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The San Benito County Board of Supervisors on Jan. 14 mapped out a new vision for economic growth, deciding that the county will make an all-in bet on tourism. Led by its new chair, Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki, the board redefined the mission of a committee previously created to advise the board on economic issues, directing it to focus exclusively on tourism.
The proposal changes the name, purpose, and composition of the Economic Advisory Committee (EAC), which counsels supervisors on “recommended initiatives related to economic opportunities.” It will now be called the Tourism Advisory Committee and shrink from 11 members to seven.
Currently, the EAC meets once a month to discuss the future of businesses in the county with industry experts and members of the community. Besides tourism, it touches on issues related to employment, workforce development, economic development strategies, as well as grants and funding from state and federal agencies.
Its members include supervisors Mindy Sotello and Angela Curro, Hollister Mayor Roxanne Stephens, San Juan Bautista City Councilmember Leslie Jordan. It has also included representatives from community organizations such as Visit San Benito, San Benito County Workforce Development, Hollister Downtown Association, Spirit of San Juan, and the Economic Development Corporation.
The idea, Kosmicki said at the supervisors’ Jan. 14 meeting, is to “make a real, bold attempt to focus us on tourism, so that we can come away in this next year with some real, tangible policies and programs that are beneficial to the community.”
Kosmicki said that while some of the organizations that contribute members to the current committee will be cut, Visit San Benito and Spirit of San Juan will remain.
Sotello and Curro opposed the initiative. Sotello said while she agrees that tourism could be the main focus of the county’s economic development efforts, it shouldn’t be the only one. She said she is worried about abandoning projects the committee has been working on that are not related to tourism.
“I think that if we change the name, there is no place for workforce development,” she said. “There is no place for small businesses. If we change the name, we’re essentially going to get rid of kind of everything.”
Sotello said she is also worried about losing all the work invested in the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), the five-year plan created in 2023 by the county, the cities of Hollister and San Juan Bautista, and the Economic Development Corporation. Although CEDS considers tourism a component for the county’s economic future, it doesn’t say it should be the only one.
The CEDS plan is directed toward retaining and expanding the current businesses in the county. It also aims to support local businesses and attract companies to the county.
Shawn Herrera, former chair of the San Benito County Chamber of Commerce, considers it a “mistake” for the county to focus solely on tourism.
“We’re putting all of our eggs in a basket that we don’t know if it’s sellable,” he said. “Tourism is seasonal and the county needs businesses all year round. If we want our people to have peace of mind, to stop commuting to Silicon Valley, to decrease traffic, we need to bring businesses here. Tourism cannot do this alone.”
Tourism has another problem. Currently, the county doesn’t have the infrastructure to effectively promote itself as a tourist destination. According to the CEDS report, the county would require between $300,000 and $500,000 per year to support a visitor information center, manage websites, conduct marketing, collect data, coordinate with Pinnacles National Park and create new tourism initiatives.
“It is important that our community considers the fact that there is no economic development manager/director employed in our county,” said Kristina Chavez Wyatt, consulting executive director of the San Benito Business Council. “There is little support provided in the form of grants for tourism and hospitality-related economic development.”
Curro said tourism needs support from other industries. So, narrowing the scope of the county’s economic strategy may end up also trumping tourism.
“There are pieces of tourism that you don’t always take into consideration, and that is including workforce and businesses and how you tie those together,” she said. “The structure of the current EAC gives it more diversity.”
Supervisors Dom Zanger and Ignacio Velazquez supported Kosmicki’s proposal. It was approved in a 3-2 vote.
County staff is working on the bylaws of the new Tourism Advisory Committee, which will be presented to the board at its Jan. 28 meeting.
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