Friday, September 21, 2012

Marketing Alliance responds to blog

Councilman’s post said Ketchum not paying ‘fair share’


By BRENNAN REGO
Express Staff Writer

The Sun Valley Marketing Alliance reacted this week to an online blog post written by Sun Valley City Councilman Nils Ribi on Aug. 29.

In his blog, Ribi states that the post is a response to “recent criticism” of the City Council’s unexpected Aug. 16 vote to cut the city’s fiscal year 2013 commitment to the Marketing Alliance from $356,000 to $250,000.

“Since the beginning of the SVMA, the City of Sun Valley has been paying significantly more than its fair share and the City of Ketchum has not,” Ribi wrote. “City of Ketchum officials have known for over two years that we would be moving to a more relational budget allocation. This has been clearly and consistently stated up front and followed with associated actions as reflected in the reduction in FY2012 and FY2013 City funding to SVMA.”

In fiscal 2012, the city of Sun Valley lowered its commitment to the Marketing Alliance for the first time. The city reduced appropriations for the Marketing Alliance from $400,000—the amount both Ketchum and Sun Valley each originally agreed to contribute toward marketing the area outside of Blaine County—to $356,000.

As far back as June 2010, some Sun Valley City Council members said they wanted to reduce the city’s support of the Marketing Alliance. At a June 28, 2010, City Council meeting, Councilman (now Council President) Bob Youngman said “governments funding marketing is inappropriate.”

“I will support [Sun Valley’s contribution to marketing] going to zero in three to five years,” he said.

On Thursday, Marketing Alliance Board President Jake Peters, Ketchum’s representative on the Marketing Alliance board, stated in an email to the Express that none of Sun Valley’s three representatives—over the past two years—on the Marketing Alliance board were “aware” that their city planned to reduce or eliminate funding of the organization.

“It seems quite odd,” he states in the email.

Brooke Wojcik, Sun Valley’s current representative on the Marketing Alliance board, said Thursday that she recently found out Sun Valley’s ultimate goal was to reduce funding to zero. 

“I was aware that the city wanted to lower the funding. I had heard that was the intent, but I was not informed before the vote that they were going to do so,” she said. “What was shocking to me is that I was told recently the intention is to lower funding to zero. I had never heard that before.”

Wojcik said that she was particularly surprised the Sun Valley City Council voted to lower its contribution to the Marketing Alliance by $100,000 before the organization had secured other stable sources of funding.

Ribi’s blog post points the finger toward Ketchum for not paying its “fair share.” He states the Marketing Alliance demonstrates “continued denial” and “lack of responsibility” for not being prepared for Ketchum’s “failure” to meet its responsibilities.

“Ketchum is not contributing its fair share to the general area marketing efforts,” Ribi writes.

Peters disagreed, stating in his email that at the proposed level of funding commitments, Ketchum funds the Marketing Alliance at “nearly twice” the level of Sun Valley.

“Yet each city has one board representative,” Peters states. “Is that fair?”

Ketchum Mayor Randy Hall did not return phone calls seeking comment by press time Thursday. However, he has repeatedly expressed disappointment in Sun Valley’s decision to cut funding during recent Ketchum City Council meetings.

Peters further states that Ribi’s post indicates a “lack of awareness” of what the Marketing Alliance is charged with doing.

“It seems to me that SVMA’s principal job is to get new tourists to come to ‘Sun Valley,” Peters states in the email. “New tourists generate new revenue which recoups local-option taxes. On that basis any reasonable assessment of the two cities’ economies would show that the tourism-related revenue split is quite similar and that the significant majority of incremental tax revenue inures to the City of Sun Valley.”

Brennan Rego: brego@mtexpress.com




About Comments

Comments with content that seeks to incite or inflame may be removed.

Comments that are in ALL CAPS may be removed.

Comments that are off-topic or that include profanity or personal attacks, libelous or other inappropriate material may be removed from the site. Entries that are unsigned or contain signatures by someone other than the actual author may be removed. We will take steps to block users who violate any of our posting standards, terms of use or any other policies governing this site. Use of this system denotes full acceptance of these conditions. Please review the full rules governing commentaries and discussions. You are fully responsible for the content that you post.

The comments below are from the readers of mtexpress.com and in no way represent the views of Express Publishing, Inc.

You may flag individual comments. You may also report an inappropriate or offensive comment by clicking here.

Flagging Comments: Flagging a comment tells a site administrator that a comment is inappropriate. You can find the flag option by pointing the mouse over the comment and clicking the 'Flag' link.

Flagging a comment is only counted once per person, and you won't need to do it multiple times.

Proper Flagging Guidelines: Every site has a different commenting policy - be sure to review the policy for this site before flagging comments. In general these types of comments should be flagged:

  • Spam
  • Ones violating this site's commenting policy
  • Clearly unrelated
  • Personal attacks on others
Comments should not be flagged for:
  • Disagreeing with the content
  • Being in a dispute with the commenter

Popular Comment Threads



 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.