 Yeah, totally. Let's plug it over there. Michelle, can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you now. Michelle? Yes, we can hear you. Can you hear me? Rafael, if that's you, I can hear you. I can hear you, Michelle. I can hear everybody. ID, followed by any number. Please re-enter your meeting ID, followed by pound. Brad's trying to get on it looks like I don't know if somebody is making a panelist or something. He's calling from Chicago, so he may not be showing up with his normal number. Or IP address or whatever. Okay, and it's for Brad? Yeah, correct, Brad Calkins. Okay, I see him. Let me promote him now. Rafael, are you able to hear us yet? So 845-8705-3890. Hi, Michelle. I can hear Rafael and Donna, it sounds like. Can you guys hear me? Yes, we can hear you now. Hey, Brad. Yeah. Technical difficulties here at the best western end, but. Are you over there with Donna? Yes. Don't be laughing. Hey, there you go. Okay, I think we have everybody on it now. And I believe that we all can be heard. So just let me know when you're ready to get started and I can stop sharing my screen. One more thing here I got to do. It's obviously some kind of audio connection. I don't know if it. It didn't be hotel-wise, but. Probably our firewall. And just trying to turn the volume. Down on my laptop, but it's not letting me. Cause like every three minutes is weird. Space. Sound comes on. Let's at least maybe get started and then I'll see if I can. Okay. All right folks, I apologize. We're going to go ahead and get started with our answer. PBI eight November meeting for November eight. 11 a.m. Or actually it's 1107. And I'd like to welcome you all before I get started. Before we get started, I'd like to read off. An advisement. Given that our meeting is being held through. Zoom. So. Let's see. Okay. So due to the provisions in the governor's executive order and 2520 and in 2920, which is spent certain requirements of the Brown act. And the. The director of the health officer of the county of Sonoma to shelter in place. To minimize the spread of the coronavirus. The center of that tourism business improvement area. Board committee will be conducting today's meeting in a virtual setting using zoom webinar. Committee members and staff are participating from remote locations. And are practicing appropriate social distancing. And will be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature on their zoom interface. Or by pressing star nine on their phone. And they'll be given the opportunity or ability to address the committee. Members of the public may view and listen to the meeting as noted on the city's website. And as noted on the agenda. Members of the public wishing to speak during item three public comments or during our public hearing items. We'll be able to do so by utilizing the raise hand feature on the agenda for the meeting. Thank you for that. And I'm going to now call the road call. So if you could please announce your name and the name of the agency that you are involved with. Donna, thank you Donna. The Anderson best Western plus one country. Thank you. You're rumbles center as a Metro chamber. Morning, Peter. Thank you. Brad Culkin's VSR staff. Thank you. That's it. Madam Secretary, if you please record that. Thank you so much. Thank you to everybody. Moving on to our exciting agenda, and we have item number two, which is actually public comments. If we have any members of the public wishing to make a comment not listed on today's agenda, Madam Secretary. I am not seeing any hands at this time. All right. Thank you so much. Since there aren't any comments, then we'll move on to item 3, actually 3.1, which is the approval of the minutes from our July 22nd meeting. I'd like to hear a motion if there aren't any amendments to those minutes in order to approve the minutes. I did read it. I'll approve it. Okay. Donna, a motion to approve the minutes from July. Someone one second. Also. Okay. All those in favor say aye, approving the meeting minutes from November. Aye. Okay. Any opposed? Aye. The minutes approved. Thank you. Moving on to item 3.2, it's actually the minutes, the other minutes from our September 23rd meeting. So if there aren't any changes or suggestions or modifications, amendments, and such, I'd like to hear a motion to get those minutes approved. Moves. Second. Donna, seconds. Everyone in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Great. Minutes approved for September for our 23rd to September meeting. Thank you. All right. Moving on to, down to new business, I'm actually going to switch the order a little bit this morning. I apologize for that. And I think I'm within the right to do so. And we're actually going to take a look at the event support applications that came in in the last couple of days. There are a total of three. And we have included the attachments as well as the hyperlinks. So hopefully you've had a chance to review those applications. And then we'll go ahead and move on to item 4, which is the strategic objectives for 2022. So at this moment, I would like to review the three applications that came in. And let's go ahead and start with the center of Turkey Trot. And then we'll need to decide if what we're going to do in terms of supporting the event or not supporting the event. Chair Raphael. Yes. As we get into this, can I suggest since we, this is our last meeting and we currently only have 5,000 