Story on pathway project contained inaccuracies

I was disappointed to read an inaccurate account of what happened at last week’s Electric City Council meeting in Roger Lucas’ “Electric City pathway proposed” article in the February 11th Star Newspaper.

For clarification, the proposed pathway that Mr. Parrish was quoted as presenting at the city council meeting was barely mentioned. Mr. Parrish brought it up, gave a few general comments about the project, stated that there needs to be a committee formed to work on the idea and also mentioned that he had a meeting scheduled with the Bureau of Reclamation to discuss a pathway idea. At no time during the city council meeting were the Chamber representatives in attendance asked their opinion about the project. Mr. Lucas wrote “Chamber officials were at the meeting Tuesday night and indicated that they were opposed to the Parrish project.” We (the Chamber representatives) were not asked for our opinion, and did not vocalize in any way our support or opposition to the topic.

Our concern regarding the Lodging Tax money currently being collected and distributed by the Electric City Council has always been that we would like to see it properly used. That means dispersing it for tourism marketing, the marketing and operations of special events and festivals, or the operations and capital expenditures of tourism-related facilities. We believe that we have demonstrated that when monies are used for tourism marketing we can increase revenue to our community via tourism. We also believe that there is good value in using the monies for a capital project that would bring tourists to town. A pathway might be just such a project, but any capital project that lodging tax money is used for must meet the “will it bring more tourism to our town” criteria. To save the money with no real idea of what it is being saved for, versus using it to create more heads in beds (and subsequently even more lodging tax dollars), should be everyone’s goal.

As a side note, the amount of money that Mr. Lucas quoted that the council has given to the Chamber in 2015 is inaccurate as well. In 2014, Electric City dispersed $32,100 to the Chamber. Mr. Lucas stated that in 2015, Electric City would disperse $13,500. To date, Electric City has committed to dispersing $24,479.58 (or approximately 35% of the total lodging tax money collected yearly by Electric City). This is a decrease of 31% from 2014. At the end of Tuesday’s city council discussion on the topic, the council members vote 4 to 1 in favor of leaving all lodging tax monies on the table for future requests.

Sincerely,

Peggy Nevsimal

Executive Director, GCDA Chamber of Commerce