Grants Pass council renews Visit Grants Pass contract, raises winter welcome-center hours to 30

The Grants Pass City Council voted May 6 to authorize the city manager to enter into a revised funding agreement with the Josephine County Visitors Association (doing business as Visit Grants Pass) that adds downtown welcome-center operations to Visit Grants Passresponsibilities. The vote follows a prolonged presentation by staff, detailed contract redlines from the city attorney and more than an hour of public testimony largely in favor of renewing the contract.

Dana Pierce, the cityeconomic development manager, told the council the agreement formalizes collaboration on tourism duties and lodging-tax-funded marketing and would extend the contractterm. Pierce said the FY27 tourism-promotion budget includes $735,300 for the program, funded by 28% of the city's lodging tax revenue, and that transferring downtown welcome-center staffing to Visit Grants Pass is expected to save the city about $45,000 by eliminating the need to fund temporary wages.

City Attorney Stephanie Donnell walked council through three red-line edits discussed at a May 4 workshop: a flexible annual presentation date ("in February or as otherwise scheduled by the mayor"), removing an ambiguous "annual review" in favor of a required audit, and splitting the intellectual-property clause into an ownership provision and a separate licensing provision. Donnell said the ownership language would allow Visit Grants Pass to continue using promotional materials for tourism purposes while the licensing language would give the city a perpetual license to use materials created during the contract term; new language also adds a right of first refusal if Visit Grants Pass dissolves or ceases providing tourism services to Grants Pass specifically.

Council debate focused heavily on visitor-center hours. Pierce told the council the existing downtown visitor center operates about 36 hours per week (typically 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Saturday) and supplied monthly visitor counts showing much higher traffic in shoulder months. Several councilors and downtown business owners argued that a proposed winter minimum of 15 hours would be too low; Joel and Rob, among others, pushed to keep or increase winter hours. After discussion, Councilor Victoria moved to authorize the manager to enter into the revised agreement with the exception of increasing the winter-hours requirement; a friendly amendment raising the winter minimum to 30 hours was accepted and the motion carried on a roll-call vote.

Public comment was dominated by business owners, tourism partners and residents. Hyla Lipson, executive director of the Grants Pass Museum of Art and a member of the JCBA board, urged renewal and cited museum visitation figures; Patty Crompton, a welcome-center employee, and multiple downtown retailers and restaurateurs said Visit Grants Pass drives foot traffic and revenue. Ashley Cruz, president of Visit Grants Pass and owner of Weekend Beer Company, described the organization's role in protecting the citybrand after negative headlines and said the funding (28% of transient-lodging taxes) is designated for tourism promotion rather than general taxpayer revenues.

Councilor Victoria moved the contract as amended; Rick seconded. The roll-call vote recorded all present councilors voting in favor, and the motion passed.

What happens next: the city manager is authorized to execute the revised funding agreement with the edits described and the winter-hours minimum set at 30 hours. The contract requires audits and annual presentations per the revised language and includes clarified intellectual-property ownership and licensing provisions tied to materials created during the term of the agreement.