>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

Lester

Contrary to what some think, I have no problem with the mayor’s event, Crossing the Blues. I do, however, have a problem with how she went about planning it with Union County Tourism money in mind.

As a former UCT employee (I was with UCT for over five years), I had a rather unique perspective of what went on between the city and UCT. In that time, the mayor never visited our office, never came to any of the tourism summits or events, never visited the fire museum or showed any interest in the tourism office at all.

As I said in an earlier letter, the way she pushed through the vote on the funding of her event at the council meeting against the concerns of several council members and the UCT directors bothers me. The fact that her committee chose to spend UCT money on a website, even though UCT has a perfectly good website already in place that could have been used for a fraction of the cost, bothers me. And the fact that her committee made decisions and plans and held meetings without including UCT again bothers me.

Judy Hector, who chairs Crossing the Blues, points out that UCT Director Janet Dodson helped in promoting the event. Well yeah, that’s her job and she’s great at it.

But where was Janet when they made promotional and marketing decisions? Johnson stated that since the city gives UCT money from lodging tax revenue, the city should be able to determine where the bulk of that money is used.

Sure, but why her little pet project just before campaign season?

I loved my job at UCT. It really opened my eyes to a lot of things, the worst being the politics of an elected official with an agenda, which really bothers me and should bother all La Grande citizens.

Rebecca Lester

La Grande