PORT ANGELES — City Council members approved $423,636 in 2016-2018 tourism-related lodging-tax spending this week on two 5-2 votes, one of which hinged on a dispute that still must be resolved.
The hitch: the status of www.portangeles.org, the domain name of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce.
At their meeting Tuesday, Port Angeles City Council members agreed to a $74,591-a-year, three-year contract with the chamber to operate the Visitor Center from 2016-2018 for an amount totalling $223,773.
Consent came over objections from Councilmen Lee Whetham and Dan Gase. Gase is a real estate agent at Coldwell Banker-Uptown Realty in Port Angeles who also is on the chamber board of directors.
Council members also approved a $199,863 tourism marketing agreement for 2016 — it’s $137 under the city’s budgeted amount — with Bend., Ore.-based Vertigo Marketing.
Whetham and Councilwoman Sissi Bruch objected to that pact with Vertigo, calling it too spendy.
But the Visitor Center agreement dominated Tuesday’s council discussion over the city’s efforts to draw tourist dollars to the largest city on the North Olympic Peninsula.
Gase objected to a provision that was included in the final contract under which the city could ask the chamber for reimbursement for historic expenses associated with the chamber’s domain name.
The website attached to the domain name was developed with city lodging taxes, which are public funds.
“I didn’t feel there was anything to recoup for the domain name because the public had received value every year for funds that were paid for the domain name,” Gase said Thursday.
Gase and chamber President Jim Moran said the chamber favored a contract option under which the city could purchase the domain name outright from the chamber for $18,500.
City staff would have submitted a counter proposal to the asking price.
But Nathan West, city community and economic development director, nixed that idea in a memo to the council.
He said staff could not recommend that avenue because products and materials purchased with lodging tax funds through professional services contracts are owned by the city.
The third reason: “The value of the domain as proposed by the chamber is significantly overstated considering .org domains are of less value than a .com.”
Moran countered at Tuesday’s meeting that chamber funds and talent were invested in www.portangeles.org.
He said giving up the domain name and developing another website would incur new costs to the chamber.
“We feel that the ownership is really the chamber’s,” he told the council.
West countered Thursday that “much, if not most” of the funds for chamber salaries have been funded with lodging tax dollars since the late 1990s.
Moran also said Thursday he found it odd that city officials seemed to diminish the value of the .org tag given its pursuit of reimbursement for usage costs and the chamber’s own research.
West said Thursday that .com is “more respected” as a type of domain than .org.
“A lot of times, those sites are more trustworthy and more reliable,” he said.
Moran said Thursday he doesn’t know what to expect in upcoming talks with the city on the fate of www.portangeles.org.
West said he expects to begin those discussions next week.
In joining Gase by voting against the Visitor Center contract, Whetham had a different, previously voiced concern.
He said the Visitor Center location at 121 E. Railroad Ave., deep in the downtown core, was ill-suited to serve tourists when the vast majority of visitors enter the city from U.S. Highway 101.
“We are not addressing another location, so I’m not for this,” he said of the agreement.
The chamber ends its marketing of the city’s tourism-related benefits this year under a $175,000 contract after the organization opted not to pursue another marketing pact with the city.
Bruch said the city already gets free advertising through such phenomena as Port Angeles winning second place in Outside magazine’s nationwide 2015 “Best Town Ever” contest.
“I don’t like the idea of spending that much on marketing,” Bruch said.
“We get more marketing for free from outside Port Angeles.”
Bruch, touting downtown public art already replete through downtown.
She said $200,000 could instead buy 20 more murals.
But Deputy Mayor Patrick Downie said the region faces “a huge competitive challenge” given the lack of state support for tourism marketing.
“I welcome this effort,” he said.
“It needs to be that number just to be in the game.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