left, that we go through each one before take and then return to take a vote on support so that we have a chance to talk about them all. Understanding what we have left and then we can come back and do the individual votes for support. Yeah, that's actually an excellent suggestion. So let's go ahead and briefly take a look if you haven't done so. And then I usually just provide some highlights. But then let's go ahead and go through all three of them. And then follow up with our decision to either support, given that we have a little funds left or not. So then the first one that you'll see is the Turkey Trot. It's an event that has been apparently very successful in the city of Hillsburg. They are having the event for the first time in the city of Santa Rosa. It's actually right around Thanksgiving. You don't see the dates right away, but it's following Thanksgiving holiday, I believe. And it calls for lots of participants, quite a few runners. Apparently, there are some levels. And anyway, that's a little bit of of insight regarding the Turkey Trot. Sounds like a pretty exciting event, athletic. And they also state that. Average, do you have a chance to look at it? What do they know? I'm sorry. What do they use the money for? What's the money going for? They have four thousand five hundred for downtown Santa Rosa road closures and five hundred dollars for digital advertising out of their five thousand requests. Oh, here we go. OK, yeah. So the app is five thousand dollars and the total cost of the event is around twenty thousand or so. And it'll be it's a five K round throughout the downtown area of Santa Rosa. And then it will score a square at the exact day. I mean, I mean, we don't know if it's. Oh, yeah, sorry, let me clarify for that. It's actually November 25th Thanksgiving Day, isn't it? Well, you have some highlights regarding that event. So let's just park this one here for a second. And now let's move on to the next one, which is the Wine Country Distillery Festival. And I think this one here as well. Yeah, so this one's actually taking place in March of next year. So they are hoping that things are open back up again. It is held at the Luther Bourbon Center in the East lawn. It is, I believe, a returning event. This would be the third year and they did take a break in 2020, of course, through the pandemic. And the estimated cost is around twenty five thousand dollars. And the event support request is for five thousand dollars to do digital digital and print marketing and also do outreach and promotion in the Sacramento region, as well as San Francisco, East Bay and Silicon Valley. And so that's the second one. And again, so that one is slated for March 12th to be held at the LBC. And then the third one, it's actually one that we are somewhat familiar with is the golf tournament and the the acronym is AJGA, and it takes place in the city of Windsor. This has been going on for quite a few years. Seventy eight junior golfers from around the world. Eight ranges between twelve and nineteen. And so the Windsor Golf Force, I said, is returning and the total cost to run the entire event is ballpark figure twenty eight thousand dollars. And their request for event support is ten thousand dollars. And that is to do for the purpose of doing marketing, advertising, promotional materials and so on. All right, so those are the three. They also estimate, and I forgot to mention the estimated night or I mean rooms that will be reserved. For this one in particular, there's around one hundred and seventy five rooms here in the city of Santa Rosa and for the wine distillery, they estimate something around three hundred rooms and for the Turkey Trot, twenty rooms in twenty twenty one. OK, so you have it as those are the highlights regarding these three awesome applications. And then now we just need to decide if given with the very little funds we have left for the year, if we can go ahead and provide some support for some of these. Chair, can I review? Can I go over some of the thoughts on the three of those? Absolutely. Uh, as mentioned in the Turkey Trot, they are looking for road closures and digital advertising. I think the digital advertising would be a great, the five hundred would be a great opportunity in digital advertising. We do only have a week to go, but they do show they did show a preliminary zip code analysis that there is some people coming from outside the area. It also allows us to talk about the bigger picture, what's going on downtown with the ice rink and winter lights, because that's all part of the bigger picture than just the Turkey Trot. So I think that five hundred for digital advertising, given our limited funds, would be a good use for them for the distillery festival. Just as a note, Chris, our director of marketing and I have been working with her for a long time. She did the first event in nineteen, where we found out afterwards and started talking and trying to do the twenty twenty one. Unfortunately, we know that later that got put in a high eighties. I think of the three, this is the perfect example of what we're looking for an event support. It has a high potential for out of town room nights. It has even more interesting as I think it really has a chance to grow over the future years and some working for giving her giving this funds, supporting funds for marketing outside our five county area would be a great. Long would be a good