When Lewis County decided to apply for lodging tax revenue to launch its own tourism promotion website in 2015, my initial reaction was one of surprise. It seemed to be a clear example of the public sector determining it would do a better job than the private sector. That’s not something you often see from a county run by Republicans.
My second reaction was to wonder how much it would cost.
As this newspaper often does, we submitted a public records request for the information. We received a response, but the results were unquestionably incomplete. As a staff, we decided to request additional information in order to provide readers with an accurate picture of the scale of Lewis County’s investment in the website.
We’re still waiting.
To be fair, the county deserves a certain amount of flexibility. In the past year, four Chronicle reporters have provided our primary coverage of county government, all of them taking time to monitor the records request. The county has had staff turnover in that time as well. All the while, we’ve filed unrelated requests on other matters that very well could have slowed the process when it came to Discover Lewis County.
There are limits to flexibility, though. Next week, voters will receive their ballots. Among the local races is a contest between incumbent commissioner Edna Fund, the most vocal proponent of Discover Lewis County and the driving force behind its creation, and challenger Dan Keahey, a Port of Centralia commissioner who has publicly proclaimed his opposition to the county-run website on more than one occasion.
The most pointed criticism came at the Lewis County Chapter of the Washington Realtor Association debate earlier this month.
Keahey proclaimed in no uncertain terms that Fund should be embarrassed if she couldn’t provide the overall cost of the program, along with measures to assess its success in bringing tourists to our areas.
As one of the members of the panel asking questions, I anxiously awaited her answer, which would have been broadcast, along with the rest of the debate, on KELA/KMNT.
Finally, I thought, the public will have a price tag to consider.
It didn’t happen, though.
Fund was given a chance at rebuttal, but chose not to engage in the topic of finances.
The matter is now a bonafide election issue, but many voters lack the information to form an opinion. What we do know is that the county received $85,000 in lodging tax revenue in 2015, at the expense of other local organizations that saw their requests unmet altogether or come in much lower than their requested amounts.
This year, the lodging tax committee recommended another $40,000 in lodging tax revenue for Discover Lewis County. Based on the limited documentation we did receive from the county, I can tell you the final investment from taxpayers is much higher than the combined total of those two numbers (the most recent installment of related records came to us in August with an estimate for the next installment to arrive in late September, but it hasn’t come).
The website, which carried an expense in itself, employs a staff paid from county coffers. Its marketing costs money. Transportation to and from the locations highlighted on the site costs money. Equipment costs money.
And yet, here we are one year later still asking, how much?
There’s another piece to this that won’t be addressed by a records request. How will the success of the effort be used to determine if it’s cost-effective? If Lewis County were a business, it would be easy to see from the outside whether the website was successful. It would be apparent in its very growth and continued existence. But it’s not a business, it’s a taxpayer-funded government. Are we judging its success by Facebook interactions and page views? If so, the county should at least say as much.
The Chronicle will be holding editorial board interviews with the candidates Thursday. The interviews will be recorded and published at www.chronline.com and on our social media accounts.
Candidates often wonder in advance about the nature and composition of our questioning. It’s a safe bet that candidates for Lewis County commissioner will be asked about Discover Lewis County. It’s likely that for Fund, we’ll start where we did in 2015: How much does it cost?
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Eric Schwartz is editor of The Chronicle. He can be reached at (360) 807-8224 or eschwartz@chronline.com
