Tourism board recommends director position remain

The Gonzales Convention and Visitors Bureau (GCVB) board of directors unanimously voted to recommend to city council the continuation of the tourism development director position. Clinton ‘Clint’ Hille has served as the first and only Gonzales tourism director since the creation of the position in 2017.

Hille is a city employee, not a contractor, and the performance of the tourism director has not been discussed in the past month of city council meetings. However, when the position was created, there was an understanding that Hille’s performance would be reviewed after two years.

According to the minutes from the council meeting when the position was created on June 6, 2017, Councilman Dan Blakemore suggested the position should be terminated if there are no measurable improvements and productivity at the end of two years.

With the City of Gonzales beginning its budgeting process for fiscal year 2019-2020 next month and Hille’s second year ending in September, the board hoped to get out in front and signal its support for the continuation of the position.

The board highlighted Hille’s accomplishments as director and compared them to the goals set by the board and by city council. Some of those accomplishments included networking with other entities for promotion of Gonzales tourism, improving communications resources and utilizing data to improve hotel occupancy through tourism.

“In reviewing all of his goals and what he’s done, I felt that they’re very congruent with what we set out and what we recommended when we first created the position two years ago,” Dawn O’Donnell, GCVB board president, said. “I also feel that he’s consistently met those aspirations that city council intended.”

Several other non-board members spoke in support of Hille during the public comment section of the meeting.

“Our tourism director has done a great job in moving forward,” Rob Brown, former Gonzales mayoral candidate, said. “If you would have done a comparison of where we were two years ago and where we are today, it’s heads above where we were.”

Local business owner Suzanne Zaitz also added, “since Clint started, my business has just seen a lot of growth and a lot of help from him.”

After the vote, O’Donnell read aloud the recommendation letter she will send to city council on behalf of the board.

“The GCVB board has reviewed the activities of the position of tourism director and compared those activities with the listed accomplishments of the current tourism director and determined that the current tourism director has met the stated goals,” O’Donnell said. “Based on this information, the tourism board recommends that the position of tourism director be continued with the following recommendations: GVCB board set annual goals of the tourism director based on job description, goals set through the 2019 tourism evaluation and post year evaluations of previous goals set. The tourism director will follow City of Gonzales HR policies, be accountable to those policies and procedures (and) follow established chain of command as determined by City of Gonzales. By continuing to meet state requirements for use of H.O.T. (hotel occupancy tax) funds, the tourism director’s salary shall be budgeted directly from those funds and not from the City of Gonzales general funds.”

Hille’s salary, which according to the City of Gonzales’ approved 2018-19 budget was proposed to be $53,045, has always been budgeted fully through H.O.T. funds and never through city general funds.