PORT TOWNSEND – The Lodging Tax Advisory committee decided on Tuesday that up to $30,000 is needed to market the city to Seattle-area residents.
The Port Townsend City Council on Monday approved $5,000 to lure visitors from the Puget Sound area on a temporary passenger ferry, set up by the state in the wake of the loss of a car ferry between Port Townsend and Keystone on Whidbey Island.
But the advisory committee agreed with city-contracted marketing coordinator Hattie Dixon that “$5,000 is not going to cut it.”
Instead, the city must hire a professional Seattle public relations firm, the group decided.
Dixon said she had researched funding options and found $33,000 in an old fund and in funding options.
Using those dollars would allow the city to avoid dipping into its Hood Canal Bridge closure mitigation funds, she said.
The $5,000 approved by the Port Townsend City Council had been proposed by the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee for advertising in Seattle and along the Interstate 5 corridor.
The money would have been taken from a fund to mitigate effects of a planned May-June 2009 Hood Canal Bridge closure.
