ST. CHARLES, Mo. (First Alert 4) – Many business owners from St. Charles Historic Main Street and festival cast members rallied at and packed a St. Charles City Council meeting on Tuesday to oppose speculation about the restructuring of the city’s tourism operations.
An actual proposal is expected to be introduced at next week’s city work session, but businesses and events relying on tourists wanted to make sure they were heard beforehand. The concern first came to light in August 2025, when the restructuring was first floated.
It has people wondering what a proposed restructuring of the convention and visitors bureau and special events, along with communications, could mean.
It has since led people to go to council meetings to speak about it.
“Tourism is vital to our businesses on Main Street. Without tourism, we’re just gathering our local shoppers,” said Amy Senter of Jake’s on Main, the Life is Good Store. “We need to reach people outside of our community to strengthen our economy. Without the CVB or the Convention and Visitors Bureau, we lose that.”
Senter said the St. Charles CVB is responsible for two big festivals in the fourth quarter, Legends and Lanterns and Christmas Traditions, and at the start of the year, Once Upon a Valentine, which helps her business throughout the year.
“What I’m fearful will happen is the outreach will shrink and we will not gain those patrons coming to our store,” said Senter.
“When you’ve got something happening in the backgrounds and you’re not sure what that is happening, exactly what is happening, it affects not only like our livelihoods, but our employees, our staff, our, you know, like if something would happen to where they’re going to somehow diminish the amount of tourism that comes down here, that directly affects not even our sales, but our staff,” said Marsha Timme, Savor St. Charles owner
Senter added too, the worry is that any changes could mean a loss of the current leadership and experience.
“They bring people into our community, which fills our hotels, our restaurants, even the areas that the mayor wants to build out, Frenchtown, Streets of St. Charles, River Point. All of those will branch off of Main Street. You can attend those, and you can go to those places, but it’s not going to have a mile-long stretch of shops and restaurants to visit, to explore, to take a weekend, to look at and participate in renowned festivals that are much more than just a festival. They’re an economic driver to our community,” said Senter.
“It’s sort of a domino effect that, while we may not feel it right away, will be long-term, and I don’t know how much of it can be reversed,” said Aimee Robertson, festival cast member.
Robertson added that many cast members take part because of the leadership at CVB.
“The reality is, whether or not the current leadership remains, the festivals will go on. The question becomes, will the magic stay as well?” she said.
So, businesses owners and residents wanted to make their position clear on the organization structure.
“There’s a difference between tourism and community events. You know, and right now we have two very strong departments in their own entities. And we feel that if you merge those together, you’re going to lose something, right?” said Timme.
Shaina Groaning, Katy Trail Collections owner, said, “We need to keep our tourism department separate. It is very important that we have professionals. This is all they do. Instead of moving key employees from one city department to another, where instead of promoting our massive events that bring incredible numbers of people here, they’re going to be dealing with water main breaks and parades that happen, which are great, but we need to have a separate department for that.”
The proposal has not been formally introduced. That has also added to the frustration.
“Transparency needs to be a number one thing going forward. We need to know what’s happening. We are literally kept in the dark,” said Shaina Groaning, Katy Trail Collections owner.
“When a proposal is going to affect this many people, and revenue, and the identity of St. Charles, you know, we need to be heard. And we need to proceed with caution,” said Lydia Crespo, owner of Cozy Shop.
Mayor Dan Borgmeyer declined to comment on the change on Tuesday ahead of the city council meeting, wanting to wait until it’s introduced at the meeting next Tuesday. The mayor told First Alert 4 in August that this is the reason for considering the restructuring.
“It will make the city more efficient, the taxpayer dollars will be represented more and as you can see from my report, we’re going up to $400,000 on Main Street,” Borgmeyer said in August 2025.
On the agenda for Tuesday night’s city council agenda was changing some city position titles and salaries. While the item was tabled, before that, the council did pass a motion to maintain the job titles of Director of CVB and Assistant Director of CVB, rather than retitling them as Director of Tourism and Assistant Director of Tourism. The move was made to preserve the positions ahead of any changes that might be made.
It was part of what Senter brought up when she spoke to the council.
“I don’t think the council should be voting on salaries for positions that they do not even have a job description for at this point. I think they need to look and see what those job descriptions entail before they vote on that. I think they need to do their due diligence,” Senter said. “I think they have a responsibility and a duty to look at exactly what they’re voting for and see if that lines up with the constituents. Quite honestly, maybe those four new positions are exactly what we need, but we will never know before because we won’t know until next week when he unveils his plan.”
At the St. Charles City work session, public comment is not included on the agenda, but if the proposal moves forward, it would still need to go before the city council for a formal vote.
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