No one responded by the Oct. 23 deadline to the city's request to provide tourism marketing and advertising, City Clerk Karen Kuznek-Reese told the city council at its Oct. 26 meeting.

So city staff will discuss it and then take the issue back to the Sequim Marketing Action Committee, she said.

The Sequim-Dungeness Valley Chamber of Commerce has provided the city's tourism and marketing services since Pat McCauley, co-owner of InsideOut Solutions, resigned effective April 30 saying it was in the best interests of both her and the city.

But the chamber's board decided in July it didn't want to keep the city's marketing contract for 2010.

The 2009 city budget included $11,000 for the city's marketing coordinator and $53,234 for tourism-related advertising expenses associated with the contract.

The chamber's contract, which runs from May 1 to Dec. 31, pays $7,333. The 2010 city budget includes $18,000 for the marketing coordinator contract.

The funding comes from the city's $140,000 in annual hotel/motel taxes, which come from 0.4 percent of the sales tax paid by visitors to the city's hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and other lodging establishments.

Reach Brian Gawley at bgawley@sequimgazette.com.