long term investments because it also allows us to talk more about the spirits market. We've, as we know, we do very well with the wine and beer market, not as much with the spirits market. So that would also give us that opportunity. And like I said, we've already had multiple discussions with Lindsey and are excited about potential on this one. So I would recommend that a large, the largest portion goes towards the Distillery Festival and the American Junior Golf. As you had mentioned, we have partnered with them before. We've always required, though, that if we do support them, that the the lodging regardless of what they do, the lodging must be at any SRT, BIA location. As we know, the first year we wanted to support them, but they went to Windsor. So we had to cancel our support because we're obviously not supporting anything that's going to the Windsor hotels. And I think last time we also paid the money directly to the lodging so that it goes directly to cover the lodging costs of the teams or the players. Do you know what they're planning on putting the staff in Santa Rosa? Yes, that is the requirement. The staff and the players must be in in Santa Rosa. The only thing we don't have control over are the parents, because they can book where they want. But I'd say a majority of the parents want to be at the host hotel. There's always going to be some parents that have preferences that will stay outside the area. We can't control that. But most of them do want to be wherever the host hotel is. And that is required to be in Santa Rosa. Any other comments or thoughts before we move on to a vote? And also, well, anyway, go ahead. How do you have? Brad, did you think we had 5,000 total? OK, and the city is a city also has another 5,000 total. No, that's the total. So it's 2,500 each, but 5,000 total. Thank you for that clarification. So just following on that thread that that Brad was discussing, you know, if we start with the Turkey Trot at five for five hundred for digital marketing and then scale that up as we go to something like I'm just putting a I'm putting something out there to attack or to, you know, just to start the conversation, something like five hundred for the Turkey Trot 15 for golf and that would give three for the distillery. So I just put put that marker out there and whatever reactions. I was really close to what you're thinking, Peter. I was thinking five hundred for the Turkey, a thousand for the golf and thirty five hundred for the distillers. I'd be willing to meet you in the middle. But if that's your motion, I'd be willing to second it. I'll make a motion to approve. Yeah, sorry, before we I wanted to check if there were any comments from the public. If we have any members of the public, Michelle, willing to give any input regarding these events, Michelle. Yes, I am not seeing any hands at this time. OK, all right, thank you. OK, yeah, I mean, that sounds ideal. I mean, I mean, these are three great events, especially the run will be the first time it's around the Thanksgiving holiday. I think it's going to team up really well with the skin rink and the lighting of the tree. And of course, the junior golfing tournament is always very exciting. And I'm also very excited to see something related to the Distillery Festival returning to the area as well, given that this this will be the third or fourth year. So, yeah, that's right. So I heard a motion to do the five hundred for the Turkey, five hundred. Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to catch you off there. I would say five hundred for the Turkey run to be used for digital marketing. One thousand for golf to be used for expenses within the S.R. TVA boundaries and then thirty five hundred for the distillers would be my motion. Second. OK, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye, OK. So motion approved, approved to do to do that breakdown as such. And those organizations will receive those funds for those particulars. All right, so that takes care of that agenda item. And now I wanted to move on to the next item, which I jumped. And I apologize for jumping, but I wanted to get that out of the way. And now we move on to the strategic objectives for twenty twenty two. And then it's basically regarding event support and what exactly what what else can we do with some of these funds that are available for event support? Do we want to eventually provide the funding for a major, large event? Do we want to have returning events continue to be supported? Or do we want brand new event? And that's what I wanted to have a little bit more conversation on. And I just want to hear a little bit of your input and then see worth where that goes. I mean, I think just depending on new events will be good. But what events are they going to be that that would be. Everybody hear that from Donna? I miss some of it. What's some of the new events with me? I mean, I agree to keep contributing to the ones that bring us business every year. But new business would be good, depending on what it is. My thoughts are if it's put in heads and beds, I think new events would be ideal because especially when you get them to reoccur every year and become self-sustaining. I don't mind helping out reoccurring events for the first few years until they really get established. But some things that seem to pop up every year like monster trucks pops into my head off the top of my head. I