After entertaining 30 minutes of pointed dissent from the president of the Iola Area Chamber of Commerce, commissioners chose to again postpone a decision on whether to provide Thrive Allen County with the $50,000 required to launch VISIT Allen County, an initiative intended to promote tourism in the area.
Thrive interim CEO Bill Maness appeared before the commission again on Tuesday, and again stressed the point that VISIT Allen County is in no way designed to compete with the chambers of commerce in Iola and Humboldt. But the point didn’t wash with Shilo Eggers, who is nearing the end of her first year as board president of the Iola chamber.
“The chamber is not here to throw rocks at what Thrive is asking for,” said Eggers, who addressed the commission following Maness’s presentation, “but at the same time … I don’t feel like the chamber has been fully included in the conversation or kept in the loop.”
Eggers claimed that, despite the fact that Maness himself sits on the chamber’s board, the Iola area chamber was unaware of Maness’s plan to make his $50,000 appeal to the county on Jan. 14. “Now, how’s that for communication?” said Eggers.
While Eggers agrees with Thrive’s underlying complaint — that so far no organization has taken the lead in adequately marketing Allen County as a vital tourist destination — she believes that the chamber’s prior failure to sufficiently promote Allen County has less to do with any inbuilt, organizational limitations and everything to do with mismanagement.
But change is afoot, promised Eggers: “When you look back at how the chamber has been functioning … it’s been bad. I think that the chamber had become stagnant and was operating similar to the way it had in 1980. … So I feel like David [Toland, Thrive’s former CEO], in bringing up that tourism is lacking and that advertisement hasn’t been done appropriately — he’s exactly right on that. But what I will say is that since I’ve taken over as president, our feelings and our direction for the chamber have changed. I feel like we’re pushing to get the chamber on solid footing. And I think that we’ve made some strategic moves with the idea of tourism in mind.”
Eggers pointed to the recent sale of the Iola chamber building and the group’s subsequent relocation to the Bowlus Fine Arts Center, which represented a significant cost-saving measure. The sale also allowed the chamber to establish a reserve fund, should the group encounter future funding straits. Thirdly, the chamber is scheduled to unveil its new website — plus an app with relevant area information — in the coming weeks. Fourth, Eggers believes the chamber would do a better job promoting hunting and agritourism. And, finally, explained Eggers, the chamber’s new address makes the Bowlus Fine Arts Center — with its bright new entrance and “neutral” aura — the perfect location for a visitors’ center; as opposed to the project plans for VISIT Allen County, which locates the tourist center in the Thrive building.
Eggers concedes that the chamber is currently operating without an executive director but says that she hopes to begin the interview process by Friday.
In the end, Eggers said, she can conceive of a future in which the chamber and Thrive work together to promote the area, but that VISIT Allen County, at least as it’s currently constituted, would not only tread on territory that is the usual responsibility of the chamber, but that it may in fact spell the dissolution of the chamber altogether. “I just feel like [VISIT Allen County] is duplicating a lot of the same goals that we have,” Eggers continued. “I think we could work together to make it happen, but I just feel, personally, that Thrive is not the vessel to carry the visitor center.
“If you did not give the $50,000 [to Thrive], the county is no worse off. I feel like the chamber is really starting to get its stuff together to make a difference in the community since I’ve been involved with it. … Here we are in the stages of finally getting some stuff done, but then we have this other entity come along that I view as competing directly with what the chamber wants to do. My dream would be that you eventually see the chamber become a countywide chamber. But that comes down to how our chamber is funded. My dream would be that the chamber not be a membership entity. However, currently, without membership, given the current funding [structure] that we have, there’s not enough funding to make the chamber work. But if it was funded at the county level, you would see that the chamber could do so much more than it is now. … But I just feel like taking the $50,000 and giving it to Thrive…well, I don’t feel like that is spending our money wisely.” Eggers stopped short of making an official request for funds from the county on behalf of the chamber.
“Instead,” said Eggers, “what I’d like is if you guys would give it a chance. Instead of saying no, instead of saying we’re not going to [give Thrive the $50,000], you hold [the decision] off for 12 months, because that will give the chamber time to really prove that we’re worth our salt.”
MANESS, in his speech to the commission, offered a markedly different view of the matter, repeating his promise not to trample on the toes of the Iola Area Chamber of Commerce and stressing the fact that VISIT Allen County is designed to increase tourism countywide (not just in the Iola area) and that, if the county chooses to contribute $50,000 to the project, the elements are already in place to launch VISIT Allen County sooner rather than later. Plus, said Maness, Thrive has committed $25,000 of its own money to the initiative.
“All of this started back last April,” said Maness. “Then in September when we had the public meeting, at that time [we] made the comment that if we were not the entity to do this, then somebody else should step forward. We’ve waited now since last September — no one has come forward. That’s why I came back and said, ‘We’d like to roll with this.’ Again, Thrive has an established history of working throughout the county and we’ve included every part of the county in what we’ve done, and I’d just like the opportunity to continue to do that.”
In their previous meeting, commissioners asked Maness to return the following week with a projected budget for VISIT Allen County and with a schedule of markers by which the success of the program might be gauged on an ongoing basis. On Tuesday, Maness did that.
