Jabberwonky

Whenever a government spews forth missives like:

The accompanying financial statements present the City and its component unit, an entity for which the City is considered to be financially accountable. The discretely presented component unit is reported in a separate column in the government-wide financial statements to emphasize that it is legally separate from the City. 

Discretely Presented Component Units
The Dunwoody Convention and Visitors Bureau has been included as a discretely presented component unit in the accompanying financial statements. The Dunwoody Convention and Visitors Bureau (“Bureau”) is fiscally dependent on the City as it does not have the power to levy taxes, determine its own aggregate budget without the approval of the City of Dunwoody, Georgia, or issue bonded debt and the City is required by contract to provide a majority of the operational revenues for the Bureau. 

Financial information with regard to the Bureau can be obtained from the Bureau’s administrative offices at 41 Perimeter Center East, Dunwoody, GA 30346. Separate financial statements for the Dunwoody Convention and Visitors Bureau are not prepared.

then you know two things:

1. They're doing something they ought not
2. They really don't want you to know about it

We all know that these quasi government bureaus are ripe for malfeasance as they are subjected to almost no budgetary oversight, public review or any form of mandatory transparency--as in "separate financial statements are NOT prepared". Wouldn't want the mere citizens to get a real clear view of what's going down downtown.

Then there is the redundancy of it all. Do not hotels perform their own marketing and wouldn't one expect them to do it well? It is a competitive private enterprise. And what about the the PR money we spend from the general budget on an engineering firm to polish our City image? How many groups have to spend how much money to convince someone that Dunwoody is a cool place? Perhaps the lady doth protest too much.

These CVBs represent little more than a grow the government philosophy of "we CAN tax them so we WILL and then we'll tax them more". Because there is really no public need to be met they piss the money away on friends, family and corporate connections.  Then the greed kicks in...