VENTURA : Contract Drawn Up for Visitors Bureau

Ventura city officials are drawing up a contract that would make the city’s Visitors & Convention Bureau more accountable for its finances.

Currently, the city supplies the bureau’s $360,000 annual budget, but the bureau reports directly to its own board of directors, made up of Chamber of Commerce board members.

Under the new contract, the bureau’s director would give monthly progress reports and comprehensive quarterly reports to the city’s new Tourism and Special Events Committee. The committee would also approve the bureau’s operational budget, preapprove anyone the bureau contracted with for services, and preview each year’s marketing campaign.

“The city put this together because tourism is such a large part of the local economy and because the city is directing more effort toward developing the tourism industry,” said Debbie Solomon, a city staff member working with the tourism committee.

The bureau’s longtime director, Russ Smith, died suddenly last month, and the bureau’s contract with the city is up for renewal next month, making this an opportune time for the city to rethink its relationship to the bureau, city officials said.

City staff and committee members described the proposed contract last week to the three City Council members who sit on the city’s Finance Committee. The council members approved the changes to the contract, leaving the committee to now draw up a new contract in conjunction with the bureau, and then present it to the full council for approval.

Bob Alviani, president of the Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber supports the concept of rewriting the bureau’s contract.

“We would encourage that kind of oversight,” he said. “I think it’s great.”