are the guidelines? And so it'll turn into a big thing, but it really won't. This is really familiar. Why is this familiar?

We're not asking for public input on art that we're then going to put out. We're saying, "Hey, business owners and people that lease and have permission from the land owners, here's an incentive to make something cool." It's and then we decide what or if we fund anything. It's not saying, "Hey, just send this your art and publicize it or something." So, I think the biggest thing is if as long as it's not political, that's when it'll probably cause a problem. But if it isn't political, I don't think it's an issue.

Well, the track the track campaign said the president for the rigors that we're going to have to go through for public art. the trash receptacle our campaign. Yeah, you saw how that went. Well, I mean, we're installing tomorrow. We'll see. Yeah, but I mean just how that meeting went. That's how it goes. Yeah. So much worry. Is there anything else that anyone else wants to comment on?

Um I just had a question. There's there's no where there never has been don't know if we should have uh term limits. Well, um, when you go here, the appointment shall be for three years or anything else any portion of the term exceeding, right? But how many terms can you serve? 100. There's no limits on how many times you'll be served. But there there's it's limited to three years, but you can serve obviously several terms in a row. I said this at the last meeting, but my theory on term limits has always been you your term limit is the vote. So if I mean but don't other committees have term limits? They're all different. The city council actually doesn't.

ST does, right? You have to take a year off. Yes. After definitely it could go either way. I'm not I'm not sure if we need to or not. I'm not an advocate for term limits on this case. Is this one of the things the city council is trying to standardize this term? Is it term? I don't think I don't think the committees will be really standardized. I think they're all going to be unique a little bit. But I think if someone's doing a good job then, you know, why would you have a term limit, you know, just arbitrarily? Why not? Well, I just want to bring it up. Somebody who actually is doing well in in this serving, well, oh, now you have to leave and and we hope that the next person

plus nobody tends to vote in a salary. It's totally up to you guys. And then at some point if somebody decides to drop so like at the chamber the um the chair p person can uh appoint somebody into the position for the end of that person's term but however it's always been council would do it. Yeah. It's always been the council the council would have to pay and that's in here provided by the council. Yeah. Yeah. Also, you're not allowed to drop out. Don't seem to apparently not. No one has.

So, do we want to put a term in? I just I just noticed there. Yeah, it is. Every nonprofit I'm on has term limits, but you have to be off for a year, then you come back and serve nine more years. So, so it's it's fine. Being off one year, I feel like would be problematic in this one. it just cause like a wrinkle. I think it's more important to kind of assess point that when it when you're term limited up, there's an opportunity for other people to say they're interested and try to interview the council. That was not my only concern because then you just have this unelected bureaucracy that never changes. There's no way to change it. So long as it comes up for, you know, somebody else to run for that seat, I think, well, it never has. No one's ever dropped off.

But we never opened it either. So we would always just reappoint. It was an automatic reappointment. Oh, I just wanted. So, this is the first time you've actually said it's open. You can run again. But then someone else goes, and also gives that person who might be thinking of leaving time to go, hey, I I want to find my successor. Yeah. I can actually have it now people. So, so now you can say that. Yeah. So, now when our terms up and they ask if you want to stay on, you'd have to go back in front of the council. You would. No. No. You would basically say, but if somebody else was was applying for my term that's up, yeah, I'd be in competition with someone else. Correct. They would have to go to the council most likely

and make a case and the council could request you, but most likely they're just going to bring the new person in. You have to cage. There is term limits, I think, on the library board because it's regulated by the state of Oregon, but that's the only one I know that actually has term Well, that's because you can only check out a book for so long.

So, is there anything else? So, at this point, we're suggesting term limits that have the option for somebody else to apply. That's fine. Yeah, that's true. I don't think that's technically ter that's just when your term expires. Yeah, when your term expires and someone else wants to take it over, there's competition. We don't just get the letter of uh you have been you have been reappointed. Yeah, we go surprise.

We get the phone call. Do you want to stay on? Yes. Okay. Send me the letter. I'll expand. So if if Yeah. So How how fast is your typing? What? Can you type this? Can you type these into chat GBT and get it to refine into one paragraph? Yeah,

just take a picture. Take a picture and never do it. Somebody probably could do that isn't me and doesn't know how to do that. So, yes, I'll do it. You guys, I have confidence in you. Take a picture, but I wouldn't do anything.

