MCLA
February 2, 2006
Little River Inn

CALL TO ORDER: President Jo Bradley called the meeting to order at 1:22 pm. Board members present were Richard Strom, Scott Schneider, Jan Rodriguez, Bill Shupe, Mike Bradbury, Steven Musser, Kevin Gallagher. Jitu from Fairfield Inn & Suites, Kathy Pomilla from Fetzer Vineyards and Printha Platt were present as guests.

II. There were no additions or deletions to the agenda.
III. There was no correspondence. The treasurer, Richard Strom said
that no monies had come in or gone out. The MCLA has approximately $4000.00 in the bank.

Jan Rodriguez brought up the question of what fees, if any, should be applied to lodging properties who want to be a part of MCLA now.

Steven Musser made a MOTION that pro rated dues of $25.00 would be applied to all lodging properties who wanted to become a member at this time. Their membership would be good through June 30, 2006. The motion was seconded by Bill Shupe and was unanimously approved.

IV. Privilege of the Floor: The board welcomed guests Jitu from Fairfield Inn & Suites and Kathy Pomilla, from Fetzer Vineyards and Printha Platt.
V. Jitu was appointed to the Ukiah Seat on the MCLA Board.

The board had two concerns about seats on our board. It was determined that one, we needed participating board members. It was noted that there are three board members that are not at the meeting. Jo Bradley appointed to speak with Cheryl Quist and Damien Wood about their seats and Jan Rodriguez to speak with Christy Collins about her seat as North Coast At Large. If these members cannot attend the board meetings then in accord with our by-laws they will automatically deleted.

The second concern was the number of vacant seats on the board. We decided that some board members could be shifted into board seats that are harder to fill, leaving seats vacant that might be easier to fill.

Steven Musser was moved to the Albion Seat.
Scott Schneider was moved to the Elk Seat.

The following board members will try to get vacant seats filled:
Jim Hurst – Fort Bragg
Kevin Gallagher – South Coast At Large
Printha Platt – Little River
Steven Musser – Anderson Valley
Scott Schneider – North Coast At Large.

VI. Cities Updates and Status. Willits and Ukiah unanimously passed the “Resolution of Consent.” Three changes were made to this resolution by the legal aid for the cities.
1. 1% to be a cap – if MCLA wants to raise this assessment, they would have to go thru entire process again.
2. Option – if 50% of TOT protested the inclusion of a city, then city would be able to opt out.
3. Recheck with lodging on a yearly basis to determine if lodging in each city wanted to opt out at that time, then they could.

Point Arena City Council will meet on February 8, 2006 and Kevin will follow up and encourage them to put the Resolution of Consent on their agenda. Fort Bragg will be meeting on February 13, 2006 and it appears their concerns are met and they should approve.

VII. BID MARKETING PLAN – Penny Greenwood and Bruce Lewis have gone over MCLA Marketing Plan and brought it up to date.

One of their concerns was that it is critical for MCLA to move forward and personally contact the 60 top TOT payers.

Tony Shaw asked them to send letters to BOS now to show support for the BID.

Penny said that of the Top 10 TOT – we were positive about 6 of them and had to follow up personally with the other 4.

Penny and Bruce also expressed their concerns that lodging had questions about the structure of the board – will it be able to work effectively?

What is the MCLA marketing plan – needs to be more defined. What will we do with the funds when we receive them? How will they be spent? The concern of some lodging is how they can trust that the BID monies are being managed well.

The board determined that a marketing committee should be established immediately. It was determined that the new Marketing Committee would be formed from the MCLA Board of Directors.

The following board members volunteered to be on the marketing committee:

Richard Strom, Scott Schneider, Jitu Ishwar, Mike Bradbury, Steven Musser, Kevin Gallagher & Jan Rodriguez. The Marketing Committee is to meet at the Fairfield Inn & Suites on Thursday, February 16, 2006 at 9:00 AM. The first two hours will be spent in organizing the committee and discussing a strategy and the last hour will be to hear from Penny Greenwood and Bruce Lewis regarding their marketing plans.

A MOTION was made by Richard Strom that we solicit proposals and budgets from firms to assist marketing committee in developing a detailed market plan. Kevin Gallagher seconded the motion. It was unanimously approved.

The new Marketing Committee was charged with getting input from lodging in their area as well.

A discussion then followed regarding whether we needed some kind of administration to be set up immediately. It was determined by the board that Scott Schneider would be appointed to take care of the administration process and he would have a report for the board at our next meeting.

Bruce Lewis asked that we review the MCLA website and email any changes, suggestions, etc to him at bruce@prwebsite.com.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:00 pm.

Respectfully submitted,

Jan Rodriguez