Letter to the editor: Open letter to City of Eureka...

We are pleased to be named as one of the agencies to be invited to participate in your "Request for Qualifications" to present to the Eureka Springs Advertising and Promotion Commission in a limited marketing capacity.

As you know, Eureka Springs is and always has been very special to all of us here at CJRW.

As a major tourism destination, we recognize the importance of Eureka Springs' role.

We currently have the opportunity to be working with the Eureka Springs Chamber of Chamber where we have a three-year agreement to produce and publish the important Eureka Springs Visitors Guide.

We also have a number of good clients and friends throughout Eureka Springs - people we have done business with for almost 30 years. We hope we will have the opportunity to work with our friends for many more years to come.

CJRW's relationship with the city's advertising and promotion commission began in the early 70s.

After the marketing of Eureka began, the growth was outstanding. In 1973, Eureka saw an increase of 52.5%; in 1974, 14.9%; in 1975, 24.8%; in 1976, 25.9%; in 1977, 22.9%; in 1978, 19.6%; in 1979, 6.2%.

Through the 80s, Eureka saw continued growth.

The first half of the 80s, Eureka saw an average yearly growth of 17.12%. The second half of the 80s, Eureka's yearly growth was a respectable 7.2 % average.

In the first half of the 90s, the average growth was 6.38%.

In the early 90s, the community wanted to begin the process of marketing to the upscale market. We began by taking marketing dollars from the family side and placing them toward the upscale bed and breakfast market.

We continued to increase this process as we moved into the mid 90s.

In 1994, Eureka was spending $693,000 on marketing. This was 66.44% of the expected tax collections for the year.

In 1995, we did not retain the contract to represent the city of Eureka Springs.

As recently as this year, a former mayor was heard to say that we, CJRW, took advantage of the CAPC (City Advertising and Promotion Commission) and spent them almost into bankruptcy.

We have even been publicly accused of stealing from the A&P Commission.

Up to this point, we had decided not to address these comments, but we feel that the time is right to set the record straight.

At no time did we over-bill Eureka Springs for any service rendered or bill for any service not rendered.

We had a set price for agency services that was agreed to by the Commission and this was what was we charged.

Did we extend credit to the Eureka Springs A&P Commission?

Yes, we did. We knew that there was a critical time period in which the public planned their vacations.

This was early in the year, and it was always critical that we place many of the media buys during this time.

This meant that we would have to wait for payment from Eureka, way beyond the normal 30-day payment period, to collect the payments from the A&P Commission due to low tax collections in the winter and early spring months.

We say this was a very important issue - one that many other agencies would not do for their clients.

And the media vendors were always paid in 30 days which created lots of goodwill.

We stand on our record of always putting the best interest of Eureka before the agency's interest.

We know that the Eureka Springs business community must do well for our agency to succeed.

At the current time, we pledge to do everything within our power to help Eureka Springs and to grow the tourism business in Arkansas.

We will go out of our way to see that Eureka is always considered in the overall promotion of Arkansas tourism.

With this said, it is very important at this time that Eureka Springs be united in its goals and objectives if the business community is to grow and prosper.

The community needs to be united to effectively achieve these pals and objectives for Eureka's future.

At this time, there appears to still be people in the business community, and some community leaders who feel Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods is not the agency that should be retained to represent Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission.

As much as we love Eureka Springs and would like to again be your marketing partner to take Eureka back to the pinnacle of tourism, we feel that our presence would not be the best for Eureka at this time.

We think that we would be seen again as a wedge between two segments in the community that want to take Eureka's future in different directions.

For this reason, we must respectfully decline the A&P Commission's offer to be considered for the agency selection process.

We do feel that at this time the CAPC does need professional agency representation and help, and if an agency can be hired that all citizens can agree on to lead the community into the future, that would be the best thing for you to do at this time

Respectfully submitted,

Wayne Woods, President

Michael Dandurand,

Vice President