There was a couple in a couple ladies in earlier and we were talking about the new fees that you pay at Oswald and Tolivana and all that. I guess it's a QR code. It's just a a a sign with a QR code. And these ladies were like, "Well, old people don't know how to QR code." She goes, "I don't even think I have that on my phone." I'm like, "Here's your camera." Yeah, but what these old people that don't have, you know, the phones. I'm like, I mean, they hopefully by now they figured it out cuz that's kind of where we're going. Buying an annual pass. And then they thought of you and I'm like, except for Kate. It's just like a Ford. Yes. By the pass. But when you're just visiting,

Greg was saying he didn't even think there's a little drop thing for money anywhere either. It's all just you don't have a phone. Have the new locations right now. Maybe they'll have something down the road, but for now, it looks like I like it. This is the end of the two-year passes up until December. So, Oh, really? Wait one more month and then two year two years. It's totally not. So, hours and duties. That's it.

Does anyone else have just But if you listen to that, we're fine. I think everything else is fine. All right. All right. Weather for another weather fan. Cool. So, I'm just surfacing this with you guys because I was surprised when the Fox 12 point came up and I was like, I don't know, here's this thing and it ended up turning into this really cool addition having the Fox leather cam. So, KGW also has a leather cam trying to sell it to us. So, I noticed it's it's less than our channel 12.

It's 2,000 a month and channel 12 is like 3,700. the the KPTV one has a huge yeah a huge viewership and it's the most expensive one for sure the one the coin one we've had for a really long time and we've negotiated tiny little increases so it's kept it down but it also has a smaller view so box has the it's it's based on viewers viewers so so channel 12 also has a different channel that it's on too so maybe that's the yeah maybe That's why they have more viewers because it actually airs on two different channels.

Yeah. Know I was I was prepared to be like we don't need another weather camera with Fox and it end up turning into kind of a cool thing. But yeah, certainly a significant expense. It it is. But it's it's you know nice to to get get seaside image out there every day. I mean $2,000 that's the cost of one bill per month. Thanks for noticing. I know. No, the Mars is one meal. The other two we ran. Oh,

but you you lost one. Where were you at? We were the golf course kicked us off. Oh, but you're back. Not on the golf course. We have one out by the junction and one out by one camp 18. Not there across from Fred and Meer anymore from that one. We always we No one's kicking us off. That's all. That's the part of that story though. You want to read it now before? Not yet. So I mean Yeah. Yes. $2,000 a month is is Seth reworked the Well, I didn't think anything. So, where would it be?

We would have to find We would have to work it out all from the start. So, we would have to find a location for it. Well, we would need a spot for we don't have a spot. I say yes. So, here here's the question. I mean, we basically we have the same view. Do we want to try to get a different view of seaside? I just think it's iconic. You know, it's seaside the second you see it. Is but the view from the LA is actually pretty attractive, right? Yeah. And it does look back. Yes, it looks back towards seaside. I mean, you don't see you don't see till mad in the background.

You still have the chamber camera at Lai. No, probably not. I don't think your website has this website now. I don't know if they recall. No, but there's seashore lai and maybe that's it because the aquarium we just recurers so they can't access it. I don't think it's been because they can move it around and zoom it in and they can look at it. So I don't know. I mean, there's an inn already at Monai. I guess if you know, if it's still operational, uh, I guess the only difference would be the surfers because they like the function of they like being able to move it.

Yeah. Zoom in on the waves. Check. Oh, they'd have to put up a different camera. Or do you know cuz is that still used the LAI? Oh, yeah. There actually was a better one that was on the the duplex that's just to the right of the LAI that was like a surfaline camera and it got removed. So it's just the lai that somebody just put that on their house. Yeah, they get like a they get paid for it or something really that's gone. So it's just the LA So that could still be I mean whether that could still be a great location back. Yeah. Wow. Are you talking about a secondary camera or removing the one that has the dirt around the beach? No. No. We're talking about getting a third chance. Oh, you get a different angle.

Yeah. be at a different camera, a different if we want to do this location and they would be unique. See, this is this shows the value of this committee because I would like but the beauty of the if we had one at the lai I mean seeing the waves breaking on the beach is it's gorgeous. Yeah, ours is still alive with lai and the aquarium right now. the aquarium one. I don't know what seashore on there. Uh it's that's seashore. Yeah. Uh it says seashore is not available. That's called sun sunshine. So I wonder why they've got sun always shines on.

