Norwich — Going into the annual meeting of the Eastern Regional Tourism District on Thursday, administrative coordinator Ed Dombroskas expected an hourlong gathering that would highlight the district's recent activities and strong performance of its digital campaign.

What he got was a nearly three-hour meeting in which new members of the district board and observers raised concerns about transparency and adherence to the bylaws, occasionally putting longtime members on the defensive.

By a show of hands, most board members expressed they hadn't seen the district's contract with the state Department of Economic and Community Development prior to the meeting.

Groton City Mayor Keith Hedrick noted the district's bylaws state that the board's annual meeting shall be in June, not September. He felt there should have been a special meeting in June, after funding from the state finally came through.

Ultimately, the votes taken on board leadership were voided after state Sen. Heather Somers, R-Groton, and Hedrick raised questions about whether a quorum had been met. The Day had to leave the meeting before this point but caught up with seven attendees afterward.

Earlier in the meeting, board Chairwoman Rita Schmidt said the 13 members present constituted a quorum. If going by the 32 board members listed, that would be true, as the bylaws define a quorum as one-third of total membership.

But the wording in the bylaws conflicts with state statute, which supersedes the bylaws. The statute says the district "shall" be overseen by a board consisting of one representative from each municipality in the district, which comprises 42 municipalities. The bylaws state that each municipality "shall be entitled to appoint one representative."

Somers said she reached out to the selectmen in her district over the summer to ask them to make appointments to the board, and Dombroskas said there are nine or 10 towns still without representation.

He's not sure when the next board meeting will be.

The votes taken were to elect Schmidt as chair, Pam Adams as vice chair, Tammi Flynn as secretary and Jill Fritzche as treasurer. Dombroskas told The Day the first three were voted onto the Executive Committee at the last election in 2017, whereas Fritzche would be new.

After what he heard at the meeting, Chris Regan — property manager of Olde Mistick Village and Groton Shopping Plaza — decided to throw his hat in the ring for vice chair.

One of several new members to the board, Regan said he had to call to get the agenda for the meeting and never got a copy of the bylaws. He also voiced concern with the lack of a competitive bidding process for the funds committed and expended in June.

Citing a need for transparency, Regan told The Day, "We don't want to have what happened with the port authority ever, ever be something the district's mentioned about, because we're getting the same amount of money, $400,000."

Deb Donovan, a New London resident who worked for the district from 1998 to 2003 and has been a board member since 2015, also brought up the Connecticut Port Authority in a conversation after the meeting. She feels that "because of this brouhaha," state legislators "are very sensitive to these quasi-public agencies, and the need for transparency and paperwork."

But she said it was "disconcerting to have new members be so critical of what was happening when what was happening didn't originate with the tourism districts; it originated with Gov. (Dannel) Malloy and his DECD."

At the meeting, she said the district had been "jerked around by the state for years now, and it was impossible to do anything."

'It was impossible to adhere to the bylaws'

After Malloy withheld funding from the tourism districts for two years, $400,000 for each of the state's three districts was included in the budget that went into effect July 1, 2018.

But the districts didn't get a contract from the state to sign until April, and the eastern and western districts didn't receive their funding until June — leaving them very little time to commit or expend the money before the end of the fiscal year.

Randy Fiveash, director of DECD's Office of Tourism, explained at the meeting his view of the previous way the state funded the districts: "Here is the money, do whatever the heck you want to do with it, there it is."

He didn't like that, so he added new measures to the contract — such as prohibitions on directly hiring staff or leasing office space — and said that resulted in "some kicking and screaming."

When Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce President Peggy Roberts expressed disappointment that the district didn't consider the chamber as a nonprofit partner before selecting Norwich Community Development Corporation, Dombroskas replied that timing was of the essence. He said the decision was in part because NCDC was "prepared to immediately provide" necessary administrative services.

Roberts said she would be open to partnering in the future.

Dombroskas told The Day on Friday, "This past year, there has been a departure, only because it was impossible to adhere to the bylaws, only because of the late funding and the restrictions on how we could spend."

Schmidt said at the meeting, "I think that we, under the circumstances, did admirably. I'm very proud of what we've done." This includes wrapping two coach buses, updating brochures featuring ice cream and brewery trails, enlisting a photographer to capture sights and events, and hiring Makiaris Media for an online campaign.

Irene Makiaris explained at the meeting that the campaign had a click-through rate of 0.16 percent, which is great compared to the national standard of 0.05 percent.

She explained to The Day later that ads were targeted based on geographic location, demographics and behavior. People might have seen ads on Travelocity, Priceline or Kayak, or in an article about Connecticut experiences.

Through IP addresses on people's phones, she could tell that 7,236 people from outside Connecticut visited an attraction after seeing an ad for that attraction, as of Sept. 1. She acknowledged it's possible they were planning on going anyway and said there's the assumption the visitor purchased a ticket at the attraction.

e.moser@theday.com