mean, they've been replying for support for every year, I think since we've been around. And I don't know if I should be wrong on that. But I don't think we should be like a permanent funding source. I think, you know, if they need it or something, then we could consider it. But I think our primary objective needs to be to put heads and beds. And if we can get new events like races and bike rides and distillery festivals and whatever that brings people here and becomes a regular thing that's self-sustaining. That, in my opinion, should be our primary goal or whatever. I think one way it looks like we lost Brad. Oh, here he comes. I kind of feel like it's a, it's not an either or. I'd really like to see us have a, have more of a conversation. Then we probably have time and space for today to talk about identifying a limited number one, two, maybe three events that we are committed to in a, in a significant way, right? And that is just sort of a budget set aside that we have that we're going to support. And we don't need to go through application process. We don't need to go through application process. We don't need to worry about timing. We just know in X year, we're going to put Y dollars to events, A, B, and C. And then that's not all of the funds that we would have available. We would have some set aside for things that might come up. And that, that might be where we identify these new, these new events that sort of spark, up from grassroots and people want to bring their, whatever events to Santa Rosa. And it's a great opportunity to start building a relationship. And, you know, maybe over time that becomes the, the long standing event that we're going to be committed to for the long haul. But from an event production standpoint, I think it's really important for us to, to have some sort of stability in their planning. They know that they've got a partner, you know, is what I mean. They know that they've got a partner in us for, you know, a number of years. Should everything go okay. Right. And again, not, not, not, not, not, not, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, as an asset as an asset, you know. You know. And again, not, not at the exclusion of events that might come up, but, but to provide a real stability there. Yeah, I really like what I'm hearing. And, I'm looking forward to seeing what the outcome is going to be for the skating rink. Cause I think that would be a So, in particular, that event wouldn't necessarily be applying every year, but we would set some funding aside to definitely have this and, again, promote Santa Rosa in such a way that, you know, we have this going on every holiday season, for example. But is that event putting heads in beds? I don't think it is. If it is, I don't think it's a whole lot. I think when we set up this funding and in this board, the goal was to put heads in bed and bring in events that do that. And I don't think a skating rink. I mean, I think it's a great event. Don't get me wrong. I think it's wonderful. I love it. I think it's awesome. I don't think it's bringing in overnight stays. I think let's let's see before we make that decision or that evaluation of it. I'm in the middle of cleaning it right now. So, you know, let's see, we do know that it's getting the media that we're putting out there is getting a lot of attention and I don't have the breakdown of outside versus in town but there, I think this is part of that longer discussion as well of we, you know, we might want to set up some additional time for of does having a skating rink bring in, and I'm just using this as an example, right, it could be anything could be whatever could be the could be the distillery festival that I just that we just perfect could be anything but having an event that gets attention, but maybe not a room night on that particular night, but bring somebody back because, you know, they they saw that event and they think it's wonderful and now they're going to come back for an extended weekend at another time. It's not it's, it's a harder connection right between that one funding decision and that decision to have the of an individual to stay, but I think that is really impactful and I don't think that we should discount that. And so I not to get into the discussion today right but I that's a thread that I'd like to pick up. Okay. Sorry Mike kept cutting out. Those are all I mean there's lots of options I think the one that we've we've talked about in the past and we looked at and what some other locations do is put a cap on the number of times an event can apply or be funded. So it would be something like a three year cap on existing events so it goes back to I think it satisfies the conversation of allowing for more new events because existing events aren't enough taking up the limited funding. But it still gives you seed money to help someone grow for a couple years. I think there's always going to be an exception there could be an exception if we sign a long term contract with someone, but we would know that in advance. So something like that would allow you to have a little bit of both where you would have that money and then also I think we discussed informally. I think Peter mentioned to the funding issue you know if we do go back if we do and we looked at this one time, doing just instead of this meeting every other month, do a large funding round in January and a smaller funding round in June. That