Figuring out who is best at selling Lawrence to tourists and visitors may become a hot topic at City Hall.

As we reported last month, there’s a proposal out there that the convention and visitors bureau should become an official department of Lawrence City Hall. Currently it is a standalone entity that is run by the nonprofit board of Destination Management Inc., which also oversees the Freedom’s Frontier National Heritage Area.

Now I’ve gotten word that the Lawrence Chamber of Commerce is making a pitch to have the CVB become part of the chamber’s organization.

“We feel Lawrence could lose a competitive edge if it becomes a part of City Hall,” Larry McElwain, president and CEO of the chamber told me. “We don’t feel Lawrence is as competitive for conferences and workshops — especially during that Sunday night to Thursday morning timeframe — as we could be.”

McElwain said if the CVB is part of City Hall, many of the bids it submits for conferences and conventions and such will be subject to open records law. If competitors have access to that sort of information, it may be tougher for Lawrence to produce winning bids for conferences and such.

City officials told me they wanted to better understand that concern. From their viewpoint, there are some efficiencies to be gained by having the CVB join the city’s ranks. Diane Stoddard, assistant city manager, said the CVB already works closely with the Parks and Recreation and Public Works departments on hosting a variety of events. The city’s communications office works closely with the organization to publicize many events, and the city’s communications staff also includes graphic designers and web producers who would be able to provide services to the CVB.

“There are a lot of issues to look at,” Stoddard said.

McElwain confirmed that the chamber brought up the idea of the CVB becoming part of the chamber about three months ago, which is about the time that director of Destination Management Inc. resigned. McElwain said City Manager David Corliss wasn’t in favor of the idea. Corliss, however, is leaving for a new position in Colorado at the end of the month, Stoddard is taking over as interim city manager, and the make-up of the City Commission has changed since then too. So, a new discussion may produce new results. The CVB was part of the chamber of commerce for decades until Destination Management Inc. was formed in 2008.

Stoddard said she doesn’t have a specific timeframe for a decision to be made on the CVB future. How long it drags out will be interesting to watch. McElwain said he’s talked to multiple operators who are concerned that the number events their hotels have been asked to bid on has slowed significantly in the last six months.

Ultimately the City Commission holds the hammer on this issue. The CVB is funded through proceeds of the city’s 6 percent guest tax that is charged on all hotel rooms in the city. The City Commission directly controls that funding.

Under the chamber’s proposal, the city would continue to control that funding, but the city would create a contract with the chamber to manage the CVB operations for a fee. That’s similar to how the city has a contract with the chamber for economic development marketing activities. UPDATE: A chamber representative called me. They don’t really like the word ‘fee.’ The chamber wanted to make it clear that none of the transient guest tax money would be used to fund other chamber operations. That funding would be segregated from the rest of the chamber’s funding.

We’ll see what happens, but I think the issue of tourism is going to be a surprisingly active one during this summer’s budget season. I definitely got the impression from last night’s budget forum that there is city commissioner interest in raising the guest tax rate. I also picked up on some interest in using portions of the guest tax revenue to fund items that you normally wouldn’t think of as tourism related. For instance, maybe some of the money could be used to help parks and recreation maintenance, with the idea that parks and their various amenities are certainly important to the tourism industry.

All in all, the 2016 budget process could be one of the more interesting ones in years because of how many new people will be involved. (That means it will be more like watching grass grow rather than watching paint dry, but you take your City Hall excitement where you can get it.) There will be three new commissioners, an interim city manager and a new finance director all involved with the budget this year.

In other news and notes from around town:

• There has been a change in the world of Lawrence security, but no, that doesn’t mean my wife has given me access to our ATM code. The longtime Lawrence firm of Overfield Security has been purchased by Select One Security.

Overfield had been in business for 20 years in Lawrence. SelectOne also is a Lawrence-based firm that dates back to 2003. It is owned by Ryan Kruse. He said the purchase of Overfield’s business triples the size of SelectOne. He said the purchase will allow the company to continue to expand with is mobile platform security business that allows homeowners or business owners to monitor their property through mobile devices.

“These are very exciting times for our customer base and the future of our company,” Kruse said in a statement.

Overfield owner Scott Overfield said he plans to temporarily stay on with the SelectOne as an adviser.

“Thank you for all of the memories and dedication from my first customer to my last, and all of my staff over the years,” Overfield said.