The firm that designed the “I Shop Crystal Lake” logo for City of Crystal Lake taxpayers and won a $43,000 six-month contract, now has won the $5,300 city taxpayer contract to work with McHenry’s “Heart of the Fox” slogan.

That’s what Crystal Lindell, reporter for the Northwest Herald writes.

She reports that Dobbe will “help the city refine its marketing techniques.”

Ironically, I found this “I Shop Crystal Lake” in the parking lot of Knox Pool in McHenry in late June.

So, will a little fox be saying,

And, after all the towns in McHenry County get a “Please Shop in Our Town Because We Really Need Your Sales Tax Dollars,” will any community with a sales tax rate lower than Crystal Lake’s now 1.75%–you remember, Mayor Aaron Shepley’s 75% city sales tax increase–dare to put up signs on the way out of Crystal Lake saying,

That might just increase sales in McHenry or Woodstock.

Just wondering if a chamber of commerce might have the guts to do something that might actually increase sales in their town, even if it offended the tax-hiking Crystal Lake City Council.

If McHenry wanted to go with its fox theme, I’m sure Dobbe’s people could come up with a variation on a fox jumping over the Crystal Lake sales tax fence…like this one leaped on top of and over our fence on Lake Avenue during prime shopping time.

For any municipal officials out there, sales tax revenue is a zero sum game. There’s only so much out there.

Maybe you can divert a tiny bit of it with a marketing campaign, but before you spend you tax dollars on it, you might want to make sure the contract is a performance-based one. In other words, if sales tax revenues do not increase more than they would have otherwise, you don’t pay anything.

I’ll bet no marketing firm would take the risk and sign such a contract.

If they won’t, why should you take the chance and spend your taxpayers’ dollars?
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