Tourism

By Nancy Johnson

Promotions

Currently Morro Bay has three separate organizations to promote tourism. The two taxpayer funded are the City's Community Promotion Committee and the Visitors Center operated by the Chamber of Commerce. The City also funds the web site http://www.morrobay.org managed by the Chamber. The third source is the recently formed Business Improvement District (BID) which is funded by the motel/hotel owners. These three organizations spend a little less than eight hundred thousand dollars of which two hundred and ninety thousand is taxpayer funded. All three of these organizations have a separate Board of Directors with some overlapping of membership.

I am not convinced that this structure is the most productive way to spend our resources. If elected I will thoroughly investigate these different organizations to ensure that taxpayer portion of the expense is being fully leveraged to insure the best results and propose modifications depending upon the results.

Embarcadero

The biggest economic engine for Morro Bay is tourism on our waterfront. I believe it is time to spend money to make this important section of our community more productive and attractive.

Other than tourist dollars, the main source of income for the Harbor Fund is the lease site payments. As an enterprise fund, the money must remain within that account and can not be diverted to the general fund. We should use this money to leverage the funding necessary to replace and repair facilities on the Embarcadero. This could additionally be combined with Community Promotions funds to promote events and holidays on the Embarcadero.

There have been a variety of ideas floated around over the years to improve the Embarcadero such as, closing the street from Beach to Pacific Streets to through traffic, providing tourist attractions, i.e. a maritime museum, having water level boardwalks and a sunken ship as a reef for divers. These are all possible ideas to help this situation; they will take a lot of work and cooperation of the City Council and City staff. I have the experience and vision to look at these possibilities and work with the groups involved to get things done.