Senate Bill Aims to Remove Councilman from Regional Marketing Committee

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

A bill currently up for a vote in the state Senate is likely intended to keep one particular city council member from serving on the Williamsburg Area Destination Marketing Committee.

This year, local hotelier Doug Pons was chosen by the Williamsburg Hotel Motel Association as their representative to WADMC. Pons also serves on Williamsburg’s City Council. This is the first time a government official has represented a different organization on the committee, which likely provoked Sen. Tommy Norment to file a bill to keep such an overlap from happening.

The new proposal (bill 1344) would prohibit more than one person of the same local government or more than one person from the same organization from serving on WADMC. The bill has passed through committee and will be up for a vote on the Senate floor soon.

Norment was not available to speak to WYDaily on Tuesday, and his legislative assistant couldn’t comment on why Norment proposed the bill. His assistant did say there may be some changes made to the proposal, which wouldn’t be published on the Senate website until after the vote.

Pons, though, says he has heard talk that the bill might have been in retaliation against the WHMA for moving forward with its Tourist Information Center, which Norment didn’t support.

“I have a hard time believing Norment would be so spiteful,” Pons says. “There must be some other reason for [the bill].”

If the legislation is intended to keep the city from having an unfair advantage, Pons says no one he has talked to on WADMC or the various colleagues on council he’s discussed the issue with have a problem with him serving as representative for the WHMA on the committee.

“People wear multiple hats in the community when serving on various committees,” Pons says. Former Mayor Jeanne Zeidler served on WADMC while working with Colonial Williamsburg on the 2007 celebration, but that doesn’t mean CW got additional or unfair representation, he points out.

John Bacon, senior vice president for external affairs at Colonial Williamsburg, also has an overlap of commitment – he is a member of the Board of Directors for the Greater Williamsburg Chamber and Tourism Alliance (which has representation on WADMC) and he also serves as CW’s WADMC representative. According to the available version of the bill, Bacon’s seat could also be in question.

Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman, who represents the city on WADMC, says he doesn’t think Pons serving as the WHMA representative is necessarily concerning.

If overlap happens, “the person has to remember who they’re representing, and then it shouldn’t be a problem,” Haulman says.

The proposed bill came as a surprise to Haulman, who hadn’t heard about it until recently. “I don’t see that it’s needed,” he says. “I don’t know how I’d feel if two [representatives] from York County or James City County served, but as long as it’s clear who they vote for, I think it’s fine.”

Norment serves on the Board of Trustees at the Jamestown Yorktown Foundation, is a Colonial Williamsburg Foundation trustee, and is also a teaching fellow at the College of William and Mary. “I assume Norment can make decisions for all these various organizations without conflict,” says Pons.

“This is a slap in the face to the city, the suggestion that a councilman who owns a business can’t be trusted to act appropriately in different positions,” says Pons. “It points to the vindictive nature of the bill.”