The tourism committee of the Warren County Board of Supervisors met Monday, days after newly hired tourism director Alfred Snow abruptly resigned with scathing criticism of county officials.
In Snow’s resignation letter, he criticized awarding $300,000 in county funds to Hood Communications without a competitive bid process, and was very critical of the funding of the Lake George Regional Chamber of Commerce and Convention and Visitors Bureau. He also leveled criticism at Lake George Radio, but that proposal was tabled.
Walt Adams with Lake George Radio told FoothillsBusinessDaily.com the $24,000 proposal that made its way through the committee was for federal recovery act money, not for county occupancy tax dollars.
[Read about the resignation here and the resignation letter here.]
Snow’s resignation letter included three attachments with detailed recommendations that previously had not been shared with board members.
After questions from supervisors Claudia Braymer, Mike Wild and Rachel Seeber, acting county administrator Craig Leggett said those attachments had just then been shared with supervisors as the meeting was happening.
“County records are public documents,” Braymer said. “We serve the public. These are public funds. It’s public taxpayer dollars. Most of what we have goes right up on our website. I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t know if there is some confidential business proprietary information about something. We haven’t seen them so I don’t know that.”
Braymer also asked about the Request for Proposals for hiring a new tourism director. Some supervisors had been highly critical of the original hiring process used to retain Snow.
Lake Luzerne Supervisor Gene Merlino, chair of the tourism committee, responded: “We have to write it up, maybe come up with better solutions of what we had last time. I had so many people complaining about the first one.”
Merlino said people have been approaching him since the resignation saying that the process was wrong and either the county did not move fast enough — it took Snow three months to arrive, missing the summer season — or moved too fast.
“We will work with…the attorney and the administrator to get the wording out. We don’t need to do it today,” Merlino said.
Laura Kohls, representing the Courtyard by Marriott in Lake George Village, spoke at the beginning of the meeting and offered the support of the business community as the county works through this unexpected transition.
Sam Luciano president of the Fort William Henry Resort expressed similar sentiments later in the meeting, saying “we have every confidence in the tourism department. It would be great if the business community could work side by side with you. We have good ideas. I was sorry to see Al leave. He was a true professional.”
Merlino said he hopes to convene another meeting of the tourism committee in early December before the full board meets to talk about how the county will proceed.
In the meantime, county tourism employees Peter Girard and Paul Tackett told the committee that they continue to work on tourism initiatives, including the upcoming World University Games in Lake Placid, and keeping fresh content on the county’s social media outlets.
Tackett is listed as the assistant tourism coordinator and Girard as the creative director for the county tourism office.
The county recently allocated $125,000 for promotional consideration of the FISU games.