gets you to set up the year but still gives you a little bit of leeway if something good comes along towards the end of budget changes versus doing it all in January. And then there is also the option of reorganizing the application to emphasize the marketing and media plan for their organizations for just for just room nights. I mean, I agree with Todd there's got to be some correlation somehow and whether it's the right marketing opportunity then that would be emphasized on their marketing plan what are they, what is the event organizer doing so that's not up to if we're going to if the BIA is going to fund it they're not leaving it up to BSR to do all the marketing so what kind of marketing is that event also doing to help promote Santa Rosa as an overnight destination and as Peter mentioned it doesn't always have to lead to that one specific weekend or day, but what is the organizer doing to help promote so that someone may see it and say you know what my schedule is full that weekend but Santa Rosa sounds really cool I am going to plan something in another month or six months or something like that. Dana you have any thoughts. No, I totally agree with Todd though on you know heads to bed because I mean after all with money is coming from from hotels. So, you know, I agree with Todd on that end. All right, well, this is a good start of the conversation what I like to do is then definitely add this item on to a future agenda and continue the discussion. I think we're on to a good start and realizing you know what what kind of modifications we can make as we move along, and then we allocate those funds, but we do want to keep in mind that, you know, the rooms are are still important to to all of us, and and the rest of us, but I think that the ordinance also doesn't necessarily call for for a caveat, tied that the room to to the funding but we can definitely continue the discussion at a later meeting. If everyone's okay with that, I would definitely like to add it on to a future agenda and and we don't need to make any any decisions at this moment. So, everybody's okay with that. I think that yeah I think that would be great even setting aside an entire meeting for it so we can really create the space to have a conversation. I think that would be great. All right, well then that leads us to the end of our meeting and I like to thank you all and I like to have it. Yes. Sorry to interrupt we it does look like we have someone with their hand raised for public comment on this item. Would you. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you like me to call on them. Yes, yes I skip that so I apologize. Absolutely give me just one moment while I share my screen. Any comments from the public. Yes, we have one hand raised, let me get my screen up for public comments. Thank you. Of course, and then we have Eric, Eric you should have a prompt allowing you to unmute, and if you could please start by stating your full name for the record, and I will start the timer when you are ready. This is Eric Frazier with truth in tourism at gmail.com. I did want to chime in on this issue. And of course I agree with Todd that the money that was designated for visit Santa Rosa, its purpose is to get overnight stays, as we understand it. And also this overlap I think that's misunderstood with the money that the city keeps for its out there Santa Rosa campaign. But I'm, I definitely agree also that we should have a longer time to discuss us with more information pushed up front, so that there can be more public involvement around information. I realize that money is a political tool as well. And so I'm very uncomfortable with the suggestion that there would be some sort of events baked in the cake. I think that's probably a recipe for disaster and goes against the concept that we want events to be self supporting. So the question is about how the BIA spent its money. In addition to that there's a lot of unresolved questions about its organization, its board and so on and so forth and, for instance our pre litigation research found that short term rentals have brought in about a half a million dollars to the BIA fund over the past five years. The BIA's inception probably another half a million or so 300,000 to half a million so about $800,000 and money that may have been sort of illegally gained by the BIA board. So that may be a problem that has to be reckoned with next year. I'm also concerned just about when we talk about how the money spent. It just seems like so little money that does it Santa Rosa controls actually ends up in the hands of organizations and promoters and events. It seems like that money has to go through a tremendous burden of administrative expense. And it doesn't really appear that the professional competencies for how that money is spent are very apparent. So we'll look forward to a future meeting where we can dial into facts and have a good hearty discussion about the facts. As we know them and as they're changing. Thank you for your time today. I appreciate it. And everybody stay well. Thank you very much for your comments, Michelle. Any other comments available? I am not seeing any further hands. Okay. I'd like to move to adjourn the meeting. I'd like to thank you all very much and happy Thanksgiving everyone. Same to you. Thank you. Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving. Well, happy Christmas and New Year's too, I guess.