Door County Tourism Zone Commission : Meeting Minutes

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November 15, 2007 Door County Tourism Zone Commission Meeting

DOOR COUNTY TAX ZONE COMMISSION MINUTES OF THE
NOVEMBER 15, 2007 MEETING

ACTION ITEMS
Most moved and Hill seconded to approve the revised agenda. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Nelson seconded to approve the minutes of the September 20th meeting. Motion carried unanimously.

Weddig moved and Most seconded to approve the minutes of the October 18th meeting with Lautenbach�s correction. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Tice seconded to pay bills as submitted on Kerber Rose�s Check Detail report. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Hill seconded to authorize up to $15,000.00 for software development by Bay Lakes Information Systems.with stated conditions. Motion carried unanimously.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded that the Commission sign the letter of engagement with Attorney Vande Castle with the stated change. Motion carried unanimously.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded to formally request that legal counsel present a first draft of by-laws at the Commission�s December 20th meeting. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Stayton seconded to approve the Administrative Assistant job description. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Tice seconded to enter into closed session. Motion carried unanimously by roll-call vote.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded to return to open session. Motion carried unanimously by roll-call vote.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded that the Commission request its legal counsel to send out enforcement letters. Motion carried with Paul George abstaining.

Hill moved and Nelson seconded that the Commission authorize the hiring sub-committee to proceed with interviews and the hiring of any candidate it deems qualified. Motion carried unanimously.

Those present:
Bob Kufrin, Jim Sarkis, Barb Lautenbach, Carol Stayton, Andy Coulson, Bruce Hill, Paul George, Ned Nedderson, Bill Weddig, Chuck Tice, Patti Bissen-Taylor, Charlie Most and Bryan Nelson,

Also present: Diane, Lensert, Bill Vande Castle, Jack Moneypenny, Paige Funkhouser and Dave Elliot.

Chairperson, Kufrin, called the meeting to order @ 9:05.

Most moved and Hill seconded to approve the revised agenda. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Nelson seconded to approve the September 20th minutes as drafted. Motion carried unanimously.

Lautenbach offered a correction for the October 18th minutes: Page 3, 4th paragraph mentions Kufrin as having met with the ad hoc committee for hiring an administrative assistant. Kufrin was not present at that meeting. Weddig moved and Most seconded to approve the minutes with the correction. Motion carried unanimously.

Payables
Lensert explained monthly reports. She has added checking account balance and funds available for DCVB to the end of the monthly Check Detail that is presented to the Commission. Lensert explained that DCVB submitted bills for only $66,750.00 during the past month. Most moved and Tice seconded to pay bills as submitted on the Check Detail report. Motion carried unanimously. Stayton asked Lensert how DCVB knows who holds TZC permits. Lensert and Kufrin explained that the TZC had discussed not giving the DCVB the list of our permit holders out of concern for confidentiality. To solve this challenge Moneypenny offered that the DCVB will provide the TZC with a list of its members so the Commission can cross-check their list with our database. Moneypeny also offered that the DCVB will turn over any reports of non-compliance it receives to the Commission. Weddig, Hill and Most expressed their desire to agendize a discussion about how to coordinate permit holders vis-�-vis DCVB membership and how to distribute funds to the DCVB in a timely manner.
Kufrin explained his Revenue Projection report. He stated that only the 5 numbers on that report labeled �actual� were solid. All others were projected based on monthly percentage reports from 3 Commission member innkeepers. Kufrin had a hard time reconciling the numbers. Hill and Most pointed out that, if we simply expand the actual collections by the 15% that it is over budget, we come up with approximately $2.15 million and that is probably as useful a figure as we need.

Lensert reported on her software search results including a hard copy proposal from Greg Swain, principal of Bay Lakes information systems. His proposal is based on some of Bay Lakes� existing software that can be modified and interfaced for the Commission�s purposes. Lensert has talked to the Wisconsin Dept. of Tourism and found that its software vendor is no longer in business. She has also been in touch with Mecklinburg County, North Carolina who developed its own software which they actually offered to us for free. But it would require much modification to meet our needs. Their software engineer said we would be dollars ahead developing our own. Sarkis said that he called Debbie Geiger of Geiger and Associates and asked her to contact a few of the CVB�s she works with to query them about software. She did report back to Sarkis with no usable results. Lensert explained that our need is for highly coordinated software for our database, web filing and financial management. Greg Swain estimates that $15,000.00 would cover the initial development costs. Weddig asked for an estimate of time savings for Kerber Rose if they had the right software. Lensert thought that it would cut their time demands for reporting by 1/3. Weddig pointed out that pay back would be achieved quickly and that an added benefit would be the time savings on monthly reporting for each permit holder. Kufrin stated that he did a search for software among the governmental groups he works with and did not find anything off the shelf that would work for us. Stayton talked to North Carolina, Las Vegas and New York and found that they spent a great deal of time and money fixing and modifying their �off the shelf� software. Hill expressed that he would like to see more detail on Bay Lake Information System�s proposal. After determining that the Commission has enough funding in this year�s budget, Most moved and Hill seconded to authorize up to $15,000.00 for Bay Lakes development with the provisions that Swain provide more detail at next months meeting and that our attorney draft an engagement letter for Bay Lakes that protects our interests and ownership of intellectual property. Motion carried unanimously.