I don't know. So I I the reason I think it's worth it is because if uh if people see it sunny on the coast, they come to the coast. And so I think that it's valuable. It would definitely uh bring $2,000 worth of stays to seaside in the month easily. Um so I think it's valuable for that. But I guess the question is we only have to have two. Do we need a third one? But I say yes. I don't think we need a third one in the location that we It's probably getting different Yeah. different people, right? I mean you're loyal to right. That's your news and that's channel

I watch channel 12 all the time news to make sure that we get mentioned. So unlike you most people just have that one you know I watch this news well I I once I've seen the them the cameras working and that they mention as I check 12 to make sure they mention suicide in their spot otherwise I'm calling up Andy. I like the idea of the angle just for them. But that would be a great depending on the one night I just when I have to just agree or do they have to put some

they got they got to get an internet hook up and all that stuff. And so as we learned with um say with your property is just because you say you're for it too. There are other considerations. You have to have a spot that can support the hardware and stuff. So Lilia is that's a great idea. I just don't know for sure. Well, I mean, we had to upgrade of all of our stuff, all of our the technical stuff that you have, the inter internet thing in order to to make it work. Um, Laya also be the better one to go for storm watching, right? Because you can see those waves pounding up the co. It's It could be a a VRD though, too.

Be a surfer camera. We don't recommend you keep single as you can't say everything. That's why we still but if you kind of shut it down the beach towards you know margin is that because people could control it zoom in on things. It's just when you can see exactly what's going on, then the the crashes in the water 10x. If you have to come and have boots on the ground and see it, you know, people, you know, maybe

a different locals, piss off the surfers again, and start, you know, thing. It won't last very long. Have problems. You could do it in a way that would not where yeah where doctor used to go and build the rock trail. Is it pretty good every year the trail to make an actual for people that's what are you doing is just making this better.

That's what I've been trying to tell you guys. That's the current interpretation. Okay. So, we need to tweak that. Sorry. Sorry. So, I'm hearing that the majority like not everyone is interested on a different Okay, I'll look into it then. But I think it's a good investment for us to have. Make sure we ask city council. Is there a timeline on this if they they want it? Um, who has that now? They said, it says here that is the closest. Yeah, they have cameras in several places.

It says Wells Fargo Bank, Pioneer Square, Reserve, Gor City, Portland, Vancouver, Waterfront, Timberline, the Dallas. Well, Ocean is still available if uh if they want that spot. Still available. Yeah, it's a slightly different location, but why couldn't they install a fox camera there? There's a problem with logistically they didn't want to have to get out up onto the roof to clean it. I guess

so they could get on they could put it on the third floor if they didn't want to be on our fourth floor be on the third floor like above our center. We have three rooms across. So could be across the center room where we have a roof on the third floor which would be kind of more of a like look down the prom be like a far high view out. Anyway, I'm just putting out there that as an option you're welcome to offer that if you want. I guess I also just wanted to see if you guys are appetite for more weather cams and yes you do. Yes. Show off.

All right. do what you want to go back please.

Okay. So, uh so a couple of um suggestions for the read. So, advise the city of Seaside tourism director on strategic matters including the annual budget submission to the city budget committee, the comprehensive marketing plan, uh citywide marketing initiatives, and implementation of city council directives related to tourism promotion and economic development. And the second suggestion was advise the city of Seaside tourism director on the annual budget for submissions to the city budget committee. Provide guidance on the marketing plan and overall citywide marketing strategies. Support the tourism director in implementing city council directives related to tourism promotion and the city tourism economy. So the one thing that says in both which I don't quite see it working this way at present. So we need to look at that which is saying implementation of city council directives related to tourism. I thought that the information kind of went in the opposite direction.

That's what it says at the bottom. That's why I picked up on that. You type that whole thing in. What? If you type that whole thing. No, I just typed this in and then it but that's where I pulled that came from the city council. That's actually in here. Oh, and we need to add something about the grants. Oh, we don't want about the budget, right? Well, it's it's more about the it's more about the city council directing us to how to direct job, right? But that's really the way it goes. That's right. Want it to be

Yeah, I just pulled that cuz that's exactly what this bottom one. Yeah. If the city council directed us to promote this as a um retirement destination, then it's what that's saying is that we need to tell Josh how to how to promote this as a retirement destination. That's how I'm reading it. Is that how everybody else hears it, too, or is it just me?

