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BACKGROUND Prior to the commencement of the Tri- Valley Tourism Business Improvement District (TVTBID) in 2006, the four Tri Valley cities of Pleasanton, Livermore, Dublin and San Ramon largely supported the Tri Valley Convention Visitors Bureau (CVB) with about 85% of its revenue. The CVB sought to create the TVTBID to improve tourism promotion and be more self- sufficient in light of increasingly tighter city budgets. The TVTBID now provides more than 90% of the CVB's annual revenues; the remainder of its revenues comes from membership dues and program income. The TVTBID, which is based on paid hotel (hereafter called lodging business) room occupancies, generates funding that is used to support the CVB's tourism promotion and marketing activities. The TBID model was identified as the best option because the source of funding is directly tied to tourism. For the creation of the TVTBID, the CVB engaged a consultant, Downtown Resources, to guide the organization through the development of the district. The business improvement district was established for five years, and includes lodging businesses with 35 rooms or more available for public occupancy in the four Tri Valley cities of Dublin, Livermore, Pleasanton and San Ramon. In late 2006, the Town of Danville established its own tourism business improvement district with its single lodging business to correspond with the TVTBID. It has been the intention of the CVB and the collective cities that the two districts would be merged at the time of renewal, creating one cohesive Tri Valley Tourism Business Improvement District. Based on an assessment of $1.00 per paid occupied room night, the TVTBID has generated approximately $1,000,000 annually over the past four years, although the recent economic downturn and ensuing decrease in corporate and leisure travel has decreased that amount to $840,000 in FY08 -09. Pleasanton has served as the lead agency in forming the district and administering assessments since the establishment of the TVTBID. Each city is responsible for collecting the assessments from the lodging businesses in that city. The cities then transmit the funds to Pleasanton which, in turn, forwards the funds to the TVCVB. For administering the district on behalf of the CVB, the City of Pleasanton received an administrative fee of 1% of the TVTBID's estimated $1,000,000 budget, or $10,000, in the first year; the City now receives a fee, or about $2,500. In addition, annually, each city collects a BID collection fee to collect assessments from lodging businesses located within each of their cities prior to forwarding funds to the City of Pleasanton. The combined total for this collection fee is 1% of the TVTBID's estimated $1,000,000 budget, or $10,000, prorated based on the percentage of hotel rooms in each city; Pleasanton's share has been about $3,800. DISCUSSION In mid -2009, the CVB Board of Directors began a discussion about generating additional revenue to participate in more tourism promotion efforts. As the result of outreach and survey within the hotel community, the CVB Board learned the TBID hoteliers had come to rely more heavily on the CVB's sales and marketing efforts due to their own dwindling human and fiscal resources. The board also recognized the impact that competing destinations' sales and marketing resources was beginning to have in attracting visitors Page 2 of 6