January 5, 2018. Tillamook, Oregon. The Tillamook County Board of Commissioners (BOC) announced today that it is opening a $100,000 grant cycle on Wednesday, January 10, 2018 under the Tourism-Related Facilities Grant Program, which is funded by the Tillamook County Transient Lodging Tax (TLT). The maximum grant award for each project will be $15,000. Eligible applicants include any city, county or other local government (including a port, special district, or intergovernmental agency), federal and state agencies that conduct tourism-related activities or services in Tillamook County, and non-governmental agencies. There is no match required though some matching funds are encouraged, and all grants will be on a reimbursement basis only.
To date, the BOC has awarded a total of $1.9 million in Tourism Related Facilities Grant funds to 34 diverse and innovative projects throughout the county. Since those awards, the BOC adopted the Tillamook County TLT Policy for Tourism-Related Facilities. This policy outlines the process for allocating county tourism-related facilities TLT monies to strategic investment projects and the new grant program. In addition, this policy guides the BOC in its decision making and describes the duties of the Tillamook County Tourism Advisory Committee (TAC).
From November 2016 through May 2017, the Futures Council, at the request of the BOC, conducted a series of three community listening meetings that were held in four county locations for a total of 12 town hall meetings. The series served as the first step in the county-wide strategic planning process by gathering information from the public about potential TLT capital investments. A key takeaway was the community’s desire for a strategic plan to take a holistic approach with an eye on identity preservation and resource balancing. Based on this valuable input, the BOC, with support of the TAC, continues to focus on developing the county-wide strategic plan to identify potential large projects for tourism-related facilities TLT funding.
In the interim, the BOC recognizes that there are smaller tourism-related facilities projects throughout the community that are worthy of TLT funding through the grant program. Although this grant cycle is smaller than prior cycles, the BOC is confident that the community will rise to the challenge and be creative in using the grant funds as seed money to leverage partnerships.
All applications will be rated and ranked based on various criteria, including the degree of positive economic impact, degree of visitor experience impact, operations and maintenance sustainability, extent of collaboration and community support, and project readiness. TAC members will review and score each application and then submit their findings to the BOC, which will make the final decision as to which projects will be awarded and the amount of funding per project.
The grant application and instructions will be available at www.co.tillamook.or.us/gov/Bocc/TLTFacilities.htm. The deadline is Friday, March 9, 2018 at 4:00pm. For more information, please contact Susan Corbisiero, Tillamook County Executive Assistant, at scorbisi@co.tillamook.or.us or 503-842-3431. ###