Huntington Beach leaders are looking to rebrand after years of headlines documenting their losses in lawsuits against the state government among other controversies, and Mayor Casey McKeon has one contractor in mind to bring back Surf City’s reputation.
But McKeon’s support of the contractor is raising questions from residents on why a $720,000 city contract would not accept other bids, and questioning whether the contractor is facing a conflict of interest.
After public pushback, McKeon changed course and called for other vendors to bid, and is now looking to set up a closed door committee on Tuesday night to pick the final winner on the bidding.
Now, Councilman Chad Williams is lambasting the proposed contract, calling it an “illegal gift of public funds” in an interview with Voice of OC.
“It’s perfectly fine to enter into any bad agreement you want in the private world, but as a government entity we have a fiduciary responsibility,” Williams said. “In my opinion it is a textbook example of an illegal gift of public funds.”
But McKeon defended the proposal, saying it would help generate money for the city and let them highlight more positive things locally and that there were no rules broken in bringing it forward.
“There’s just a lot of low hanging fruit the city has never harvested. There’s a lot of systems we can build here,” McKeon said in an interview last week. “I wouldn’t say it’s rebranding, it’s just amplifying all the positive stuff the media won’t cover.”
Who Is the Mayor Looking to Contract With?
The contractor in question is Tyler Wolff, owner and operator of Wolffhaus Studio, who declined to comment for this article.
He’s also engaged to Ceason Baker, McKeon’s appointee to Huntington Beach’s Community and Library Services Commission, according to his Facebook page.
There aren’t many details listed online about what the company’s work is, with a sign online that their website is coming soon that links to a promotional reel, a whiskey advertisement and a music video.
Wolff identified the firm as a “hybrid agency” in a statement to city leaders that does work “across creative direction, branding, communications, media, manufacturing, experiential, strategy, and operational problem-solving.”
Wolff already got $30,000 from the city to write up a 38-page report in which he claims the city is losing millions of dollars every year due to its poor brand management and that he has a plan that would bring over $18 million back into city coffers in five years.
But Wolff noted in the report there isn’t much evidence to back up his numbers.
“These figures are estimates based on the information currently available and are intended to illustrate the scale of the opportunity, not a guaranteed financial outcome,” Wolff wrote. “More precise values would require deeper financial review, contract analysis, vendor reporting validation, and implementation-stage analysis.”
He also notes that their approach is “not conventional.”
“While traditional audits often focus on what is formally documented, financially reported, or procedurally required, our work is built around identifying the gaps between what an organization has, what it communicates, what it controls, and what it fails to capture,” Wolff wrote.
He identified one of the city’s largest problems as frequent controversial political news stories, which have often included things like the city’s frequent losses in lawsuits against state leaders and debates over the future of the public library, saying they’re negatively impacting the city’s tourism economy.
“This heavy political tilt has shifted national and regional perception of Huntington Beach away from “Surf City USA” — the fun, welcoming, family-friendly coastal icon — and toward a polarized political flashpoint,” Wolff wrote. “The result is diminished tourism appeal, weaker third-party advocacy, and missed opportunities to showcase the full value of the Huntington Beach identity.”
To fix that, Wolff said the city needs to start promoting more “authentic, positive and community centered stories,” and also recommended a series of other measures to beef up the city’s sales of merchandise, film commissions and other events like the annual Fourth of July Celebration.
Public Concerns Raised Over Contract
While city leaders were originally set to award Wolffhaus with a $720,000 contract earlier this month, they backed off amid complaints from residents about the size of the contract and that no one else bid on it.
McKeon pulled the contract off the agenda himself before anyone spoke, highlighting the complaints he’d seen online.
“I don’t want the negative attention of not performing an RFP (request for proposals) to ruin the massive community benefit and potential this project can bring to Huntington Beach,” McKeon said at the council’s Apr. 7 meeting.
Tina Viray and Sally Wescott, who operate the Surf City Store at the pier, also questioned how the report claimed they made over $1.5 million from sales of Surf City merch, saying they were never consulted as part of Wolff’s audit.
“From that 1.5 million, we had 1.143 in expenses, payroll, products, fees, all the expenses it takes to run a business,” Viray said to council members. “Our net profit for the two years was roughly $371,000.”
“It made us appear to be a greedy bunch of people that were taking money that belonged to the citizens and that is simply not the fact.”
Mayor Defends Handling of PR Contract
McKeon defended the handling of the contract in a Thursday interview, saying he never met Wolff until he reached out to the city trying to highlight the city’s existing marketing and branding issues.
“He reached out to the entire city, no one responded but I responded and introduced him to the city manager,” McKeon said. “If he happens to be the best in the industry shouldn’t we entertain his services?”
McKeon is also calling on his colleagues to take an active role in managing the submissions from over 50 companies looking to take over the rebranding contractor according to the city’s disclosures, with a closed door committee of three council members recommending who should get the gig.
McKeon also said that if city staff have a different recommendation he wants to see it presented to the public.
“Whatever recommendation comes whether it’s through staff or the ad hoc still has to be voted on,” McKeon said.
But Williams raised some concerns over the contract, saying that on Tuesday night he’s pitching an item to have city leaders publicly discuss how the contract came into existence.
He also pointed to a clause in the contract that would’ve paid out Wolffhaus $360,000 if the contract was canceled early by the city.
McKeon acknowledged he was not aware of any other contracts in the city with a similar requirement, but said he didn’t know of any other contractor creating similar value for the city.
“I don’t know of another one to build professional services in the city either though,” McKeon said. “If the city just pulls out the rug from underneath them with no cause it makes sense.”
Williams also highlighted how the city’s own rules require more contractors to bid on the issue.
“The director of that department needs to get three qualified contractors and then they’ll present that before the council and the council will vote on it. This completely bypassed that whole thing,” Williams said. “And for whom? The guy who’s a fiance of the mayor’s commissioner.”
“I don’t have anything against the guy, I just want everything to be done properly.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.