As soon as a 2.5-month contract is signed, Boise Convention and Visitor’s Bureau will get a check for $24,500 from the Greater Boise Auditorium District — just a smidge under a state law requiring contracts more than $25,000 be put out to competitive bids.
The visitor’s bureau staff has been working without pay for several months.
But the two-person minority on the auditorium district board — which voted 3-2 Monday to sign the contract — say the contract is illegal because it skirts state law by intentionally coming in just under the $25,000 threshold, because all of the money is paid up-front before any services are delivered and because it uses district tax dollars to market an entire region.
Two new board members elected in May have done little to assuage the deep division that has plagued the five-member board for more than a year.
What has changed is the voting pattern. Under the prior board, Gail May and Mike Fitzgerald, strong proponents of the visitor’s bureau, were in the minority. Under the new board, they have gained an ally with new board member and chairman, Hy Kloc. Returning board member Stephanie Astorquia and new board member Judy Peavey-Derr have found themselves in the minority.
At the heart of this deeply divided board is differing legal opinions over whether hotel room tax dollars collected by an auditorium district can be used to market the region as a whole or must be used solely to market the district’s convention center.
In August, the board voted 3-2 to stop paying the visitor’s bureau $1.3 million annually to market the center, leaving it without any source of income except for a state tourism grant.
Astorquia and Peavey-Derr also contend the auditorium district’s proposal put out last week soliciting a long-term marketing services contract is illegal because it specifically targets one vendor: the existing visitor’s bureau.
It is illegal for government entities to solicit bids with a predetermined outcome or to write a bid targeting a specific vendor.
Under the request issued last week, the applicant must be able “to complete all programs in any currently contracted Idaho Travel Council grant programs” and be qualified “to receive and manage future Idaho Travel Council grants.” Only one entity fits that criteria: the visitor’s bureau.
The bureau receives about $600,000 annually in grant money from the state via the Idaho Tourism Council. The money can be used for programs only, not salaries or operating costs. Only nonprofit organizations can receive the state tourism grants, so other marketing firms are not eligible to submit bids to provide the auditorium district’s marketing services. Proposals are due July 25.
Peavey-Derr asked May, who helped write the bid proposal, if anyone other than the visitor’s bureau was capable of bidding under the proposal as written.
“I think that there would be one other organization that might, but the intent of course is we would like to have the benefit of the (state’s) grant funds,” May replied.
Peavey-Derr specifically asked May if the RFP was written to target the visitor’s bureau.
“I would say probably,” May responded. “They fit the parameters.”
“I don’t think this RFP process is valid or legal,” Astorquia said.
The other board members, May, Kloc and Fitzgerald, maintain the short-term $24,500 contract and the solicitation for a long-term contract are legal. Attorney Nick Miller with Hawley Troxell vetted the short-term contract and the RFP.
Cynthia Sewell: 377-6428