So, do we I mean, is the goal to have the city council ultimately sitting down and saying, you know, well, we want to promote Seaside, but we don't want to promote it as a familyfriendly destination. We want to promote it as a retirement destination. So, okay, here you go, TAC. Go ahead and figure that out. Or do we want to say we feel that it would be best for Seaside to be promoted in this direction and then and then advise the city council as to how we feel best would be to promote the town versus the city council telling us how to promote the town. It's an interesting thing because in a lot of ways I feel like the committees the council relies on the committees to provide a recommendation

and discuss vote on they ultimately have the voting power but I feel like the way it works often is that they committee provides the recommendation but at the same time the city council sets the goals for the city and as a city department we're working towards those goals within realm what we're trying to do. So it kind of becomes like a dog chasing its tail kind of thing to try to unpack it a little bit. We should be working in the same direction but we should but the attack provides all these various perspectives on that same thing and for the good of seaside you but it's hard to say like certainly we we can't operate out in opposition's goals. How generic are the goals? our goals. Uh they're very high level, but they're definitely goals.

Yeah. C can you like list a specific goal that you have for you this year? Uh not related to tourism. This is what's interesting is I don't think we've really had any oversight on this committee or tourism in general as long as I've been there. So I think really focus more on like creating ordinances and to a lesser extent parks and things like that. But as far as directing the tourism marketing and what our vision for that is, we've never really had any discussion on that. Just time. That's what we're here for. Well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Well, I think it's just kind of baked into the cake that this is what we are, a tourism destination, and that's what we've always done,

right? But at some time there was a conversation about this this uh department handling uh public art. I'm sure there was I don't know where I was there. No, I mean recently like really recently. You mean the grant program? Yeah. Well, generally there was a conversation that I was at I was I think it was city council where they said up to this point maybe it was in this room up to this point no city department has had public art in under their purview and then that became under your purview. There's currently no public art policy or any Yeah. plan to put public art anywhere.

Yeah. Like no department was working on it until this department was working on it. Yeah. I I noticed that in your gut in your or something at the last meeting. It was on there, but it was one of the lowest because I brought it up and so then it it got onto our potential goals. How to charge your phone. The city council does have its goals listed, I think, on the city site, but there's like they're pretty broad. They're about doing things that that don't directly relate. Although I do think you have a cons like a consumer sentiment sort of thing on I think the consumer sentiment on tourism fits one of the city goals.

We're trying to both poll the public and see what they feel about tourism and then we're also supposed to we're trying to uh inform them of the benefits of what tourism does to the the residents that live here year round. That's pretty close to what they're hoping for,

which that poll did a great job, but I think we're even going to commission another poll, get more data on it. I guess with if if we're going in a direction that is listed on that right now, it's saying that we're supposed to be waiting for direction of the city council to work in a direction cuz right now we have no direction from the city council and not headed in any specific direction that is coming from them. But that's what saying needs to happen is that we need to wait for city direction to then take us forward. This is kind of what I've been telling you is historically The city council has had nothing to do with direction, right?

And you guys have done all the the direction with regard to tourism. What it's moving to is where the city council is taking a more active role creating the direction and then the the boards, committees, and commissions are actually implementing what the city council decides to do. I'm not saying either is better or worse. I'm just telling you that's the direction it's going now. So you guys could feel free to push back on that and say we want our role to stay the same. That's what I would recommend if that's how you feel. This is all

it's worth noting that this is the tax preferred this is noted in accordance with the city but we could change that to say we're not I think that we should take this opportunity to um choose to guide our own path forward for our recommendations to the city council on tourism not in the opposite not in the reverse That's my motion.

Everybody reach the saturation level for how you word it here. I think that's the thing. So basically this is this is going to go to our workshop and we're gonna look at what you've put and then we're going to all have a big debate about it and how that ends up it's still Yeah, I agree. They Yeah, we should we should be Yeah, they should we shouldn't be following their direction because So we should be No, we shouldn't be the way this read. Well, I think that's the point of having a advisory

supposedly weren't in the no and that and so I would think city council uh on our recommendations to the city council not so Yeah,

you're talking paragraph 4 under duties. [Music]

I think that makes a lot of sense considering you're the subject matter experts on these issues regarding tourism. So, I think that's a fair request. be as simple as changing the word from to to the city and director on directions to the city council on staff.

Recommendations to you not from the city council but to the city council staff.

