SaportaReport84%
College Park advances tourism contract as selection process remains under scrutiny 42%
By Adrianne Murchison65%
8/5/2026, 2:30:19 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 25 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Confirmation Bias, and Post Hoc (False Cause), with Pessimism Bias as the most egregious example at 16.1% saturation with 113 hits. Analysis detected 989 faulty-reasoning hits from 703 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 38.2% and a BS Rank of 42% (18,008 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 58.90% of the article peer group.
College Park City Council voted Monday to move forward with a contract for a new destination marketing organization, even as questions remain unanswered about how Destination Must Visit Tourism Alliance was selected.
Council approved the organization over other candidates in a hurried fashion on June 29 during a special called meeting in Savannah .
Mayor Bianca Motley Broom, who did not attend the meeting, said she is “deeply concerned” about the selection process and believes it warrants “greater scrutiny.”
“There’s something going on here, and there’s something that we need to get to the bottom of,” Motley Broom said.
During a workshop before Monday’s regular meeting, council members asked Destination Must Visit leaders Carolyn Howell and Amber Batchelor questions that would ordinarily be addressed while a city is evaluating firms.
Howell is president and founding chair of the tourism organization and Batchelor is head of tourism operations, strategy and implementation.
Will College Park officials be a part of the organization’s board?
Can hotel-motel tax revenue be spent on capital projects?
Neither question was definitively answered.
Councilman Roderick Gay said his vote on the contract depended on assurances that the revenue could be used for capital projects.
The councilman wants to secure funding for Roderick Gay Botanical Garden.
“I want to be perfectly clear… it is my belief that the DMO can be used for tourism projects that are capital related,” Gay said.
“If that’s not the position that you all are going to take…I don’t think [we] need to be wasting our time.
It needs to go back out to bid.”
The discussion also included concerns previously raised about the organization’s experience.
The Georgia Hotel & Lodging Association has accused Destination Must Visit of falsely naming organizations that it has worked with around the country.
Howell said the experience belonged to members of the Destination Must Visit team rather than to the new organization itself.
“These are impressive individuals that are going to be able to bring years of experience, tremendous connections and just all the best practices of travel, tourism and hospitality to the city of College Park,” Howell said.
Motley Broom and residents seek answers
Motley Broom wants to know if the Destination Must Visit leaders met with City Manager Michael Hicks during the bidding process, raising concerns that such a meeting could have given the organization an advantage over other bidders.
“I believe the context in which this decision has been made, and the manner in which it has been conducted, requires greater scrutiny,” Motley Broom said during the workshop.
“I believe the questions that I have are ones that others have… I am deeply, deeply concerned how this process came about.”
A timeline shows that College Park issued its first request for proposals for a new destination marketing organization on May 15, with a deadline of May 29.
Destination Must Visit submitted but was not eligible because it had not yet obtained a 501c6 nonprofit status, according to the mayor.
Maryland records show that the organization was officially formed May 26.
College Park issued a second request for proposals June 12 with submissions due June 22.
Motley Broom said records obtained through an open records request showed that Howell and Batchelor were scheduled to meet with Hicks on June 16.
That was also the deadline for prospective bidders to submit questions and requests for clarification about the solicitation.
Hicks did not confirm that the meeting occurred.
He, Howell and Batchelor indicated that if the meeting took place, it was regarding a fire safety matter involving a separate organization owned by Batchelor.
Hicks was contentious with Motley Broom, who is an attorney.
He accused her of treating the workshop like a courtroom.
“So, right now you guys are on trial,” Hicks told Howell and Batchelor.
Motley Broom said she remained troubled by the timing of the possible meeting and other circumstances surrounding the selection.
“I don’t know if the meeting happened, but it’s deeply concerning considering that the second RFP went out on Friday, June 12, and you are meeting with people that have already applied the first time,” she said.
The mayor repeated, “That is deeply, deeply concerning.”
Speakers
5speakers59%attributed speech288writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageCarolyn Howell
56 attributed words13% of attributed speech54% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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