The City Advertising and Promotion Commission had a great deal to tackle July 24 as they worked to establish normalcy following chaos of the past few months. Public comments had citizens requesting a complete audit of the last four years, a petition to disband the CAPC and redirect funds to infrastructure, a focus on building up Christmas, and funding the Parks & Recreation commission better.
Tourism Director Mike Maloney presented commissioners with a breakdown of financial difficulties “caused by former Finance Director Scott Bardin.” These actions required the finance director for the city, Michael Akins, to assist.
Currently the CAPC does not have access to financial documents or reports because Bardin used a laptop and an old version of QuickBooks, and when he left, he removed himself from all accounts and switched the administrator to a former CAPC employee.
The laptop is being submitted to Pinnacle IT to ensure that it has no virus or other malware. Bardin also cancelled all credit cards, which were in his name only as finance director, so bills stopped being paid.
Akins advised the CAPC to adopt the city’s policy of several members having cards through the same bank and submitting itemized lists every month.
The CAPC’s past budgets up to 2022 have been audited by both the city and the state legislature. Once the laptop and QuickBooks files have been reviewed, further audits will be done up to the present year. Commissioner Kolin Paulk was wary of voting on any financial business until these audits and issues were addressed, but Akins assured commissioners that everything was being done under city and state scrutiny.
Maloney said that as of now, the CAPC has a little more than $2,000,000 in three accounts. They can make deposits but are having to fill out forms and work with the bank before they can access funds.
He then introduced Group Sales Representative, Jana Taylor, who was hired to promote Eureka Springs as a destination for shows and conventions by attending trade shows and expos.
Parking structure study encouraged
Maloney discussed plans to take bids from three different groups, including the University of Arkansas’ Walton School of Business, for a study on the viability of a parking structure in downtown. This has been much discussed, and Maloney said that to see if such a project were viable the study was necessary, it would cost between $25,000 to $40,000.
He also said that he is producing a weekly letter sent to stakeholders to keep them apprised of the CAPC’s work and projects. He added that an updated Facebook page that will have Madden Media reports.
Acting Chair Steve Holifield turned to filling the two open positions, one for a business owner in the city and one at-large position. Heather Wilson Vinson was nominated for the at-large position and Robert Schmidt was nominated for the other. Both will need city council approval. Commissioner David Avanzino asked that Holifield stay as chair until December 31 and commissioners agreed. Commissioner Sherry Faust was voted in as vice chair.
Avanzino suggesting that a local accounting firm take over finance duties rather than have a single person in charge. This was tabled for next month.
Funding requests for the Chamber of Commerce’s Classic Car Show, which at 53 years is the oldest car show in the Ozarks, was granted $5000, as was Colton Scrivner for the Zombie Crawl. Holifield called Parks Director Sam Dudley and said it was decided that once finances were straightened out, Parks would be budgeted $10,000 a year to print pocket maps available at parks and trails kiosks.
Holifield brought up a petition distributed by Pat Matsukis and others to do away with the CAPC and divert the tax funds, according to what Holifield said Matsukis told him, one percent going to infrastructure and one percent going to advertising the town rather than the three percent tax currently collected from tourist dollars.
Holifield said he felt this was grossly irresponsible and that at the very least a study needed to be done first to see the impact on the community if there were no longer a CAPC, citing cities in Colorado that had suffered immensely from disbanding their A&Ps.
Commissioner Bradley Tate-Greene pointed out that people with businesses would be forced to leave the town once tourism declined. He pointed out that Madden Media was doing a good job promoting the town and were also known for being used by Bentonville, Rogers, and other cities.