BUENA PARK : PR Firm’s Contract With City Renewed

In an era of tight budgets and falling revenue, tourism is especially vital to the city’s economic health, City Council members said this week. The council voted Monday to renew the contract of the public relations company that operates the city’s Convention and Visitors Office.

The five-member council earlier had approved a $350,000 budget for the tourism office, about the same amount as last year. The vote this week confirmed that Pattie Davidson & Associates of Long Beach will continue to handle the city’s marketing.

But they split 3 to 2 on whether to sign a three-year lease on the group’s office on Manchester Boulevard.

Councilwoman Patsy Marshall said she could not agree to more than a one-year lease until the city finished a strategic five-year plan to fill a projected deficit of several million dollars in the coming years. Councilman Gerald N. Sigler also voted against the long lease.

But Pattie Davidson, managing director of the Convention and Visitors Office, said she was just relieved to have come through the budget process unscathed.

“The tourist industry is such a part of the economic fabric of the city that the council decided it was important to continue doing the work we do,” she said.

Davidson took on the job of coordinating promotion and marketing for the businesses that line the Beach Boulevard Entertainment Corridor in May, 1993.

Since then, Davidson has found that a cloudy economic climate locally can be overcome, because tourists from countries such as Australia and New Zealand have been increasing.