Fairfield Chamber of Commerce Ambassador, Karen Leidy, spoke to Fairfield City Council on Tuesday, February 26, 2019 regarding the new Our Town Committee and the results of a community survey that they conducted last year in October.
This informal group, made up of volunteers from the community, have joined together to brainstorm ideas and gather information about what residents want to see in Fairfield and what types of events might help bring visitors, and more revenue to the City.
According to the lengthy survey, community members’ most wanted event is a music festival of some sort.
The committee also feels it is important to have a full-time event coordinator to facilitate events each weekend from March through October each year. These are the top suggestions for bringing more people to Fairfield, and therefore more tax revenue into the City.
Further discussions of hiring an event coordinator were had during a workshop that followed the Council meeting.
The workshop covered the possibility of creating a contract between the City of Fairfield and Fairfield Chamber of Commerce.
Currently, the Chamber receives Hotel/Motel Fund monies for the City’s Visitor’s Center, but there is not an updated contract for this exchange of money.
The original contract was handwritten and signed by Mayor Monte Cole during his time in office and only gave the Chamber 1% of revenue from Hotel/Motel tax monies.
City Administrator Nate Smith suggested creating a contract that would give the Chamber 20% of the revenue from the Hotel/Motel Fund to help them continue performing their services for the City, as well as to market the City of Fairfield outside of the County to help bring in more people.
“We don’t need to fight them [the Chamber], but empower them to go bigger and better,” explained Mayor Kenny Hughes. “We need to stop what we are doing now and make room for more and better things.”
As these discussions were part of a workshop, no vote was made on the matter.
Unanimously approved during the meeting was $5,380.00 from the Hotel/Motel Fund to the Freestone County Museum for continued renovations to the old jail building. The bid for work was awarded to Steve Grecu to remove non-original walls, stabilize the staircase, and for brickwork.
Fairfield Police Department received approval to submit an application for a grant with Homeland Security and the Heart of Texas Council of Governments (HOTCOG) to obtain $16,000 for body cameras and docking equipment for the department. The grant is a fully funded grant; therefore the City will not be required to pay any money if the grant is approved.
