Door County Tourism Zone Commission : Meeting Minutes

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January 17, 2008 Door County Tourism Zone Commission Meeting

DOOR COUNTY TAX ZONE COMMISSION MINUTES OF THE
JANUARY 17, 2008 MEETING

ACTION ITEMS
Hill moved and Tice seconded to approve the minutes of the December 20, 2007 meeting. Motion carried.

Georgia moved and Nelson seconded to pay the bills as submitted. Motion carried unanimously.

Georgia moved and Nelson seconded to authorize Kufrin to draft an audit RFP and send it out. Motion carried unanimously.

Tice moved and Hill seconded to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried.

Commissioners present: Bob Kufrin, Bill Weddig, Patti Bissen-Taylor, Paul Georgia, Bruce Hill, Dick Skare, Andy Coulson, Chuck Tice, Craig Neddersen and Bryan Nelson.

Also present: Dianne Lensert, Jack Moneypenny, Mary Dennis, John Lowry, Greg Swain, Justin Borkovetz, Bill Casey, Fred Anderson, Paige Funkhauser and Dave Elliot.

Chairperson, Kufrin, called the meeting to order at 9:04 a.m.

Dick Skare was introduced as Gibraltar�s second representative. Gibraltar has earned a second representative because it has passed the $300,000.00 mark in annual tax collections.

Hill moved and Tice seconded to approve the minutes of the December 20, 2007 meeting. The motion carried.

DCVB Reports
Moneypenny introduced Mary Denis as the new DCVB contract employee for motor coach and small meeting promotion. Mary addressed the Commission with comments about her background and some ideas for promoting tours in Door County. She mentioned that Door County has joined Circle Wisconsin in the last week � a move which will plug Door County in for getting future overnight tour business. Moneypenny followed Denis� remarks by explaining that he and Mary are in the middle of a �whirlwind� 4 day effort to kick off her initiative.

Moneypenny presented the DCVB spreadsheet of budget vs. receipts and expenditures. Hill asked why we are not being presented with a Quickbooks report of budget vs. actual. Moneypenny answered that he is moving toward that goal with the help of Kerber-Rose accountants. He also said that he is waiting for word from the Commission regarding the alteration of the Entity Agreement which will affect their reporting to us. Nedderson and Georgia voiced support for Moneypenny�s existing report as a usable interim measure. Swain entered the discussion with an explanation of how the software his company is developing will help with our reporting requirements. Kufrin agreed with Hill that he would like to see Quickbooks reports in the near future.

Moneypenny then presented his �Primary Results� report which lists Benchmark vs. Goal vs. Actual metrics for a variety of the DCVB marketing efforts. Coulson questioned the unrealistically high actual figure on Occupancy for 2007-2008. Moneypenny explained that it is a statistical anomaly that will work itself out (and downward) over the course of the year as we collect more actual data.

Hill offered that he in sensing, among our constituents, that there are concerns about what is happening to the room tax money. He thinks there is a lack of understanding regarding what the TZC is doing and there is a perception that the DCVB is still working somewhat clandestinely. Hill offered that, if the DCVB would distill the �Performance Measurements� spreadsheet info into a simple �these are the drivers and these are the results� report and email it to all the members once a month, the mystery would disappear. Moneypenny responded that he would be happy to do that. He added that eBrains, which now has 90,000 plus subscribers, is going to begin polling on length of stay and some other data.

A discussion ensued on how to collect useful statistics on length of stay because of the way single unit dwellings, which are empty most of the year, skew these figures. Swain offered that he would be able to massage these figures from the raw data in the near future. Moneypenny expressed that, whatever we do, we all need to agree on the targets and reporting terms as we move forward.

Moneypenny said that he recently sent an email to Brad Toll, president of the Packerland DCVB, which resulted in an exchange about how they might cooperate in marketing Door County in conjunction with this weekend�s Packer playoff game. Toll said that he thought that their members� room inventory would be full today and, thereafter, they would be referring inquiries to Door County and the Fox Valley. Moneypenny said that he asked them to tell referrals to mention that they want the Packer Door County promotion and that those guests will receive $20.00 in gift certificates.

Software Development Report
Justin Borkovetz, of Bay Lake Information Systems, gave a brief progress report on their software development efforts. He thinks they can go �live� with the new system by February 15th. He presented a few sample URLs that are available. This website will be the one-stop place for all information on the TZC. After some discussion of what the website should contain Greg and Justin said they had enough direction to go on and build the website. It was agreed that there should be a very obvious link to DCVB reports. Moneypenny questioned whether or not we want anyone in the world to be able to view our reports online � such as our competition. The consensus of the Commission is that the reports available through that link should be limited to non-sensitive information.

