By Scott Loftis
SLoftis@cherryroad.com
Editor’s Note: Emails quoted in this report have not been edited for grammar, punctuation or spelling.
The Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission last held a regular meeting with a quorum June 22, a little more than a week before the terms of commissioners Carol Wright and James DeVito expired June 30.
The commission was scheduled to hold another regular meeting on July 27, but was left without a quorum after a confrontation between DeVito and commissioner Nick Roberts resulted in Roberts and commissioner Autumn Slane — the city council’s two representatives on the CAPC — leaving the Auditorium before the meeting officially began. DeVito and Mark Hicks were the only commissioners in attendance, with DeVito announcing that it would be his final meeting after he sold his restaurant in Eureka Springs.
At a city council meeting Aug. 8, council member Harry Meyer called Slane “childish” for leaving before the meeting began and chided her for the fact that the council didn’t have a second-quarter financial report from the CAPC.
“While that’s being discussed, the reason it wasn’t approved was because the quorum disappeared,” Meyer said after Mayor Butch Berry noted that the CAPC financial report wasn’t included in council members’ information packets for the Aug. 8 meeting. “All they had to do was approve the financials, but they decided not to.”
“We don’t have a quorum and people are on vacation. There’s really been a pretty bad lack of communication when these people will return and who these people are. I don’t really understand what’s going on, but at this point, the CAPC is at a complete stall. We don’t have a quorum. I don’t know when we’re going to get a quorum.”
— Eureka Springs City Council member and CAPC commissioner Autumn Slane, expressing her frustration over cancellations of CAPC meetings during a city council meeting held Aug. 22
Council member Melissa Greene echoed Meyer’s concerns.
“I was extremely disappointed to have people take the law in their own hands and walk out, throw a meeting where we do not have our financials,” Greene said. “We seem to be worried about budgets that are out of our control. But yet, I didn’t get my financials to approve and they’re important.”
“Autumn, I understand that you have some ideas and some complaints,” Meyer said to Slane during the Aug. 8 meeting. “That’s cool. But to walk out of a meeting was, in my opinion, childish. And we need to have decorum at these meetings. We need to — if we can’t get what we want, we need to do what we have to do. And the reason that people on the council are appointed to that commission is so that business can be done. And you’re our representative. You didn’t bring the financials to us. You haven’t been giving us updates.”
At the council’s Aug. 22 meeting, however, Meyer seemed less concerned about the financial reports.
After the CAPC’s regular meeting scheduled for Aug. 24 was canceled on Aug. 19, Slane expressed her frustrations at the city council’s Aug. 22 meeting.
“We don’t have a budget right now because we can’t come up with quorum,” Slane said. “To my understanding from Madison (Dawson, the city’s tourism director), we don’t have a quorum and people are on vacation. There’s really been a pretty bad lack of communication when these people will return and who these people are. I know I’ve went on vacation several times and I Zoom in, so for me, I don’t really understand what’s going on, but at this point, the CAPC is at a complete stall. We don’t have a quorum. I don’t know when we’re going to get a quorum. We have no budget to give us here at the council, so we have no budget to approve.”
“It’s not a budget,” Meyer replied. “It’s just the financial report. The budget was passed in January. So it’s the financial report for this quarter. It’s true. One of you can probably get a copy of it down at the office from Scott, the finance guy, and bring it up and show it to us. It’ll be not officially approved, but it would probably be the same thing that’s going to get approved.”
The CAPC is scheduled to hold a regular meeting Wednesday, Sept. 28. The commission has one vacant seat — left open by DeVito’s resignation. Wright will remain in her seat until the commission nominates and appoints a replacement. Wright has applied to be re-appointed to the commission.
While the commission itself hasn’t held a meeting with a quorum in approximately 10 weeks — with another four weeks until the next scheduled meeting — staffing at the CAPC office has been a point of contention recently.
“The public is frustrated by the current office situation. Locked doors, unanswered messages, and unresponsiveness do not inspire confidence. We need to do better than this.”
— Kim Stryker, administrative assistant to Eureka Springs Mayor Butch Berry, in an email to Berry and CAPC chairman Jeff Carter regarding the CAPC office.
Kim Stryker, Berry’s administrative assistant, emailed Berry and CAPC chair Jeff Carter on July 19, to share her concerns about the office.
“At least once a week, we receive phone calls or people coming in frustrated by the CAPC office 1) not open during business hours 2) no one answering phones during business hours 3) if someone does answer the phone, they are not knowledgeable enough to answer questions and 4) voice messages and emails to the office are simply not returned,” Stryker’s email says. “I have spoken to Madison personally on several different occasions to ask for the office to be covered and open during normal business hours M – F 8 to noon, 1 – 5 because it is a tax collection office. This suggestion was not embraced with enthusiasm.
“We received a very frustrated call this afternoon from a Susan Katzman … who is trying to bring in a Fam Tour. Susan has left multiple phone messages at the CAPC office, with zero returns. She resorted to eurekasprings.org media contact which is an email form to Maria Elsbernd. Susan has emailed twice, both times it bounces back. In her phone call to me she said ‘I have never worked so hard to bring a group of travel writers to a destination with so little cooperation’. I committed to track down Maria Eisbernd myself and get her correct contact information back to Susan. But of course I can’t do that because there is no one answering the phones or in the office who could then connect me to Paradise.
“The public is frustrated by the current office situation. Locked doors, unanswered messages, and unresponsiveness do not inspire confidence. We need to do better than this.
“Thank you for listening to this ‘next door neighbor’ perspective.”
Berry responded later that day. “I know Madison is out of the county at a conference, however, she needs to leave her cell phone or someway for people to contact them,” Berry writes. “As you know, this isn’t helping the CAPC image or concept of the way it is being run.
“If Kim hadn’t of written this and told me, I would have ask you to please have Madison or Molly and or Scott be at the office 8 hours a day.
“The office needs to be open.”
Dawson answered later that night. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Dawson’s email says. “Libby, our office coordinator, is in the office Monday-Friday 8am-5pm. Besides in cases of illness or personal matters, Libby maintains the office hours.
“We have a new phone system that seems to work great, but our voicemail system may be the cause of some confusion. I will address this when I am back in the office next week.
“In regards to Susan Katzman, we received her inquiry sometime ago and she was informed that we would reach out to her if we think it is a good fit. Unfortunately, it is not. Our team at Paradise will be reaching out to her tomorrow to reiterate this.
“I tend to stray away from giving members of the community my personal cell phone number, but anyone and everyone is welcome to email me here. I check this email once a day while I’m away.”
“Fam tours” are familiarization tours, typically for travel agents. Katzman is an independent food and travel writer, according to her LinkedIn profile. Elsbernd is a senior account manager with Paradise Advertising & Marketing Inc.
Dawson last responded to an email from the Lovely County Citizen on May 3, answering an email that was sent April 28. She has not responded to emails sent on July 17, July 20, July 28 and Aug. 19.
Dawson traveled to Toronto on July 15 and returned July 24, according to expense reports obtained through an open-records request. She traveled with a companion and was reimbursed for $955.31 in airfare expenses from Bentonville to Toronto, records show — $647 for one of two airline tickets, $144.53 in taxes and fees, $49 for a preferred seat and $114.78 for trip insurance. Dawson also received $501.50 for nine days of travel per diem, records show — $44.25 per day for the first and last day of travel and $59 a day for another seven days.
The Destinations International Annual Convention was held July 19-23 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Registration fees for the conference ranged from $995 to $1,595 per person.