Future of Explore Altoona uncertain after questionable commissioner vote

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (WTAJ) — The fate of Explore Altoona is uncertain after the Blair County Commissioners voted to decertify the tourism board at their meeting Tuesday in a move representatives of local tourism believe violated the law.

This was a decision that left leaders from local hotels, Arts Altoona and DelGrosso’s, all major players of Altoona tourism, feeling blindsided as not even Explore Altoona themselves were notified of the vote being on the agenda.

Commissioners Dave Kessling and Amy Webster voted to approve the decertification of Explore Altoona . Commissioner Laura Burke abstained from the vote at the urging of the county’s solicitor.

Now, members of Blair County’s tourism community are left confused and worried.

“This decision has not been thought through and will result in the lost revenues for many businesses in our community, including many hotels,” said Jeff Cipriani, General Manager of Hampton Inn Altoona.

The driving factor in the commissioners’ decision is the nearly $1 million bed tax funding Explore Altoona would receive this year. Critics don’t think the money has been spent fairly on marketing to benefit all 29 municipalities across the county.

“It is supposed to market all of Blair County. So again, it’s just a difference of opinions whether that’s being done or isn’t being done,” Kessling said. “I think if you go to those communities, you’re, you know, you’ll probably hear they don’t feel like they’re being represented.”

But those with Explore Altoona feel they’ve been left in the dark during the entire process and that the commissioners have avoided conversations with them. Jodi Cessna, President of the Explore Altoona Board of Directors, said that she has been asking to meet with the commissioners to discuss the future of Explore Altoona with them for months, but she had not heard back on a date or time. She also said that while the commissioners had been invited to every meeting of Explore Altoona since the beginning of 2020, they had only attended two in person and five over Zoom or by phone.

Cessna said she only found out about the decertification vote from a member of the community and the commissioners never indicated their intentions until the vote was printed on the meeting agenda.

The commissioners now want to create their own tourism program through the county’s own trials and recreation board. They believe this shift will focus less on marketing existing businesses and more on promoting the entirety of Blair County as a tourist destination.

“It appears that they’re solely just marketing and that’s all that they do. We’re looking at, we’re looking at continuing the marketing as well as looking at asset development that’s going to create people to come here, to build things, for people to come here to do,” Kessling said.

However, the creation of a trails and recreation board is an agenda item the commissioners themselves have tabled for months, refusing to comment publicly on plans.

Explore Altoona will continue to receive bed tax funding while the commissioners work through the decertification process. There is no word currently on how long that will take or when the financial support will end.

Despite Tuesday’s vote, the decision to decertify Explore Altoona is not entirely up to the commissioners, and in their haste to pass the resolution, they may have violated 2016 Act 18 of the state’s county code. This act requires a public hearing to be held about a decertification vote no less than seven days before the vote takes place. At that public meeting, 65% of all municipalities represented by the tourism board should vote in agreement with the decertification in order for a resolution to be adopted. In Blair County, that means 19 municipalities would have to side with the commissioners.

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Explore Altoona said that no such meeting took place and they will be working with each of the municipalities they represent to fight the decertification.

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