Permit Expiration
Lensert explained the sample letter that she provided that talks about permits being perpetual or non-expiring. Hill moved and Georgia seconded that our permits be �non-expiring.� Nelson questioned the wisdom of doing this as opposed to renewing every 3 years. Hill responded that, given the Commission�s 5-year life span, maybe that should be the renewal cycle. Neddersen and Tice pointed out that we collect information each month and therefore are monitoring the information for each of our permit holders. Moneypenny mentioned that DCVB has suspended 18 properties from member services for not having permits. They were all mailed application packets. The motion carried unanimously. The sample letter will be finalized between Kerber-Rose and Bay Lake Information Systems and will be mailed toward the end of next week. It was pointed out that properties will soon have the option of reporting Room Tax via paper and post office or online.

Tice thought it would be a good idea to lead off the letter with news about what has been accomplished to date by the Room Tax, the Commission and the DCVB. Kufrin asked for a volunteer to write that letter by this Monday. Coulson suggested that we might be able to meet Tice�s goals by moving a couple of bullet pointed statistics to the top of the letter. Tice volunteered to write a paragraph or two to lead the letter that would constitute a very brief report of accomplishments to date. Lensert said that 700 plus letters would be sent next week.

Kufrin asked if it would be wise to review the list of excluded properties at our next meeting for the purpose of determining whether there is any deception by any of them. There was general consensus that this would be a good idea.

Payables and Reports
Hill asked about Vande Castle�s billing. Kufrin agreed to ask him to attend our next meeting. Georgia moved and Nelson seconded to pay the bills as submitted. The motion carried unanimously.

Kufrin asked if there were any questions regarding our general financial statements. There was then a discussion about the precipitous drop off in occupancy after October. Neddersen offered that the general decline in winter business coincided with the canceling of newspaper advertising on the part of the DCVB several years ago. Moneypenny mentioned that, as soon as he returned to the office today, he was going to call the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and other papers with the news that snowmobile trails would be open as of noon today. He also spoke at length about his desire to do more such opportunistic marketing and what such efforts can incrementally add to the general business.

The Audit, Annual Meeting, Bylaws, Budget and Entity Agreement committees did not meet. Hill expressed his understanding that the Commission should discuss and vote today on the Entity Agreement suggestion that he proposed.
Hill and Coulson questioned whether sub and ad hoc committees are even necessary to accomplish these tasks. They suggested that each task could be assigned to one person who can then do the research and report back to the whole Commission for discussion. Regarding the Annual Meeting, Hill volunteered to develop the presentation and Coulson and Weddig offered to put together the logistics, consulting with Kufrin for compliance with statutes. Coulson and Weddig will report on there progress at the next meeting.

Skare offered that he would like to be involved with the administrative assistant hiring committee. He will contact Diane and Barb to keep the process moving along.

Audit Subcommittee
Georgia offered to join Kufrin, Nelson and Neddersen on the Committee. Georgia will write an RFP with Kufrin providing guidance as to structure and compliance. Georgia moved and Neddersen seconded to authorize Kufrin to draft an RFP and send it out. The motion carried unanimously.

Bylaws Subcommittee
Kufrin mentioned that Charlie Most will be departing the Commission after 2 more meetings. Nancy Goss will be appointed to replace him. Tice volunteered to review, and come up with suggested changes to, the draft by-laws that were provided by Attorney Vande Castle.

Budget Subcommittee
Neddersen offered to replace Coulson on this Committee. It will meet with Kufrin, Hill, Nelson and Lensert. Neddersen will take Lensert�s Quickbooks report and come up with a preliminary draft. The committee
will meet at Kerber-Rose on Tues, Jan. 29, to finalize the budget.

Entity Agreement Subcommittee
Hill summarized that the 2 issues are disbursement of funds to DCVB and Attorney Vande Castle�s recommendations regarding what our vendor can do. Kufrin questioned whether the DCVB is spending Room Tax monies only on promoting tourism within the zone. Hill agreed that we have to have a general philosophical discussion about this subject. Hill said that the disbursement vs. reimbursement issue is critical to our constituents. Neddersen offered that distribution of funds makes sense. But it does not make sense to just hand them the money without oversight or control. The DCVB should be able to make a requisition quarterly. Hill pointed out that that�s what Moneypenny agreed to do at last month�s meeting.

Coulson summarized that we need to have a philosophical discussion early into the agenda at our next meeting. We also need to vote on Hill�s proposed changes to the entity agreement early into the next meeting. Coulson disagreed with Hill that public perception is somewhat irrelevant to our operation. Moneypenny offered that he can live with either disbursement or reimbursement. He just needs to know which plan to work with. Skare offered his opinion that the collection of taxes by the county with disbursement to the towns is analogous to what this Commission must do. He thinks the Commission should simply be a pass through organization.

After losing our quorum, Tice moved and Hill seconded to adjourn. The motion carried and the meeting was adjourned at 12:05 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Bryan Nelson, Secretary

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