Tourism, Museum Grants to Be Studied

The Ventura City Council will consider today granting $400,000 to the Ventura Visitor and Convention Bureau and $17,500 to the Ventura County Museum of Art for the 1990-91 fiscal year that began in June.

Both grants were included in the current city budget and are expected to receive the council’s support.

Under an agreement with the city, the bureau will use the money to promote tourism with brochures, pamphlets, posters, periodicals and convention materials. It also would track visitor statistics, monitor legislation affecting local tourism and present the council with a marketing plan outlining the bureau’s strategy for wooing tourism to Ventura.

The museum grant would go toward acquisition, development and promotion of historical collections, artifacts and programs, said Assistant City Manager Lauraine D. Brekke.

The agreement with the museum states that the city expects the museum eventually to become self-sufficient. “It is not intended that the museum will rely on the city for support,” the document states. Ventura began funding the museum in 1986.

Brekke said the grants are similar to allocations that the bureau and the museum received last year.