RECAP: Twentynine Palms Tourism Business Improvement District, November 21, 2024
Volunteers Audrey Philpot, Karen Ickes, and Scott Clinkscales picked to serve on Event Grant Review Committee
The TBID met Thursday, November 21, 2024, and voted unanimously to appoint volunteers Audrey Philpot, Karen Ickes, and Scott Clinkscales to serve on the 2024-25 Event Grant Review Committee.
The next event grant application deadline is April 1, 2025, for events happening between July 1 and December 31, 2025. The last deadline was November 1, 2024, for events between January 1 and June 30, 2025.
The April 1 deadline is for Sponsorships and Event grants:
Sponsorships: Ranging from $100 to $3,000 per event, sponsorships support smaller scale projects or initiatives aligning with the Twentynine Palms TBID's goals.
Event Grants: Event grants are available from $3,000 to $20,000, catering to larger events with significant potential to boost tourism and overnight stays during the non-peak season (May through September).
Chair Rakesh Mehta (SureStay Plus hotel) was present along with Vice Chair Ashton Ramsey (Ramsey 29 motel/short-term rental owner/restaurant co-owner) and Board member Benjamin Uyeda (RESET hotel), so just three TBID Board members were in attendance. Maria Madrid (Holiday Inn Express & Suites) was out with an excused absence, and the fifth Board seat remained vacant following the recent departure of longtime Board member Heidi Grunt of the 29 Palms Inn.
Director of Marketing Update
Director of Marketing Breanne Dusastre presented, advising that year-end Transit Occupancy Tax (TOT) revenue for fiscal year 2023-2024 was down overall by 5% versus the prior year, including an 8% drop for hotel/RV revenue and a 2% drop for STR revenue.
Correspondingly, the number of STRs in the City has continued to dwindle. Per Dusastre, "we know our inventory has slowly and steadily continued to decline. As of today, we have 381 active vacation rental permits. We hope that will stabilize and [we'll] hold on to that inventory as we head into 2025."
Dusastre compared 29's waning TOT revenue to regional trends throughout the state, noting that statewide it was down 0.5% while 29's decline mirrored the 5% TOT revenue decline for all California desert regions.
On the upside, she pointed to sizable recent gains in 29's digital marketing efforts, including a 25% increase versus the same period last year in page views and new users to the Visit29.org website. This was accompanied by significant email and social media marketing engagement on Facebook and Instagram via two paid campaigns for the fall and winter event season — for example, click-through rates of 1.8% and 2.9%, with cost-per-click of $0.19 and $0.13 respectively, for two these campaigns. Additional wins were a magazine article in Salt Lake Magazine and being featured on the Outdoor Adventure Series podcast.
Finally, she recapped City events, highlighting the recent Twentynine Palms Book Festival. Said Dusastre, "I share all of your same feedback in terms of being so impressed with how well it all went. Ninety authors and over 500 attendees! I look forward to receiving the post-event report. Plans are already underway to expand this to a three-day festival next year, with tentative dates of November 7th to 9th." She closed with a mention of upcoming events including the 29 Palms Rock Rumble Royale, a rock climbing event on December 13 and 14.
Consent Calendar
The sole item on the Consent Calendar was routine approval of the previous meeting's minutes, but surprisingly, when Chair Mehta asked whether anyone present wanted this item pulled from the calendar for discussion, a commenter raised her hand.
STR owner Susan Peplow quizzed the Board about the status of two potential new subcommittees discussed at the October 17 meeting, saying "Where do we stand with the request for the other two subcommittees from last month, a Marketing Subcommittee and the Partnership Development [Subcommittee]?"
But as Peplow's question wasn't an agenda item — and the City’s minutes of the October 17 TBID meeting did in fact include establishment of both of these new subcommittees, with Marketing Subcommittee consisting of Board member Uyeda and Vice Chair Ramsey, and the Partnership Development Subcommittee consisting of Chair Metha and Board member Uyeda — the Board members simply went ahead and voted to approve the minutes.
Public Comments
Hotelier Veno Nathraj complained that the TBID doesn't tally or report lodging occupancy figures for the City, arguing occupancy is an essential metric the TBID ought to track.
Susan Peplow urged the Marketing team to improve marketing of City STRs by increasing and refreshing its STR listings on the City's tourism marketing website. She advocated increasing the quantity listed, noting "we're at the same 76 that we were this time last year when the website launched." She added that despite the overall decline in STR permits, the City was still issuing approximately five new permits each month, and asked whether the apparent stagnation of listings on the site might owe to lack of outreach by the Marketing team to these new operators.
