Thursday, May 19, 2005
Commissioners' terms for settling the case are 'not negotiable.'
WARREN -- Trumbull County's new tourism vehicle is starting out small -- and might not run for the long term in its current form.
The county's three-member tourism board organized itself Wednesday, with Trumbull County Commissioner Daniel Polivka as chairman, county treasurer Christ Michelakis as vice chairman, and commissioners' clerk Paulette Godfrey as recording secretary.
The meeting lasted 15 minutes.
The members decided to have a "Trumbull County Tourism and Information" sign erected at an office next to the Board of Elections at 2931 Youngstown Road S.E., formerly occupied by the Geauga-Trumbull Solid Waste District. They also agreed to set up a phone and fax line.
Billie Jo Zimmerman of the Youngstown-Mahoning Convention & amp; Visitors Bureau will be retained on a $1,500 month-to-month basis to help with promoting the county and distributing pamphlets.
The tourism board also intends to make use of Department of Job and Family Services summer help at its tourism info center, and is looking to Youngstown State and Kent State universities for internship possibilities.
County commissioners also plan to have an "office of volunteerism" to assist with mailings and events, Polivka explained.
Continuing troubles
Polivka said the day was both good and unfortunate, given that more than a year's worth of talking failed to resolve a dispute between the commissioners and the former Convention & amp; Visitors Bureau over board membership appointments and investment of county lodging tax money.
The parties remain in court on the visitor's bureau's lawsuit against commissioners. Polivka said the county can't delay its planning until that matter is settled, because of upcoming summer events such as the Packard Museum car show, fishing tournaments and a big softball tournament at the Thunderplex in Vienna.
"We have to pre-act and be prepared to help some of those events that are coming," he said, noting so far the county's tourism setup comes at "a very minimal cost."
Long-term options for promoting county tourism, Polivka said, involve talks with the Western Reserve Port Authority, Trumbull 100 organization and advertising agencies.
As for settling the litigation with the closed 24-year-old Convention & amp; Visitors Bureau, commissioners went on the record in their official journal Wednesday, saying their "offer of settlement is not negotiable."
Lodging money
Commissioners this month established the new Trumbull County Tourism Board to receive 2 percent of the county's lodging tax.
Atty. Jeffrey Kurz, writing to the county prosecutor's office on Monday, said the visitor's bureau board has voted in favor of settling its suit regarding past lodging tax funds it claims are due.
The settlement, under the auspices of visiting Judge Thomas P. Curran of Trumbull County Common Pleas Court, would distribute about $160,000 in withheld tax money to the bureau. This would be for settling outstanding accounts and obligations; what's left would go to qualified applicants working with the commissioners who demonstrate a paramount need for funding. The bureau then would dismiss its case.
Commissioners, however, still have problems with some aspects of Kurz' letter: They did not agree to appointing an independent receiver to collect monies and do an audit; they will not agree to pay an undetermined amount to pay the former bureau's bills; and they insist that the Trumbull County MetroParks should get the balance of the tax money that might remain after all of the obligations are settled.
"We're not going to pay their bills. We'll buy their equipment, and if that generates enough money to pay their bills or not, that's their problem," said Jason Earnhart, assistant prosecutor.