New members of Holiday Island’s Advertising and Promotion Commission (HIAPC) got down to their first order of business June 6. Led by Chair Bryce Holland, they started with options for a web site.
Donna Putnam, representing the Holiday Islanders Promoting Residential Ownership group (HIPRO) discussed how her group had put together and maintained two websites, visitholidayisland.com and retireholidayisland.com, both owned by Vernon Anderson.
An offer was made to either turn over both sites, or just the visit site, to HIAPC and train them to run it. Putnam also shared that they focused on helping people with questions about the town through email, so if HIAPC took over, the link could be changed to their email address.
Putnam mentioned that some of the questions received were about real estate, and Mayor Dan Kees pointed out that HIAPC would have to tell enquirers to go to Realtor™ sites as it is not in HIAPC’s purview to promote selling properties. She shared what advertising for the area had been done in the past by HIPRO, and what sites, newspapers, and advertising had been most effective, which included MailChimp, leads from CRJW, and the Ozark Mountains Fun Guide.
Review of a sample of their first resolutions to check wording and whether anything needed to be added, amended, or deleted was next, followed by establishing officers, scheduling meetings, defining voting rules, recording retention procedures, website usage, code of conduct, and Freedom of Information Act procedures were Commissioners agreed to sign the code of conduct form during the workshop, as that did not require voting.
Discussion turned to taxes that would pay for the HIAPC if it were made official in November by voting. Commissioner Ken Brown of HISID Lodging and Rentals brought up the one percent tax that would be put on food and beverages if they decided to create that tax, and a three percent tax on lodging. Brown mentioned that he and other lodging owners were mostly fine with the three percent tax because the people paying would be short term property owners but said the public would probably be upset with the one percent tax on restaurants because they would perceive that as being on locals. He added that it would mainly be paid by visitors.
Vice Chair Susan Lawlor mentioned the stickiness of the taxes because people could get angry due to a promise when Holiday Island became a city, but that a vote of the citizens would be fair.
Holland urged commissioners to be honest about the taxes and what they would pay for, stressing that the one percent tax had been voted down by city council once already, and might not ever be voted into existence.
Commissioner Pat Elwood objected to the one percent tax completely, and Lawlor commented that he was being short sighted. Holland said the focus should be on being careful about what was said and what promises were made to the public, such as promising a certain number of visitors and then having the reality of how many visitors come be fewer than anticipated.
Commissioners discussed setting up meetings open to the public and how to go about sharing their plans for promoting the area. They agreed that on June 13 they would work to put together a schedule of meetings and encourage the public to share ideas for events the city could hold to draw in visitors. It was mentioned that even though HIAPC already had a lot of ideas for events it would be better to let the public share ideas and get them to be “more likely to buy into” the A&P.
Finally, the group deliberated on banking, where to open accounts, and how to begin funding the HIAPC before the tax note in November. Holland said that in his research he had found that city councils of other cities often gave seed money for Advertising and Promotion to get up and running, and that money was paid back once taxes allowed it.
Kees said that council would have no problem passing a budget amendment and loaning money to the HIAPC. Commissioners decided that at the Thursday, June 13, meeting they would pass their resolutions and schedule a workshop open to the public for June 17 at 6 p.m.