Peoria Standard

City of Chillicothe Marketing and Tourism Commission met February 7.

Here is the minutes provided by the Commission:

Members Present: Tiffany Moore, Nick Mc Million, Michele Pollack, Mayor White, Joe Harper, Nancie Cassidy, Director Parker

Members Absent: Kaci Geier, Dan Colwell, Paresh Patel, Carrie McIntyre, Shirley Loser, Kevin Yates, Lowell Bennett, Amanda Odewaldt, Nat Zich, Karen Mowe

The meeting was called to order at 3:30 p.m.

Director Parker stated that she received messages from Kevin Yates, Nat Zich, and Kaci Geier and Shirley Loser that they would not be able to make the meeting today.

Mayor White shared with the committee his conversation with Jeff Wallen in Regards to the annual Baseball Tournament. He wants to promote Chillicothe with his tournament and he would like the city to purchase an ad in his program guide that would reach approximately 10,000 people. His booklet would be located at all of the sites where games would be taking place. So those that look for the schedule of games would also see the ad to Discover Chillicothe and what he thought might be good is to have a map to go along with the places for people to come eat and or shop while in the Chillicothe area. He also stated that they would like to place an ad on the billboard on Rt. 29. The cost of the booklet ad would be $1,200.00 which will include some social media advertisement as well. This money would not come out of M & T. The funds will be coming from Economic Development. Jeff is willing to pay for the billboard Advertisement. He would also like to have some type of community fundraiser on that Saturday as well. Where possibly all the businesses would donate a percentage of their sales to St. Jude for that day only. Michele from Wolf Hollow shared with the committee her conversation with Jeff where they talked about having a band, a car show, fun on the run items and maybe some outdoor archery tag on her site because of the space she has there. The purchase of the ad for the booklet will be on the next City Council Agenda for approval.

Next the Mayor informed the committee that Lowell Bennett has resigned from this committee. He called Bill Colwell who is the president of the Historical Society, and he recommended Patty Pierson replace Lowell. This will be on the next Council Agenda for approval.

The budget for M & T has been mapped out for the next fiscal year. The funds coming in from hotel motel tax year after year are decreasing, therefore we have to decrease spending or think of ways to increase revenue. The question was asked do each of the hotels pay the same rate, especially when there are some long term stays as one more so than the other hotel. The Mayor stated that the rate is the same. At a prior meeting there was talk about ways to gain revenue through sponsorships, donations etc. Joe Harper asked if possibly 1% of the sales tax generated by the city be put into M & T fund. The Mayor stated that all that sales tax is used for Economic Development. Director Parker suggested that possibly a small percentage of whatever the city receives from summer camp be put into M & T. She also stated that since the city does not know how much that is from year to year and it does not have a designated item that it pays for, could we possible consider using a small percentage of that for M & T. The Mayor stated that the city gets around $60,000 per year as a part of the entertainment tax. The Mayor said that he and Rachael would look further into that. Director Parker stated that we only had 2 that paid for the billboard ad in this fiscal year. Castaways and Cedar House/Nat’s Place were the two paid ads. It was suggested that not for profits pay $200 and other companies pay $400. Motion was made by Joe and second by Michelle to only charge the $200 for not for profits. Consensus of group was to go along with that rule.

Nancy asked why $4,000 listed under website on the budget sheet. Director Parker explained that it was listed but no funds were dispersed for that and it should not have been listed on the M & T budget but on the ED budget. That correction will be made and it will not show that line item on next year’s budget

Next Tiffany updated the committee on the Illinois Valley Drive. Shore Acres will be having their craft fair, but she is not going to move forward with arranging the vendors in the park nor the other things that she was trying to pull together because that is graduation weekend and because of that a number of people were not able to participate. She also shared some information with the committee that was of concern to her. Due to the lack of people that want to participate, the Mayor suggested that we pull out as far working at it through M & T. Tiffany is going to meet with her board to see what they suggest as far as moving the citywide garage sales to that weekend instead of in July.

The Downtown business association meeting was held and there were not many there because of the weather. But the conversation was good and they are keeping things moving forward. Joe was in attendance at that meeting and felt like the focus on that meeting was on advertising more. Director Parker stated that the way finding signage was talked about multiple times. The Mayor stated that we will be picking one of the 10 firms that responded to the RFP for 4th Street improvements soon. So with that $20,000 grant the city has received from TCRPC hopefully a number of those issues will be resolved. Director Parker also mentioned that the group is going to work on coordinating 2 days out of the week where everyone’s business hours are the same. They were looking at Thursday and Saturday’s to start. That group would like to meet the first Monday of every month at 5:45 at City Hall.

The Facebook page that was known as Shopping and Tourism is going to be changed to Discover Chillicothe trying to keep the same message out there since the billboard says Discover Chillicothe. The Mayor stated that the other Facebook meeting was for all Not for Profits groups in the city. The whole idea was for them to coordinate their events and share information amongst each other. This may also be a way to consolidate some events and to not double book events. Tiffany also wanted to add that the Chamber Golf outing is being changed to Friday June 1 and it will be at the Lacon Country Club.

Joe stated that his store had been closed for the whole month of January for them to do some upgrading to the store. One thing that was added was a monitor that will be used to just promote events happening in the City. Anyone with an event can send it to him and he will upload it to that monitor.

Town theater ad is being worked on. ODG is taking the Discover Chillicothe commercial that was done some time ago and shortening it to continue that same message of Discover Chillicothe. Once completed it will be shared with the committee. Also Director Parker shared with everyone that Bald Eagle days is Feb. 10th and to encourage people to come.

There being no further business the meeting was adjourned at 4:29 p.m.

http://www.cityofchillicotheil.com/M%20%20T%20minutes%202%207%202018.pdf