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Veto on marketing funding stands

 

The borough assembly had one more battle to wage over the budget at Tuesday night’s meeting.

After securing an additional $75,000 last month for an internal communications and outreach program within his office, Borough Mayor Charlie Pierce vetoed $100,000 in funding for the Kenai Peninsula Tourism and Marketing Council.

KPTMC has long been in the mayor’s sights as a budget item to cut, and he says the same work marketing the borough can be done through that $75,000 contract. But some on the assembly, including Dale Bagely, didn’t think Pierce was being very transparent.

“I have a problem with this and I certainly have a problem with that $75,000 was put in there for something else that I believe was not related to tourist promotion, that now the mayor is saying it is. I kind of feel like it was a bait and switch and I know the mayor disagrees with that, but...that wasn’t the intent of it.”

Community and Fiscal Projects Manager Brenda Ahlberg explained the need for that money to the assembly last month, with no mention of tourism but a lot about the need to better communicate what’s happening within the borough to its residents and other stakeholders.

“We’ve come to realize we do need a plan. We do need guidance that’s holistically capturing everything that we do internally, everything that we could be doing externally to our audiences, whether it’s our residents, those in private industry, non-profit industry, tribal entities, whatever it may be, so that we have a better representation that hopefully will also encourage economic development. But it should start with an understanding of what we are as a municipal entity to our residents," Ahlberg said.

There was doubt that all of that, plus effective tourism marketing could be accomplished for a mere $75,000. Pamela Parker sits on the board of directors for KPTMC and talked about the significant changes that group has made since its funding was reduced last year. She did not shade her frustration, to the point assembly member Hal Smalley had to intervene when the topic switched to the discrimination suit brought against the mayor that will cost the borough $150,000.

“We will no longer be doing search engine optimization and facebook marketing. That will decline, and I guarantee you, folks from Anchorage and out of state are not going to be seeing the Kenai Peninsula at the top of their search when they look for things to do," Parker said.

 

"I also think that some members of your staff are going to be pretty disappointed when that $75,000 goes to somebody else, that doesn’t fulfill the vision that they had for their community engagement project… That is not tourism marketing. That is an entirely different piece. I’m frustrated, I think you can tell. And it’s really sad to see, I’m assuming this is a result of the lawsuit and now we have to cover our asses because of the $150,000. So you’re taking it out on the female-led organization, KPTMC.”

This wasn’t the first time Pierce has been accused of sexist behavior, even outside the discrimination lawsuit. But none of that was enough to sway one more vote for the supermajority needed to overturn a veto, and it stood by a vote of 5-4.

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