GALION—The Economic Development Committee of the Galion City Council has serious concerns about their ability to communicate with Experience Galion.
Experience Galion was established in the fall of 2018 and is the city’s Convention And Visitors Bureau (CVB) with the purpose of promoting travel and tourism within the city and surrounding areas.
To support their mission to promote Galion, the non-profit organization receives a portion of the city’s lodging taxes.
Second Ward City Councilwoman Melissa Frank-Elwell expressed concerns about whether the board has been active. She noted that the organization has not provided any documentation to the city as to how they allocate their funds. She expressed concern about whether or not they are even meeting regularly. She indicated to counsel she had received no response from them and no financials. “If they are inactive, we need to do something.” Elwell said.
Galion City Law Director Thomas Palmer said the city could not disband the organization. Lodging tax money must be spent on an outside entity that promotes travel and tourism for Galion. However, Palmer did say that council could suspend or defund the organization.
Council could choose to allocate their funding to other entities that promote Galion.
Mayor Tom O’Leary encouraged council to try to work with Experience Galion. “They’ve done some good things. They have been a responsible partner in providing the fireworks, they have assisted with Third Fridays and provided funding assistance for Octoberfest.” O’Leary said.
Elwell agreed that those were important contributions but questioned the reasons why they weren’t disclosing any documentation on expenditures so that they might receive publicity and credit for their contributions.
O’Leary also told council that Experience Galion had funded a third feasibility study for the Freese Center that cost $30-$40,000 to complete.
He said there was also a per ported video made to promote Galion, although he admittedly had not seen it.
When a suggestion was made to potentially split the monies between different entities, as Mansfield does, it was quickly shut down.
Elwell told council how much improved Mansfield’s downtown is. O’ Leary disagreed, saying he had driven through Mansfield the night before, and all he observed were “hookers and addicts on the picnic tables.”
While council members expressed appreciation for what the organization has done to promote Galion and what they hope the organization will continue to do, they decided to make the meeting a formal request for them to provide documentation of their financials.
As one councilman noted, Experience Galion receives public funding, and therefore they are required to be accountable and transparent with their financial disclosures.
If Experience Galion does not respond to this formal request, then the next step is to suspend funding to the organization.
Crawford County Now reached out via email to Erik Flick, a board member of Experience Galion. An automatic response was returned saying he is out of the office till September 26th.
Crawford County Now will continue to cover this developing story.