(Cass Co) The Cass County Board of Supervisors heard a presentation this morning on a request for a full-time Cass County Tourism Director.
For the past 15 years, Kenner Baxter of Marne has led the Cass County Tourism group as a volunteer and she announced this spring that she is looking to step away. Brigham Hoegh presented a plan to create a Cass County Tourism 501c6 organization to hire a full-time Tourism Director for two years and they requested $130,000 of ARPA funds to fund the position.
Hoegh said the Tourism Director would work from home and would be responsible for coordinating projects that promote tourism in Cass County, Financial Management, Strategic Development, Marketing and Visitor Services.
Hoegh said they would like to form a 501c6 in the next six months and then hire a Tourism Director by the end of next year. Long term, the position would be funded by individuals, community and organization support as well as county funding. Currently, the Supervisors provide $5,000 in funding which has been used primarily for marketing such as brochures, print ads, and radio ad as well as to reimburse Kenner Baxter for the costs of attending regional and state tourism events.
Jennifer McEntaffer with CADCO and Bailey Smith with the Atlantic Area Chamber of Commerce said they feel the county as a whole is under-represented as far as tourism.
After a lengthy discussion, the Supervisors stated that they feel this should be a part time position. They are worried about what would happen after the two year period is over and how it would be funded after that. They would also like to know how the other cities in the county would contribute to this financially. The Supervisors stated that they would be willing to put some ARPA funding toward getting this started, but they asked the committee to bring back some more solid figures on what a part time position would look like over the next two years before they take any action.
In other news, the Supervisors approved the reappointments of the ten members to the Cass County Local Food Policy Council Board and they approved the resignations of Jennifer Saathoff from the Compensation Board effective immediately, Donald D. Edwards as Trustee of Victoria Township effective February 28th, and Linda K. Edwards as Clerk of Victoria Township effective February 28th.
