We have seen all the protests from the MTCVB and their hotel friends. They have been at the Tucson City council meeting. They are crying at Oro Valley Town meetings. They have found gullible allies like the Northern Pima County Chamber of Commerce and the their “political expert” Lyra Done(arrgh!), who are setting up a royal dog and pony show for their membership on Thursday. Other Allies include TREO(impressive), Downtown Partnership(even better) and the Southern Arizona Lodging and Resort Association(SALARA, I know another acronyn to keep track of, yeesh!).
One thing that only a few of these folks know and that hasn’t been reported is that the MTCVB negotiated an increase in the city bed tax, without talking to the Tucson hotels! Seeing that is budget was going to get a big cut from Tucson(last year over $4 million), CVB CEO Jonathon Walker met with Mr. Letcher and they came up with an extra $1 per night per room. It sounds like a minute amount, but when meeting planners are bringing thousands of room nights for a conference, the dollars add up. Mr Walker (and his staff of almost 60 employees!) have basically put the city hotels at distinct disadvantage to their competitors outside of the City. He has especially screwed the recently opened Marriott at Starr Pass, which has the most rooms and survives on group business. If a meeting planner with a 2000 room nights comes to town, it will cost them $2000.00 more to do it at Starr Pass than at Ventana or La Paloma. Thanks, Starr Pass for your investment in Tucson, now we will make the now-tough hotel business even tougher for you and your hundreds of employees.
It’s another example of MTCVB watching out for themselves and not their members. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone.
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Sounds familiar. I lease office space downtown, and pay BID taxes through my monthly rent to my landlord. This year our BID taxes went up, and we learned that the city had conspired with the Tucson Downtown Partnership to renew the BID for another five years, without telling us. There was no public notice like there is supposed to be with improvement districts. At the same time, they raised our rates, and exempted the city from the same increase on their BID properties.
It’s not that much of an increase for me, since I have a small office, but it’s the principle that bothers me. They are supposed to be a business organization, and they worked with the city to hose us. I’m sure the bills for the larger tenants went up significantly.
Here we have two membership-type organizations that have both gotten into bed with the city, and screwed over the private-sector businesses that pay their bills and expect representation.
MTCVB and TDP both sold out their own members.
It’s time for an insurrection.
Imagine my surprise.
Past pathetic.
The MTCVB’s $900k increase is a pass through to the Pima Interfaith Council and Tucson Pima Arts Council. I smell a pay off.
While I agree with premise of the post, the accusation that the BID was adopted without public notice is not true. The notice can be found here: http://www.tucsonaz.gov/agdocs/20080617/june17-08-317.pdf.
All government property is exempted from the BID tax because government property is not subject to property tax. The City pays an in lieu fee of almost $370,000 to compensate. The County and the State pay nothing.
I followed the above link to the document. My only concern is that it was a consent agenda item. This is actually a pretty big chunk of dough to relegate to the consent. James L., do you know if any of the council pulled it off for discussion? If not, then only sickos like myself who actually scan consent agendas would know. The typical small business person did get screwed if was merely a consent agenda rubberstamp with no chance for input or dissent.
Yes, it was a consent item and I don’t think it was pulled.
James L., I have to respectfully disagree with you here. When we are talking about imposing a five-year tax, putting something on a city council agenda a few days before the meeting is not nearly sufficient, and it’s even less sufficient when it gets hidden on the Consent Agenda as clothcutter pointed out.
I talked to my landlord about this, and he remembers that the last time they renewed the BID term, five years prior, there was a letter that came in the mail, several months in advance, offering him a chance to file a written protest. He supported the BID then, and still does to a lesser extent, but he felt that the proper notice to the landowners should have been given.
It smells bad. The few days between the agenda-posting and the meeting isn’t much time, even if you happened to see the agenda, and it’s definitely not enough time for the business owners to get organized to protest it if they wanted.
Also, the city doesn’t pay as much as it used to, although it’s not because they’ve sold any real estate to private investors. I think the city is violating its contract with the BID. They cut it along with the other outside agency funding last year. In this year’s proposed budget, also on-line on the city’s website, the “in lieu fee” that you mentioned is down to $265,000. The city can choose to pay less for the BID when times are bad, but they don’t let the private sector pay less. Our assessments, plus what the city pays are supposed to be sufficient to pay for the BID services, which don’t seem to be what they used to be.
Office Hulk. I don’t disagree that downtown property owners weren’t notified or that it sucks that they weren’t. I just disagree with your statement “There was no public notice like there is supposed to be with improvement districts.” There was public notice and it wasn’t hidden. Items on the Consent Agenda are still listed on the agenda they’re just voted on all at once. I believe that it is the right thing to do to notify the taxpayers in a BID of such things but its not required by the Open Meeting Law. My point is that there is plenty of things to complain about in this town that we don’t need to make stuff up. You’re correct that the City can give as much as it wants to to the BID and its being cut. I’ll leave it to those folks like yourself who are affected by it to tell us how it affects downtown property owners.