Door County Tourism Zone Commission : Meeting Minutes

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July 12, 2007 Door County Tourism Zone Commission Meeting

DOOR COUNTY TOURISM ZONE COMMISSION
MEETING MINUTES
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Jacksonport Town Hall

The July 12, 2007 meeting of the Door County Tourism Zone Commission at the Jacksonport Town Hall was called to order at 9:05 A.M.

Present: The following commission members were present:
Robert Kufrin, Chairperson � Village of Sister Bay, Village Administrator
Jim Sarkis � At Large
Bill Weddig � Town of Gibraltar
Bryan Nelson � Town of Baileys Harbor, Blacksmith Inn
Andy Coulson, At Large
Craig Neddersen � Village of Ephraim, Eagle Harbor Inn
Charlie Most � Town of Liberty Grove
Charles Tice � Town of Sevastopol, Self-employed
Barb Lautenbach � Town of Jacksonport, Innlet Motel

Absent:
Paul Georgia � Town of Nasewaupee, excused
Patti Bissen-Taylor � Town of Egg Harbor � Landmark Inn, excused
Bruce Hill � Village of Egg Harbor, Lull Abi Inn, excused

Others:
George Bagnall, Jerry Zaug, and Dianne Lensert

Approval of the Minutes
No minutes had been completed since the last meeting.

Dianne Lensert updated the Commission on the status of the lodging permits. She noted that as of July 12 2007 that 530 permits had been issued and there were only 80 to 90 names left on the non-responding list. Only six or seven of the individuals contacted had refused to sign the receipt for certified delivery. As of July 9th, the Commission had received $104,525.97. Lensert had used a later cut off dated because of the Fourth of July holiday.

Lensert then discussed some of the problems that were appearing on the reports. One issue for the Tourism Zone Commission to address was errors in the calculations. For example, when the data base program recalculates the amounts that were submitted a one-cent or $0.66 error could appear. The costs of collecting those minor errors can become significant.

Motion by Nelson seconded by Weddig that the Tourism Zone Commission approve a collection policy to not take any collection action on payment errors where the difference is less than $1.00. Motion carried � All ayes.

Lensert noted that her staff was going to start calling the remaining non-responding locations next week. The staff was also going to contact all of the properties on the Vacation Rental by Owner web site as well. Lensert reported that several lodging establishments located in the Town of Sturgeon Bay had proceeded to obtain permits and had sent in their May reports showing no activity. The problem has developed that many individuals are unsure which municipality they reside in and in some instances, boundaries split properties. Lensert was asked to send the Town of Sturgeon Bay permits a letter indicating that the Town Board had decided not to join.

Kufrin asked the members to carefully review the permit listings to insure that all the listed locations were actually in their boundaries and that no properties were being overlooked. Lensert explained how the staff had been following up on the individuals who had indicated that they were no longer or never had been renting their properties. In most cases, a written response had been received, except for a large number of calls that came in right after the last letter.

Motion by Most seconded by Tice that the Tourism Zone Commission policy on removing an individual from the permit list would only be allowed if the individual sent a written notice to the Commission. Motion carried � All ayes.

The Tourism Zone Commission also discussed the report that showed the permitted establishments that had not submitted any report for May. Lensert noted that the properties on the list were the ones that had indicated on their applications that they were going to be open in May. The Tourism Zone Commission noted that there appeared to be several properties on the list that had been open in May, but had failed to report. The Commission discussed how to maintain the confidentially of the businesses and yet how to handle locations that appeared to be in violation.

Motion by Nelson seconded by Most that the Kerber Rose send all of the non-responding permitted locations that had failed to properly report for the month a 10 day delinquency letter indicating the fines and penalties. An amending motion by Most seconded by Coulson that if the post mark on the envelope was dated after the due date then the late penalty of $25 shall be applied and if applicable interest on the amount owed. Amending motion carried � All ayes. Main motion carried � all ayes.

Lensert reviewed the individual municipality reports. Only one large business failed to report their occupancy figures while paying the room tax. Kufrin indicated that he would work with the Tourism Zone Commission Attorney Randy Nesbitt to send a letter indicating the authorization for requesting the information and the related statutes. The Tourism Zone Commission would discuss in closed session at the August meeting the appropriate enforcement action for the properties not in compliance. Kufrin will contact Nesbitt to see if he can attend the meeting.

The Tourism Zone Commission next discussed the exceptions noted in the financial reports for each of the member municipalities. The exceptions included gift certificates and stays paid in full before the effective date of the ordinances. Lensert mentioned that due to several locations properly reporting their occupancy information prior to the date the reports were run that she did some estimating.

Bryan Nelson noted that the initial 90-day engagement for Kerber Rose is due to expire on July 27th and the Commission needed to make a decision on how to proceed. Lensert noted that she was going to be on vacation and would not be able to prepare an updated proposal until the end of the month. The Commission agreed that delaying action on a contract extension until the August 9th meeting would not be a problem unless it was for Kerber Rose. Lensert indicated that she would have a new proposal for the Commission based upon the actual work being done compared to the original estimates of work required which proved to be low. Barb Lautenbach thanked Dianne and her staff for their hard work during this initial start up period.

Kufrin presented a report on the bills payable for the month of July. In summary, the total room tax collected for May 2007 was $104,500.21. Of that amount, $31,350.06 was paid to the member municipalities as their 30% share, $68,970.14 available to be paid to the Door County Visitor Bureau as their 66% share and $4,180.01 was retained by the Commission for its expenses.

The Visitor Bureau submitted a bill for $67,500 for eBrains, the firm retained to develop a better internet-marketing program.

Motion by Most seconded by Lautenbach to pay the bills as presented in the amount of $106,309.60. Motion carried � all ayes.

The Tourism Zone Commission discussed the enforcement letter prepared by Randy Nesbitt. It was agreed that the Commission was better suited to acting as the enforcement agent for the permit requirement than each separate municipality. If the Commission did the enforcement it would be done uniformly, in a timely manner and the costs of enforcement would be absorbed by the Commission rather than the individual municipalities. Kufrin volunteered to contact Nesbitt to develop a standard resolution that could be provided to the member municipalities so they could delegate permit enforcement to the Commission.

Most noted that there would be a series of corrective amendments to the ordinances and agreement that may be suggested to the members by the end of the year that address specific operational issues the Commission is dealing with.

The Tourism Zone Commission agreed that it would be the policy of the Commission that only one refusal to provide the required average daily occupancy information would be allowed before enforcement action would be taken.

Jerry Zaug was asked to report on the status of activities at the Door County Visitor Bureau. Zaug noted that the Midwest travel writers were in town this week exploring the entire county and that the Town of Washington voted to impose the room tax effective August 1, 2007. Zaug is working on coordinating the efforts of the Visitor Bureau to get more information on the local advancement associations to do a better job of marketing.

Adjournment: A motion was made by Sarkis seconded by Weddig adjourn at 10:50 am. Motion carried � All ayes.

Respectfully submitted,

Robert Kufrin
Chairperson

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