Eric Menendez then weighed in to support a regional approach to tourism promotion along the same lines he has advocated in several recent meetings. He argued that Twentynine Palms ought to band together with Yucca Valley in an effort to gain additional tourism promotion funds from the County, noting that the County "only gives $10,000 a year to support tourism up here, and I think these two small cities, we need to start advocating for more, which is what I'm trying to do."
Discussion and Potential Action Items
Appointment of Event Grant Review Committee members was the only action item on the agenda. Breanne Dusastre kicked off by outlining the role of these volunteers, which is "to support the grant and sponsorship program and to participate in the initial review and scoring of grant applications." She noted that "lodging stakeholders, business owners, engaged community members, anyone who had interest" was eligible to volunteer, and that notice had been distributed November 10, giving candidates 11 days to submit applications.
Dusastre said six people had submitted applications to be on the Event Grant Review Committee: Audrey Philpot, Evan Cuellar, Veno Nathraj, Crystal Meisner, Karen Ickes, and Scott Clinkscales.
It bears mention that one of the candidates, Clinkscales, is a City employee and works as City Event Coordinator. As such, he already enthusiastically participates in the TBID event evaluation process, but he’s an insider, not a community representative per se.
Beginning public comment on this item, Eric Menendez argued that the TBID had provided insufficient time to submit committee applications, expressed concerns about potential conflicts of interest, and urged the TBID to make all event grant evaluation documents public.1
Susan Peplow lauded the Board for improving the event grant process, saying "It's amazing that we are encouraging people to join in this. I think that it's going to help you streamline your process and get some input from stakeholders and community members, which I think was the idea all along." She spoke in favor of candidates Scott Clinkscales, Audrey Philpot, and Crystal Meisner.
Veno Nathraj, one of the applicants, advised that he owns an event center in the City, but that he had served on a similar City board in the 1990s and this kind of potential conflict wasn't an issue then.
Ashton Ramsey opened Board discussion, noting "it was exciting to see a lot of great applicants." He singled out Audrey Philpot, Scott Clinkscales, and Karen Ickes for praise. Rakesh Mehta agreed, saying "was very exciting to see that we had such a good response in a limited time available," and advised applicants, "don't feel dejected if you're not selected. It was a great pot to pick from, it was a tough choice." Mehta likewise singled out Philpot, Clinkscales, and Ickes.
The Board then voted unanimously to select Philpot, Clinkscales, and Ickes for the Event Grant Review Committee.
City Manager Update
City Manager Stone James recounted the City Council's November 12 selection of Molding Hearts to handle homeless outreach in the City, saying he was bringing this to the TBID's attention because "the challenges surrounding the unhoused impact our economy, impact tourism and impact your hotels," although James didn’t offer any evidence or examples of such impacts.
Stone lauded Molding Hearts CEO and founder Lakita Johnson, whose goal Stone described as "To contact every unhoused individual in our City and ask them if they are ready to get back on track, ready to take control of their lives and become a productive member of our community."
Stone said Molding Hearts would connect the homeless with "rehabilitation services, professional job training services, resume writing services, life skill services, maybe she will get them connected, if necessary, with mental health consultants."
Stone advised that Johnson "is working on identifying homes here, group homes that she can stand up in Twentynine Palms."
Do these group homes exist already or are they prospective? At the November 4 Planning Commission + Housing & Homeless Committee Study Session, Johnson asserted that Molding Hearts already had 24 beds for the unhoused in Twentynine Palms, but didn’t specify where they were.
Future Board Member Initiated Items
Ben Uyeda proposed the Board consider an event planned jointly by the TBID and PAAC (Public Arts Advisory Committee), perhaps one that would yield some enduring public artwork. Said Uyeda, "events are ethereal [sic]. They come and they go, and we just see what's left on Instagram and old posts. So maybe if we did one allocation of one grant for some sort of collaboration between us and them, it might leave us at least with some sort of piece of public art that would have a little bit more physical legacy over time."
Uyeda didn’t mention how challenges inherent in creating public art, such as an RFP selection process and funding likely far short of what it would take to create such a process and an artwork, along with its ongoing maintenance, might be overcome.
With that the meeting was adjourned.
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In fact event grant evaluation documents can be obtained by anyone who submits a public information request to the City; but of course in the interest of transparency the City could choose to instead publish these by default.
My proposal is be prepared for the next monsoon season for the residents of twenty nine palms my house was flooded 3 time this current year during monsoon season am devastated am afraid for the next year we need side walks