May 9--ESCONDIDO -- The Escondido Chamber of Commerce, not the area's convention and visitors bureau, would lead efforts to promote the city as a tourism destination under a proposal that chamber officials have presented to the City Council.

Harvey Mitchell, the chamber's chief executive, said Thursday that the San Diego North Convention & Visitors Bureau has failed to adequately promote Escondido tourism in recent years as the bureau's focus has become more regional.

Mitchell has asked the city for $60,000 of the $90,000 that it gives to the bureau each year to lead tourism promotion for the city. The chamber has not received any city money since the 1970s.

Cami Mattson, chief executive of the visitors bureau, defended her agency's record promoting Escondido on Thursday and called Mitchell's proposal a wasteful duplication of efforts.

"Let's communicate and collaborate, not divide and compromise," said Mattson, who has run the visitors bureau since 1985.

City Council members said Thursday they are willing to consider Mitchell's proposal.

But they also expressed concerns about the competition between the two organizations and the rapid timeline proposed by Mitchell, who has asked the council to make the change before the new fiscal year begins July 1.

"We have to do this now so our program will be fully established when the new hotels open," said Mitchell, referring to a luxury Marriott slated to open downtown in 2010 and a business class Marriott to open just west of Interstate 15 in late 2009.

Mitchell said he would use the money to hire a full-time professional with tourism promotion experience, and to enhance the tourism portion of the chamber's Web site.

"We can give the city much more bang for its buck because we will focus exclusively on Escondido," said Mitchell. "The convention bureau has a lot of people to satisfy because they get money from many other cities. They have too many different masters."

The extra money would increase the chamber's annual budget from $565,000 to $625,000.

Mitchell also said the chamber has a more conspicuous location and better parking than the visitors bureau, which is on the campus of the city's performing arts center. In 2005, the chamber moved into a new building with a large parking lot on Broadway, just north of Washington Avenue.

"If we really want to become known as a hospitality-type city, then we need someone on the ground that you can easily find," said Mitchell.

Mattson said she was extremely disappointed by the chamber's proposal and that chamber officials did not contact her before going to the council.

"This proposal was submitted without a single word addressing concern or frustration to me or any of my staff," Mattson said.

She also said Escondido has not been neglected by her agency, which expanded its focus beyond just Escondido in the late 1980s.

She said the bureau's marketing efforts have generated nearly $3.4 million for Escondido in the past 18 months, the bureau's Web site mentions Escondido 406 times and that Escondido is referenced 160 times in the bureau's travel planning guide.

Mattson also said the new hotels would be far more comfortable with the bureau promoting them than the chamber.

"We are a well-oiled machine, and we have the expertise to address the current trends," said Mattson.

Cities in the region should not be fighting among themselves for tourists, said Mattson, explaining that they need to promote the region as a whole. She said the city should view the bureau like the Escondido Auto Park, where pooling promotional resources works better than individual promotions.

Councilmen Dick Daniel and Ed Gallo said Mitchell's proposal made some sense to them, but that his timeline seemed too ambitious.

"Conceptually, I kind of like the idea," said Gallo. "But it's too late in the budget process, and I'm not ready to take money away from the visitors bureau."

Mayor Lori Holt Pfeiler was less supportive.

"You have to be a pretty large city to go it alone," said Pfeiler. "Our $90,000 will be leveraged against the other $3 million the visitors bureau gets. So that's the best return on our investment."

The visitors bureau was founded as a committee of the chamber shortly after the Wild Animal Park opened in 1972, said Mattson. In the late 1970s, the bureau split off from the chamber but continued to share a building with the chamber until it moved to the performing arts center campus in 2000, she said.

The bureau started to receive money from other cities in the late 1980s because the City Council began reducing its annual funding allocation, said Mattson.

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