BAKER CITY — A little more than a year after the Baker County Board of Commissioners was slated to award a contract to run a visitor center in Baker City, the matter remain unresolved.

But commissioners will resume their discussion of the issue when they convene Wednesday, March 3, at the Courthouse, 1995 Third St. Commissioners likely will take up the visitor services contract around 9:45 a.m.

The contract was on the agenda on Feb. 19, 2020, but commissioners decided to delay a decision.

Shelly Cutler will be following the commissioners discussion March 3 with trepidation.

Cutler is executive director of the Baker County Chamber of Commerce. The chamber, operating under the organization Baker County Unlimited, has the contract to run the visitor center on Campbell Street near Interstate 84.

Cutler said she’s concerned commissioners could decide to cancel that contract. The county, using the tax guest pay to and motels and other lodging establishments, gives the chamber about $77,000 per year to operate the visitor center.

If the contract ended, Cutler said, the loss of revenue would make it difficult, if not impossible, for the chamber to put on Miners Jubilee in July. The event was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cutler expressed the same concern last winter when commissioners were preparing to award the visitor services contract to either the chamber or to Anthony Lakes Mountain Resort, which also submitted a proposal in December 2019.

After deciding not to award a new contract in February 2020, commissioners have twice extended the contract with the chamber. The most recent extension, approved Jan. 6, 2021, continues the contract through April 30, 2021.

Commissioner Mark Bennett said he wants the county to hire a consultant to help commissioners draft a new request for proposals for the visitor services contract, a process that would take a fair amount of time. The county has yet to hire a consultant.

Commissioner Bruce Nichols said on Friday morning, Feb. 26, he believes the county needs some sort of visitors center operating consistently, and he wouldn’t support ending the contract without a way to continue to assist visitors.

Anthony Lakes general manager Peter Johnson has urged commissioners to announce a time frame for finishing a request for proposals and moving ahead with awarding a new contract. Johnson noted in a Jan. 9 email that although county bylaws state the visitor services contract is to be awarded every six years, the current contract with the chamber has been extended.

“We do have some concerns on how ethical that is,” Johnson wrote.

An attorney representing Anthony Lakes, Rebecca Knapp of Enterprise, sent a letter on Feb. 1 to Andrew Martin, the county’s attorney, regarding the visitor center issue.

Martin wis a response rrote the county intends to wait to issue a request for proposals until it has “an accepted definition, purpose and expectations for a Visitors Center in Baker County that can be clearly articulated to interested bidders.”