It's interesting that so few of us are actually thinking about tourism in a community where our lakeshore is for the most part undeveloped, can't say I can think of a single resort on the water can you? But the argument Du Jour is tourism politics. (Times version)
What to do with roughly $1 million dollars that is raised by taxing hotels using a county "bed tax"? These hotels are mainly in Portage, Chesterton and Valparaiso. But the county enabled the tax and collects the funds and then an appointed board uses about $800,000 for overhead and gives the rest back to the county to support some local venues. Confused yet?
County Commissioner Bob Harper suggested that the governing board should be appointed mostly by the commissioners themselves, taking appointments away from Valparaiso and Chesterton (but leaving one with Portage for some reason) and letting the budget authorized Council appoint one. Although originally on the agenda for last nite's meeting, it was removed by Mr Harper at least temporarily. I would expect the issue to come back up soon.
Remember that the original political news from this same board was last year when some board members suggested that we might be better off spending less of the $1 million on overhead and staff and more on actually bringing in more hotel users ... and maybe that could be better accomplished in partnership with the Lake County tourism board. I'll let you the reader weigh in first with thoughts, but did find this comment on another site an interesting twist:
The revenue comes from the hotel tax (also known as the bed tax). The towns with the hotels bear the expenses for police, fire, inspections, code enforcement, everything! So why shouldn't they realize a bigger cut of the action? More importantly, it was their community that made the decision to permit the hotel to build in their town in the first place, NOT THE COUNTY!
What's astonishing is that while the hotel operators are forced to collect this tax, they're not paid ONE CENT for their effort. Imagine being forced to do the government's dirty work free of charge. How'd I find out? I asked the manager of a local hotel when I picked up a business associate staying at a local hotel.
The citizens of Porter County don't pay this tax, the businesspeople who stay in the hotels do. That's right, the businesspeople. The convention bureau has admitted that those visiting the dunes and the area festivals bring in very little of the revenue from the bed tax.
Given the visitor's bureau has been ineffective in increasing overnight stays and this has become nothing more than a "county slush fund" I say we abolish the tax entirely. That's right, GET RID OF IT! Which would give our hotels a competitive advantage over Lake County hotels drawing in more businesspeople who will spend more money in Porter County and help our local businesses.
Now there's a fair, sensible, and reasonable solution. Doesn't help Harper's re-election prospects, but it gets the job done.