Legal Services Agreement with VandeCastle S.C.
Kufrin offered that he and Most had some questions regarding the Agreement. Most questioned the detail as �overkill� given that the issues could be addressed simply by citing State Statute. Vande Castle answered that he could do it either way. In response to another question Vande Castle stated that he does not charge for photocopying time. Vande Castle stated that he would show up for meetings at our request. He would like, however, to deal with only one contact from the Commission rather than taking calls from multiple members on the same issue. He also offered that he can meet with us at appointed times via phone conference. There was a brief discussion regarding sources of publications on the State Open Meetings and Records Law. Vande Castle warned that emailing is the new focal point of the State Attorney General vis-�-vis the Open Meetings law. Hill moved and Stayton seconded that the Commission sign the letter of engagement with Vande Castle with the exception that Article III, 3.3 sub G read �as requested by the Chairperson or Chairperson Designate� instead of �as requested by the Tourism Commission. Stayton asked how the Agreement addresses a possible need for additional legal counsel. Vande Castle answered that his Agreement is Non-Exclusive and that, in fact, he can usually provide references to additional legal expertise. Most couldn�t find anything about court representation within the Agreement. Vande Castle answered that whether he represents us depends on what the legal issue is. For instance, an insurance company may want to provide its own legal counsel for a case. But Vande Castle would represent us in the appropriate circumstances or recommend who should do so. Motion carried unanimously.

DCVB Report
Moneypenny asked if anyone had questions about Jarosh�s marketing report. Most asked what �CTR� in the EBains report means. Moneypenny answered that it is �Click Through Rate�. He answered several other questions on report details. He also commented on other details of the EBrains plan which includes their effort with �AtPlan� which searches message boards and chat rooms for any mention of Door County. EBrains reported that they found only 1% of such comments to be negative � an �unheard of� low percentage. He reminded us that tomorrow there will be meetings at Egg Harbor and Baileys Harbor for Believable Brands branding presentation. Moneypenny offered his concern that the county is fragmented in its marketing and that, unless each community is prepared to pull together with the others as a team, we will have problems with marketing Door County as a single destination. He said that he is about three quarters of the way through developing his revised budget with his Executive Committee. He has a timetable for finishing it so that it can be presented to the Commission at its December 20th meeting. He is also working with his organization to move toward aligning the DCVB fiscal year with the calendar year. His Executive Committee would like to make that transition this coming Jan. 1 if the accounting changes can be accomplished in time. This means that they would have to present a �short year� budget for this current August through December period since the present approved budget goes to July 31, 2008. He reported that their audit is ongoing and he should have a final draft of it in hand by December 21st. He will present any audit-related concerns that he thinks the TZC should hear at its January meeting. He feels as though there is limited relevance to the TZC because the audit is examining what took place prior to the existence of the TZC.

Bylaws
Kufrin has talked with Attorney Vande Castle on the development of by-laws. Vande Castle stated that he has drafted hundreds of sets of by-laws and would like to work with us to determine what we want in it. In answer to a question from Most Vande Castle suggested that we might come up with a draft that is then circulated among the municipalities for comment. Hill moved and Stayton seconded to formally request that Vande Castle to present a first draft of by-laws at our December meeting for discussion and ratification at the January meeting. Motion carried unanimously.

Most moved and Stayton seconded to approve the Administrative Assistant job description as presented. Motion carried unanimously.

Closed Session
Kufrin read notices of every applicable statute regarding moving to a closed session. Most moved and Tice seconded to go into closed session. Motion carried unanimously by roll call vote.

Most departed the meeting during the closed session due to another obligation.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded to go back into open session Motion carried unanimously by roll call vote.

Hill moved and Stayton seconded that the Commission request attorney Vande Castle to send out enforcement letters in accordance with the issues discussed during closed session. Motion carried with Paul George abstaining.

Hill moved and Nelson seconded that we authorize the hiring sub-committee to proceed with interviewing candidates whose resumes we may or may not have at the time of this meeting and hire any candidate that it deems qualified. A discussion ensued with the consensus that the sub-committee should distribute any additional resumes to the other Commission members with the offer that any other commission members may attend the interviews (which will be properly posted as a meeting). Motion carried unanimously.

Hill moved and Sarkis seconded to adjourn. Motion carried unanimously. The meeting was adjourned at 12:20 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Bryan Nelson, Secretary

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