MENDOCINO CO., 8/20/26 — The tourism vehicle Visit Mendocino County is hiring a boss. The pay is $100,000 a year and applications close Friday, Sept. 4. The job includes a marketing budget that three sides spent the summer arguing over.
The job has been posted on Indeed and LinkedIn, and the listing began circulating on social media this week. The executive director “serves as the Chief Executive Officer” of the Mendocino County Tourism Commission — the nonprofit that does business as Visit Mendocino County. The posting says the ideal candidate provides “the visionary leadership, strategic direction, and operational oversight necessary to steward and amplify the total Mendocino County experience.” Candidates should send a cover letter and resume to jobs@visitmendocino.com; the same address handles requests for the full job brochure.
The posting describes “a multi-million dollar budget.” The assessment that funds the commission — the 1% line that rides on lodging bills in the unincorporated areas of Mendocino County — brought in $1.13 million in fiscal year 2024-25, and this year’s pot is budgeted at $1.2 million.
So why multi-millions? That version depends on a petition drive, two years old now and stalled, to double the assessment to 2%, which would raise roughly $2.3 million. As of the annual report the supervisors approved June 23, signatures stood at 44.87% of the assessment dollars represented — about 6 points short of the majority the law requires.
Scott Schneider, general manager of Fort Bragg’s Noyo Harbor Inn, has held the job on an interim basis since spring. Schneider ran the organization once before — he founded it in 2006 and ran it through 2016. He is ready to get back to his real job at the inn.
Whoever gets the seat inherits the fights the Voice laid out in July.
The contract comes due first. The supervisors approved a new one-year agreement with the commission July 21 on its consent calendar — worth an estimated $1,164,000, running through June 30, 2027 — after letting the old one lapse for three weeks. A new director hired this fall would be negotiating the next renewal within months of unpacking.
The inland fight ended in a compromise the new director will have to administer. The Inland Mendocino Tourism Council asked in June for 25% of the assessment — about $300,000 a year — for a dedicated inland marketing fund. The ad hoc committee the supervisors assigned, supervisors John Haschak and Madeline Cline, came back July 21 with its answer: no carve-out for inland, but the new contract requires the commission to report its spending in two categories, inland and coastal — and leaves it to the commission to define where inland ends and the coast begins. The county’s own numbers, obtained by the Voice in July, show inland lodging paid 17.4% of collections last fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the commission is spending down its reserves. Its audited financials show it spent more than it took in for three straight years — about $600,000 over in fiscal year 2022-23, $400,000 in 2023-24 and $316,000 in 2024-25 — covering the gap from reserves. The county’s 50% match, part of the original 2006 deal, was cut to a flat $150,000 in 2022, then zeroed out. The commission’s most recent available tax return, for the year ending June 2023, reported $152,650 in officer pay; the new posting offers $100,000, with a 401(k) match, parental leave and a flexible schedule.
Jeff Stanford, whose 41-room Stanford Inn makes him one of the largest locally owned payers into the assessment, told the Voice in July why he hasn’t signed the 2% petition: “Not voting for it, and they need to have a plan — a well-articulated plan of exactly what they’re gonna do and how effective it’s going to be.”
The supervisors, who took August off, are back Sept. 1. Applications close three days later.
Defining Coastal Mendocino County and Inland Mendocino County should be a fairly simple process – use the postal ZIP codes. Those touching the coast are obviously Coastal and all the rest are Inland.