Occupancy Tax Board

APPROVED OCCUPANCY TAX BOARD MEETING October 29, 2013 Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - 2:30 p.m. Conference Room, City Hall Members Present: Chair- Josh Ragsdale, Jill Cleveland, Dawn Ortega, Adam Roe Members Absent: Julie Morrow Staff Present: Janice Self, Barbara Patterson, Stacye Hunter, Monica Garcia, Renee Roach Others Present: Dusty Huckabee, Brian Roach, Elaine Mayfield, Helen E Wagner Meeting was called to order at 2:36 pm by Chairperson Josh Ragsdale. Four of the five members of the board were present representing a quorum. Ms. Cleveland moved to approve the minutes from the August 27, 2013 Occupancy Tax Board meeting. Mr. Roe seconded the motion, and it passed unanimously. 1. Lodgers Tax Funding Request – Roswell Filmfest & Cosmicon (June 27 – 30, 2014) Ms. Elaine Mayfield, Ms. Helen E Wagner and Ms. Renee Roach were there to present the request for $74,455. Ms. Mayfield began the presentation explaining that Mr. Alan Trever (the fourth Filmfest & Cosmicon committee member) was unable to attend due to other commitments. Ms. Mayfield continued with how very excited the committee is about the progress over the last couple of years and the growth of the Filmfest & Cosmicon. Ms. Mayfield went over the budget. (Ms. Self passed out amended budgets that were supplied by the applicant that morning.) The Filmfest & Cosmicon are planning on doing more advertising and there will be more going on in 2014. A couple of the new events will be team films and high school film awards. Ms. Mayfield went on to explain the survey results (supplied this morning and handed out to the board members). Ms. Mayfield added that the age groups seem to show that the social media advertising is the way to go. The Filmfest & Cosmicon will also be getting corporate sponsors and that is one of the reasons they are applying earlier this year. The event will be held at the Mall again because the Convention Center is booked at that time. Ms. Cleveland asked why the 50% does not apply to this event. Ms. Patterson explained that although the money does come from the Lodgers’ Tax fund, it does not come out of the Occupancy Tax Board allotted budget. The Finance Committee values the input from the OTB and that is the reason that the large events are first reviewed by the OTB. Ms. Self also explained that the large events are required to sign a contract with the City whereas the other events do not. Ms. Self passed out letters of intent for sponsorship from the Parks and Recreation Department and the Roswell Museum and Art Center (RMAC) explaining that they were just delivered prior to the meeting. Mr. Ragsdale asked if there were any more questions. He then asked Ms. Patterson to explain the concerns which staff has to the matter of the financial records from 2013. Ms. Patterson used the projector to show the difference between the two reports which were delivered on August 28, 2013. (Report 1 is the “Lodgers’ Tax eligible items” and Report 2 is the Full Financial Report including Income.) The concerns are that report 1 should be a subset of report 2 and items listed on report 1 were not on report 2 or the amounts were different. Some entries were duplicated on report 2. After taking staff’s concerns to Ms. Mayfield a new set of reports was produced and delivered the morning of Tuesday, September 24th (today) and appears to have most these concerns addressed. However, several concerns still remain; in that a separate checking account was not used (as stated in the contract, which was provided by Ms. Self) and at this time the bank information (debit card use and check copies) have not been produced and cannot be verified with the ledger and invoice copies received. Not all vendor invoices have been received (a RISF provided form was used as documentation). There is also the concern over the $10,000 for script production which has yet to be verified as an eligible expense. Ms. Patterson went on to inform the board that staff has been working hard with the Sci-Fi Film Festival to acquire the correct information and are waiting on some items. Ms. Mayfield went on to explain that they are working with staff to be sure that the finances are complete, but wanted to be able to get on the Council agenda with the request and get approved so that they could go ahead and approach the corporate sponsors before it gets too late in the year and budgets for 2014 have been finalized. Mr. Huckabee did interject that the Visitor’s Center at the Convention Center is able to do an event survey for hotel stays. It is a 3rd party impartial survey. Ms. Self handed out the two reports on survey information Mr. Huckabee brought to the meeting which had hotel stay information. One report was for the Cosmic Con and the other for the UFO Festival. As there was some discussion with what to do as a motion, Ms. Self reminded the board that they could recommend an amount (same or different from the request), deny the application or postpone until concerns are satisfied, and that the event could still appear before the Finance Committee whatever the OTB recommendation. Ms. Ortega made the motion to recommend to the Finance Committee to postpone the review of the event until the paperwork has been completed. Mr. Ragsdale seconded the motion. The motion was then presented for discussion. After some discussion a vote was taken on the motion on the table with the results in favor 0, against 4. The motion did not pass. Ms. Ortega then made the motion to recommend to the Finance Committee that Lodgers’ Tax funding in the amount of up to $60,000.00 contingent on the paperwork meeting the 2013 contract and upon the approval of the Finance Committee be provided for this purpose. Ms. Cleveland seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. All attendees were informed that the date for the Finance Committee meeting has not yet been set, and they would be contacted as to the date and time. Marketing Directors Report: Ms Renee Roach then presented the Marketing Directors report on the progress of marketing Roswell. Ms. Roach informed the board of the new brochure which will be out shortly and will have general information on events that are held in Roswell with a “pocket” in the back to place rack cards for events. She requested that Ms. Self forward an e-mail which contained the mock up of the brochure to the board members. Ms. Roach then showed the newest type of advertising which is “QR trading cards” which feature cartoon aliens in Roswell and events with a QR code on the other side to use with a smartphone app. She requested that each of the board members take some cards to place at their establishments. Reimbursement Report and Event Reports: Ms. Self reported that at this time there have been no further requests of reimbursements and no event reports received. December meeting: Ms. Self discussed the fact that the regularly scheduled meeting for December is on Tuesday the 24th. Ms. Self asked if the board would like to change the meeting date for the week before which would be Tuesday the 17th. All felt this would be a good solution. Mr. Roe made the motion for the December meeting to be on Tuesday, December 17, 2013. Ms. Ortega seconded the motion. The motion passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned at 3:45 p.m. Minutes submitted for approval by Janice Self.