Did this line come out of current bylaws or is that something that was just put on here? Which line? the one at the bottom that that advised the seat person director of directions corrections from the city of seaside council ask. Yeah, it was out of the that was directly out of it. They're just yesterday. So,

like you agree on the intent you're going to do. So, maybe you can just circulate it and decide on the final formula, right? Do you have more to add, Satie? Um, just kind of re having it rewrite it.

Uh, what it came up and I haven't read this, so I don't know if this would apply. Uh, tourism advisory committee shall advise and collaborate with the city of Seaside Tourism Director and the preparation of the annual tourism budget for the submission to the city budget committee. The committee shall develop and recommend the citywide marketing plan and overall tourism strategies providing direction and priorities for promotional efforts. The committee shall support and guide the tourism director in implementation of the approved tourism programs and initiatives. side if you want. Screw it.

Yes, it sounds like pretty much what we talked about combining it into the one. It doesn't list like a shall report to right which at some is there any point in which I know we haven't but is there any point in which the city would likely be asking us to report to the city council our recommendations? That's right. Well, that is but that that's been part of the conversation with city council. I've heard them well at least you say that she like committees to come but that all that's to be determined.

Do you give direct reports to the city council each month annually? Yeah. And again at the budget as part of the budget process.

Oh, and it didn't Yeah, that but it didn't include the grass. All right. Trust just advice. Great. Done.

I'll rework that. Send it back around again. You send it to me and I'll Sorry, I've lost track of where we are. Public comment. Any committee comments? Sorry. Well, just letting everybody know that we've got the installation of the first 44 crush art things going up tomorrow. Well, they're going to hang out for you. Looking like it. Yes. You're doing 44 tomorrow. That's the expectation. Yeah, that's the goal. Are we supposed to and all around?

Yeah, it's not just one specific straight corner. And we do plan on doing this a second round. Uh we don't know yet. Um we're trying to get this promoted so people understand what it's about and we get more submissions. We've already had a couple of additional submissions. the first 215. I think there's a sweet spot between when you've had you have it out and you have actual things to show off and you're accepting applications for a new round of art. And that sweet spot is when we should pitch to have you go on the morning show and talk about it.

She's got a face. Yeah. Right. So, the uh the big ass pumpkin is going to show up Monday. Big ass pumpkin Monday uh noonish on the uh north side of the carousel mall near the restroom. So, when you drop it? No, that's that then then'll be on display inside the carousel mall for till till Sunday. Where? You drop it Sunday. What date? pretty garage and then up the ramp and then

No, no, there's there's the the door on the west side opens up. Their doors open up doors enough to get a pallet through. It's always a little dicey a little. It depends on the shape of the bumper. But for any of those, you either want to be there or all of our live streaming crowds of thousands want to come down and and congratulate the pumpkin grower. So, and we won't know the weight until then. Um, I won't know the weight till whichever one he brings. We drop it from the turnound again. The same.

We're going to we're going to have the the the crane drive down the way ramp and it's going to set up down there. So, it's not set up on the turn cuz that was always kind of sketchy. So, so the main viewing will actually be from Windub. Okay. cuz it's going to be dropped on the on the south side of the turnaround. Okay. Right out like where the swing sets are now. Okay. So, if any volunteers want to be in the swing sets when we drop it when we're taking names down and life insurance or we could drop it on a sur if anybody wants to be in the sur when we do it.

What's the date? The 26th is when it's going to drop. They're going to come to the mall, though. Monday. The 20th. Around noon. So, if anybody wants to come down and you I don't think Carrie's going to be here. So, if you want to get video of it for PR, are you going to be in town Monday? I believe might fly by drone. I might get there. I'll get a really good drone shot. Well, this is just unloading it on Monday. It's just unloading. get into the bowl. I could ask I'll just come down for the drop. That's Sunday. Weather permitting. That's the plan. We'll have a backup plan if it's nasty.

It was blowing too bad on the beach. They hate for it to miss and squish a kid. Is it this weekend? The 26th. Okay. And then the Christmas tree is like looking at it this weekend. November weather. Good to hear. Picking it up on the 17th. Yep. Yeah. Right. You have to have it by Thanksgiving, don't you? Well, before we have to decorate the whole thing and and uh yeah, Hampton is giving us a tree again this year, but we have to haul it.

Okay. So I have track Stewart all got a big truck. We got the whole truck bed. Any other committee comments? Next meeting November.