Baker City unveils tourism marketing plan in public meetings this week

Baker City residents will get the first public look at the city’s new tourism marketing plan before the council takes it up Tuesday night, a step that puts visitor spending, downtown business interests and city services in the same debate.

City Hall, 1655 First St., will host two sessions Monday, May 11, one Tuesday morning and one Wednesday morning, May 13. The city’s community development director said the meetings will be recorded and posted online, and staff are trying to arrange a live stream as well. HUB Collective, the Portland firm hired by Baker City to design the campaign, will make a formal presentation at the council meeting Tuesday evening, May 12.

The campaign is tied to a broader shift in how Baker City handles lodging-tax dollars. Councilors voted 5-1 on March 11, 2025, to withdraw from the 2006 county agreement effective July 1, 2025, giving the city its own 7% lodging tax on rental rates. Baker City hired HUB Collective in September 2025 under a first-year contract estimated at $95,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2026.

City officials have said county records suggested about 80% of lodging-tax payments came from guests staying inside Baker City limits, although tracking the exact source is difficult because some vacation-rental platforms do not report by area. Murphy has said the city expected about $800,000 in first-year lodging-tax revenue, and that July 2025 collections reached $78,000 before vacation-rental and online-booking receipts were added. He also said a city-controlled tax could help fund tourism promotion and general-fund needs such as police and fire, after the city imposed a $10 monthly public-safety fee on residential water and sewer accounts amid general-fund pressure in 2024.

The county still collects lodging tax in unincorporated areas and in cities such as Halfway and Sumpter. Baker County’s collections reached record highs for three straight fiscal years, including $954,000 for the year ending June 30, 2024, and $940,000 for the year ending June 30, 2025. Under the county ordinance, 70% of lodging-tax revenue must go to tourism promotion, 25% to economic development and up to 5% to administration.

The city had previously pushed for a larger share of unused county lodging-tax money. In a March 31, 2025 letter, Mayor Randy Daugherty and City Manager Barry Murphy proposed that Baker City receive 80% of the unspent balance remaining as of July 1, 2026, a split they said would mean $1,252,000 for the city and $313,000 for the county. Baker County’s transient lodging tax advisory committee later voted 5-1 on April 17, 2025, to recommend that commissioners give Baker City $570,500 to help launch the campaign, with Matthew Koppenhaver casting the lone no vote.

County officials, including Commissioner Christina Witham, have said the county must follow its ordinance and that no provision allows a lump-sum transfer to the city. That dispute now frames the meetings at City Hall, where Baker City will show how it plans to market itself and who it expects to benefit.