Lodging tax splits groups

Innkeepers feel targeted

Depending on who is asked, a recently proposed increase in Calaveras County’s transient occupancy tax could be either a bump in hotel room rates – one paid by tourists and collected by room owners – or a spike in surcharges aimed at the rooms’ owners themselves.

Ask a lodge owner, as the Visitors Bureau did last Wednesday, and the answer might get loud:

“The Calaveras Lodging Association is absolutely opposed to (TOT),” explained lodging group head and Dunbar House Bed and Breakfast owner Rich Taborek. “I think we can do a lot better with alternative ways to fund (the Visitors Bureau).”

Today’s county TOT rate, 6 percent, would rise to 10 percent in unincorporated areas, the same as currently levied in Angels Camp, under a proposal being floated for a spring 2013 ballot measure.

The boost is opposed by Taborek’s lodging group, but is backed by representatives from both the Visitors Bureau and Citizens for a Better Calaveras, a coalition of community-based nonprofits comprised of the humane society, fairgrounds, senior center, county parks and recreation, the county library system, and the Calaveras Arts Council.

A summit meeting of those interested in the issue, hosted by the Visitors Bureau, was held at Arnold’s Black Bear Inn Nov. 28. It was meant to hash out differences between the two groups.

“The basic problem,” according to Taborek, “is lodging is paying for these special interest groups, and we don’t want to do that.” Not everyone agrees with his assessment.

“You keep saying you’re paying for it, but it’s a transient occupancy tax. If I go to your hotel, I’m paying it, not you,” Visitors Bureau board member Paul Mundy shot back. “You have a fee and a cost to run your business, but you’re not paying it. We need to get away from that line of thinking.”

The Visitors Bureau and Citizens for a Better Calaveras plan on an even 40 percent split of the proposed 10 percent hotel bed charge, with the county public works and sheriff’s departments halving another share of yearly TOT revenue.

All but two groups represented by the Citizens for a Better Calaveras – Parks and Recreation and the Calaveras County Fair – count as “special interests” for Taborek, who said non-tourism organizations don’t deserve a share of visitor-funded, or lodging-exacted, tax revenue.

Taborek backed that view with petition signatures from more than three quarters of Visitors Bureau-associated lodging members, a document he stopped just short of tacking to the Black Bear Inn’s front door.

“Let’s go back to the drawing board and figure out how we’re going to fund CVB the proper and ethical way,” Taborek said, heatedly.

He supports a tourism marketing district, the Visitors Bureau’s earlier-proposed tourism promotion-only alternative to TOT. A tourism marketing district, or TMD, would levy an assessment on a broad range of tourism-related businesses, which could include tasting rooms and restaurants, for example, along with motels. Also, all of the money from a TMD would go to the Visitors Bureau instead of other agencies.

“When we had our (tourism marketing district) meetings early on, the wineries were involved, Bear Valley was involved, and they’re not even in our county,” Taborek said.

“There’s an attraction to our TMD, but to start that process I think we need to get away from this TOT initiative,” he added.

Taborek’s favored marketing district option was tabled after lodging members, which make up around a quarter of the Visitors Bureau constituency, balked at the idea in a September meeting.

Visitors Bureau Executive Director Lisa Boulton explained that lodging members “didn’t like being the only individuals” assessed under the marketing district option.

She said hotel owners insisted upon bringing other events, like wine tastings, under the umbrella of groups affected by the proposal, and did not miss Wednesday’s opportunity to remind board members of Taborek’s earlier chilliness toward the marketing district effort.

“We sat down with (TOT proponent Steve Wilensky) and negotiated this initiative at the direction of our members,” Boulton explained. “Only after spending several meetings discussing (a tourism marketing district).”

“(TOT) is the best kind of tax because it comes back to support the very industry that collects it,” she continued. “This proposal, as-written, would basically double our funding from the county. In addition, three of those other groups that (the Lodging Association) is lumping together as special interest groups – the fair, the arts council and parks and recreation – also contribute to tourism.”

After two-and-a-half hours and several failed motions, Boulton admits she and Taborek remain far apart over the particulars of how to raise bureau-boosting tourism funds.

She can take some solace in the fact they have long since shared a common enemy: The county Board of Supervisors, which controls Visitors Bureau funding and just three years ago slashed the groups roughly $300,000 marketing budget in a memorable round of budget-cutting.

Securing greater fiscal autonomy through a TOT increase would insulate the bureau from future cuts, an argument that could prove decisive for those lodging members still warming to the idea.

“I don’t mind paying a little extra tax but I don’t want to be the whipping boy for every single group,” said Victoria Inn owner Michael Ninos. “I want to see the (Visitors Bureau) prosper, but at the same time I don’t want to sit here 10 years from now, watching my margins go down and knowing there’s no way to get revenue back from some of these non-tourism groups.”

The question, according to Ninos, is whether fellow TOT-backers at Citizens for a Better Calaveras would continue with the initiative even in the bureau’s absence.

“I believe, one, that they’ll move forward and that this is going to pass,” he said. “And two, that the burden’s going to fall on lodging to the point that you’ll see them harmed.”

CBC president and occupancy tax author Pat McGreevy confirmed Ninos’ suspicions, suggesting his group would likely push ahead with or without bureau support.

“This is pure speculation, but I think we would push on,” McGreevy said. “We don’t think the Visitors Bureau will bring a high number of ‘Yes’ votes (on the initiative) so we have to be pragmatic.

“We know people vote for public safety and we know people want good roads,” he added, referring to the initiative’s support for the county sheriff’s office and public works. “If (TOT) passes, it’d mean enough money for two new deputies and to keep potholes filled.

“So I think that’s the consensus, is that we’re likely to continue either way.”

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