 |
| Steve Chandler|Twitter |
At Tuesday's meeting, the Tourism Board agreed to a resolution asking the Common Council for approval to pay for Chandler's time and travel expenses--an amount not to exceed $2,000. The resolution will be considered by the Council in November, and, if approved and Chandler is available on that date, his presentation to the Council will take place at the informal meeting of the Council on Monday, December 9.
A hint about the likelihood that the Council will approve the expenditure may have come early in the meeting when board member Chuck Rosenthal voiced his hesitation about moving forward "based on the pushback we've already gotten." He told his colleagues, "I don't want to go back to the Council and be rejected." Council president Tom DePietro, who was present at the meeting, said he felt "there was value to [Chandler's] presentation, even if he wasn't ultimately chosen."
COPYRIGHT 2019 CAROLE OSTERINK
I would like to point out that the Tourism Board meeting started at 5:30, and chairs were being cleared by 6 pm.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if the Tourism Board is suffering from a crisis of leadership under Volo or if they're just waiting out the clock on their term, but I was shocked that there was no discussion of alternatives to the Chandlerthinks proposal. Putting all the Board's eggs in a basket that the Common Council has rejected once before shows a myopic approach to problem solving that borders on the pathological.
Tourism in Hudson has grown organically thus far, and the industry itself would be poorly served by the top-down, one-size-fits-all approach the Tourism Board is so eager to shove down the city's throat. I respect the board's members, and I hope they dedicate themselves to finding alternate approaches that better address the challenges facing the industry.
High dollar tourists from all points of the county once passed through North Dock and on to the Faithful, especially this time of year. Used to be 25 - 30 pickup trucks every weekend. Many of these people still think of Hudson as home...
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's time to pivot from "foreign" tourists by calling on these ex-pats to "come home to Hudson."
Target the thousands that were born here and left in the 70's & 80's, made their fortune and can now afford to return.