The City Advertising and Promotion Commission met May 26 for a regular meeting after canceling the meeting on May 12, and commissioner Bobbie Foster, the sole vote to oppose termination of interim-director Gina Rambo in March, was not present.
Finance Director Rick Bright provided the year-to-date financial report through April showing revenue of $364,562, an increase of $74,319 or 25.6 percent from the previous year, and an increase 18.7 percent from 2019. “This is phenomenal,” commissioner Melissa Greene said.
Damon Henke provided a public comment regarding the Chamber of Commerce’s Visitor Guide and the CAPC’s previous decision to forgo its funding. “At this point we don’t have a contract for services with the CAPC,” Henke said. “I just want to clarify, the Chamber is not asking for funds from the CAPC, we’re just saying if someone requests a Visitor Guide that we can rely on you—we’ll bring you as many Visitor Guides as you want.”
Henke asked that the mailing expense be paid through the CAPC publication budget, “If they want a Fun Guide, send them a Fun Guide, I don’t, it’s not about who gets it, it’s about making sure that the visitor who’s coming to the area gets the publication that they’re requesting.”
Public commenters call for accountability
Former Eureka Springs Mayor Beau Satori spoke in public comments against the nomination of Jeff Carter to a four-year term on the CAPC. “In the last sixteen months that Carter has been on the commission you’ve never hired a director,” Satori said, “you’ve made attempts at it—and failed at it every time.”
Satori said that the CAPC has not had a full-time director in two years. He also said that the CAPC did not put out advertising services for competitive bid but gave the contract to Paradise Marketing as directed by former Director Lacey Ekberg, who Satori said had a “dubious résumé and background. She brought in her friend from Florida as an agency, and that was not put out for bid.”
Satori scrutinized the termination of former employee Gina Rambo saying, “You terminated a publicist who was making $42,000 a year and gave the contract to Paradise for three times the amount—at $116,000.” He added that Paradise has no experience with Eureka Springs.
Satori went on to say that Chair Jeff Carter has sewn discord to the community through arrogance, micromanaging, and backstabbing which “has led us to a $17 million lawsuit against the city. We need to get on to marketing Eureka Springs in a smart way, and not just this haphazard mess.”
Satori discouraged outsourcing the work of the CAPC advertising, to help enrich the city with employees who live locally and promote volunteering at the AUD. “Do not nominate Jeff Carter,” Satori said, “and [commissioner] Carol [Wright] I ask for your resignation.”
Jeff Gregory, an owner of the Cat House, spoke about his concerns with the CAPC’s decisions including the hefty outsourcing of Eureka Springs tax funds. “How do you explain to me why we are shipping a million and a half dollars of Eureka’s tax money to a city that none of you can explain to me what you are buying?”
Gregory said commissioners are making a lot of decisions without a bidding process, leading him to question transparency. “In your short tenure being here, you’ve pissed off a lot of people,” Gregory said to Carter. “You got a lot of lawsuits going on, and I don’t think that’s really what we need on a board right now. If you lose these lawsuits, that means that our tax dollars are going to pay lawsuits.”
Despite public input, outsourcing reigns
Social media fees, website maintenance, and advertising agency services were discussed with Bright telling the commission that Paradise Marketing invoices have started coming in, and he requested increasing the budget for these items. Bright said the reduction of salaries would be line items which could be channeled to balance the budget.
Ad agency media fees will rise from $400,000 to $450,000. Website maintenance fees will go from $5,000 to $16,250. Advertising agency fees will rise from $300,000 to $347,000, and Paradise social media fees are a new add-on for an additional $58,500.
Bright said the services were already approved by commissioners, but the appropriations had not been made. The increased budget proposal itemized a total of $166,750 of newly allocated expenses from the forgone salaries’ budget of the original 2021 CAPC annual budget. The total budget remained unchanged at $1.575 million. It was unanimously approved.
Events get a boost
Sandy Martin said that the Festival of the Arts will start in mid-June with public art creating selfie opportunities in Harmon Park and at the rainbow staircase near the New Delhi. The festival will be an ongoing effort throughout the year with new art installations. Commissioner Carol Wright made the motion to support the festival with $25,000. The vote was unanimously supported.
Also unanimously supported was Music in the Park, restored to $25,000 from $15,000, the Folk Festival budget that was increased to $40,000, and Drumming in the Park support was increased to $2,000. Also approved was the newly added $7,500 fireworks’ budget to pay half of the $15,000 contract with the Parks Department for the July 4th celebration. $10,000 was approved for 2022 Mardi Gras special events.
Closing items
Commissioners unanimously approved hiring an intern for $15 an hour, Molly. No last name was offered.
The Historical Museum is now open and is also operating as a visitor center. The regular annual contract was unanimously renewed with the CAPC in which it supports the museum with $600 per month. Jeff Danos, the creator of the Zombie Crawl, is now managing the museum.
Jeff Carter was unanimously nominated to the commission, despite public objections. Final ratification is subject to council approval.
Commissioner Harry Meyer was asked to gather information for the AUD manager for the next workshop. The contractual relationship with Rightmind Advertising is set to be a discussion item then, as requested by commissioner Patrick Burnett.
The next regular meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, June 9 at 6 p.m. in t