EDITOR’S NOTE: Port Angeles Councilman Lee Whetham’s vote is corrected.
PORT ANGELES — The city will stick with what four council members called a tried-and-true agency to run its tourism marketing campaign and operate its Visitor Center.
The Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce will continue in both roles, the City Council decided Tuesday night.
That means the center will remain in on the first floor of the chamber’s headquarters at 121 E. Railroad Ave., near the Black Ball Ferry Line terminal.
The council rejected the Soroptimist Jet Set service club’s bid to run the center in roughly one-third as much space in the Necessities & Temptations gift shop about a block away at 217 N. Laurel St.
The council majority also spurned Laurel Black Design of Port Angeles and Vertigo Marketing of Bend, Ore., to market the city as a tourist destination.
The city Lodging Tax Advisory Committee had forwarded recommendations to the council that it choose between the Soroptimists and the chamber for the Visitor Center and between Laurel Black Design and Vertigo Marketing for marketing.
Both issues split the council into 4-3 votes.
Council members Brad Collins, Dan Gase, Cherie Kidd and Mayor Dan Di Guilio backed the chamber for marketing services, with council members Sissi Bruch, Patrick Downie and Lee Whetham voting against it.
On the visitor center issue, Collins, Di Guilio, Whetham and Gase voted for the chamber, with Bruch, Downie and Kidd opposed.
