Agenda Packets - 2009/03/23 (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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To: Board of Directors From: David Looby, Executive Director Date: March 12, 2009 Re: Executive Committee Recommendation to Allow Cities Early Opt Out of Agreements VMN began in 1986 as the North Metro Visitors and Convention Bureau representing the cities of Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park and Fridley. Since that time, VMN partnered with the NSC and grew to an eleven city organization. VMN is unique in that it represents the north metro suburbs with many different venues. Some of these venues include the NSC in Blaine, Arbor Lakes in Maple Grove, Bunker Hills and Riverdale Shopping Center in Coon Rapids, Downtown Anoka, and the Earle Brown Heritage Center in Brooklyn Center. There are many more unique areas or events within the eleven city organization. VMN’s sole purpose is not to market the NSC nor Arbor Lakes Shopping Center, but to market all eleven cities as a tourism center. Its Mission exists to implement promotions and attract visitor spending to contribute to the economic growth of its eleven Member Cities. It’s mission is specifically targeted towards making prospective visitors aware of the communities and attractions, promoting the communities as a good place to stay when visiting the Twin Cities, promoting the meeting and convention facilities available within the organization, actively solicit meetings, conferences and convention business, and attracting and promoting sporting events at the NSC and other regional facilities. In addition, it strives to work with other Metro and State Convention and Visitors Bureaus, the Minnesota Office of Tourism and other private and public organizations to generate a positive impact in the area for tourism, meetings and sports. Within the past several years there has been some dissention within the organization with some cities thinking the NSC is receiving far too much funding, while other cities thinking Maple Grove is receiving too much funding. The goal of VMN is to market the eleven member cities as a tourism destination, not the NSC nor Arbor Lakes in particular. During discussions in 2008, when preparing and reviewing the 2009 budget, questions began to emerge about the funding between VMN and the NSC. An agreement was made for 2009 and a task force was formed to begin reviewing the funding for future years. Negotiations appeared to have broken down in December with the NSC providing letters to some of the lodging properties requesting them to write to their local community requesting the cities opt out of their agreements with VMN. While the VMN Board voted to keep the eleven city organization together at their Board meeting in December, the City Councils of the Cities of Coon Rapids, Shoreview, and Blaine all moved to opt out of VMN ending their agreement by the end of 2009.