I have covered Bay City’s tourism board since we started this newspaper in 2014 – back when it was called the Convention and Visitors Bureau and was under the Bay City Chamber of Commerce & Agriculture.
It was moved under the city’s mantel of departments by former Mayor Mark Bricker amid complaints from then council members and now City Manager Scotty Jones.
During that changeover, I saw tourism poised on the edge of something amazing and wonderful that was set to help the entire county.
Now it’s been mostly degraded to a “lipstick on a pig” scenario.
I became an official tourism board member in 2022 and have seen two directors ousted from running the department for different reasons.
When Jones decided to consolidate several other departments into one for the sake of perceived
“synergy,’ the Tourism Director/Manager position was left vacant and the Communications and Cultural Arts Department violated the charter in 2024 with its creation.
And you may be wondering how exactly it violates the charter - looking at Sec. 7.05 under “City Officers and Administrative Departments” - the city manager has an opportunity to make written recommendations to the Council prior to any vote to change administrative organization and that any ordinance changing administrative organization shall require a two-thirds majority affirmative council votes.
I have to tell you that none of that happened in open session prior to the new department being formed after the fiscal budget was approved in 2024, and that means Jones has violated the charter!
Since then, the tourism board was told several times that a new director would be hired “soon” – whatever that meant.
We were also told at one point that three different employees were running tourism in the interim.
Given the track record I’ve seen, I wasn’t holding my breath but continued to ask about the status of when a director or manager would be hired and was finally told that it would be addressed in the next budget cycle for the city’s fiscal year starting Oct. 1, 2025.
Consider my surprise when Communication and Cultural Arts Director Samantha Denbow gave a budget presentation during a workshop last week that outlined no tourism director/manager position.
We had just had a tourism meeting the day before and no budget presentation or proposition was brought before the board, as it had been in the past.
Among several other items in that presentation that raised red flags, I noticed that the accompanying tourism director/manager salary portion was left blank for this year, but that the tourism department was still budgeting an estimated $10,000 in payroll costs?
Furthermore, the budget had figures factored in for retirement, worker’s compensation, health and dental insurance – I’m concerned now.
I think the absolute icing on the cake was when Jones told city council that she didn’t have to tell them what she was spending Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) Tax on.
That’s taxpayer money and to hear something so blatantly audacious was mind-boggling.
The city has a 7% HOT within the city limits and is supposed to use those funds to directly enhance and promote tourism along with the hotel and convention industry.
Of course that tax is only incurred when someone spends the night at a hotel – not just lumped on the residents.
Still, residents and business owners have a right to know what that money is being spent on to promote the city.
However, it looks like we’re just getting a different shade of lipstick this next fiscal year.
Though I firmly believe that Bay City and Matagorda County deserve better than that and to not employ a dedicated, full-time tourism director/manager is a disservice to our county.