MSCVB board takes stock after bed tax setback

PALMER — The Mat-Su Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors took a little time to reflect and regroup Tuesday in the wake of a recent vote that will keep a proposed increase to the borough bed tax off the October ballot.

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly on Aug. 2 voted 4-3 not to approve an Oct. 4 ballot question on a proposed 3-percent hike in the bed tax. The borough currently has a 5 percent bed tax, largely levied on visitors who book rooms. The 3 percent increase would have gone toward funding tourism infrastructure in the borough, according to the CVB.

Part of that increased funding could go toward the final phases of an estimated $5.8 million Mat-Su Valley Gateway Visitors Center.

The new center would be built on borough-acquired land that was once the Homestead RV Park, near the Parks-Glenn highway interchange. The borough bought the parcel for $1 million from the Matanuska Electric Association, and has already spent $3.6 million of mainly state funds on a new facility, according to 2015 CVB figures.

The bed tax hike has been a hotly debated issue among the board as well as many CVB members, many from the Talkeetna area, who feel bed tax money spent on a visitors center in the Palmer-Wasilla area wouldn’t benefit the Upper Susitna Valley. The Mount McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge in Talkeetna generates more bed tax revenue than any in the borough.

The board voted 6-4 in May to send the request to the assembly.

At the Aug. 2 hearing, assembly members Barbara Doty, Steve Colligan, Randall Kowalke and George McKee voted against the measure, while Jim Sykes, Matthew Beck and Dan Mayfield voted in support.

Many who spoke against the proposal at the Aug. 2 hearing were from the Upper Susitna area, including the general managers of the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, the McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge and the Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce.

“I think a stumbling block … for some who were opposed involved a misconception in our shift in direction in advocating for this bed tax from completion of the Gateway Visitors Center was not a posturing of smoke and mirrors or we didn’t have a plan,” board president Cheryl Metiva said at the Tuesday meeting. “We are trying to be responsible in our advocacy of growing tourism in the Mat-Su … and being that support system for the borough.”

Colligan said Tuesday his no vote reflected a sense that those involved needed to work out a common goal for what the additional funding would serve.

“I saw quite a bit of saber rattling,” Colligan said of testimony at the public hearing on the tax. “They need to come together with a common plan. There has been too much disagreement in public and I would rather see a more unified position.”

Sykes said the proposal at least needed a public vote, adding that the current bed tax is significantly below Anchorage’s 12 percent.

“I felt it was extremely shortsighted not to let it go to the ballot,” Sykes said Tuesday. “We have to find a way to sort through things that have come about with the governor’s vetoes on the table, and it is unfortunate to see (the bed tax) as not being part of the discussion.”

The 3 percent increase would bring in an additional $660,000 annually, according to the CVB. The most recent reported numbers show the borough took in $1,117,249 in bed tax revenue for fiscal year 2015.

At a regularly-scheduled meeting Tuesday morning in Palmer, many board members said the timing of Gov. Bill Walker’s budget vetoes in July could have had an overall chilling effect on the proposal going into the hearing.

“We were told we didn’t have a plan, which I think we do, but who really has a plan these days with the governor’s vetoes,” said board member Craig Saunders of Iditarod Trailside Lodging. “Any kind of organization that receives any kind of funding from the state are all scrambling. Everyone is in emergency mode.”

Mat-Su CVB executive director Bonnie Quill said the state’s tourism program had $3 million cut from an original $4.5 million in Walker’s budget.

Quill said the CVB was moving ahead with the application process for the bureau to create a 501(c)3 nonprofit arm, which could offer another avenue for fundraising opportunities.

Quill said she plans address the borough assembly tonight with an agency report in an attempt to clarify some of the topics that came out of the Aug. 2 meeting. She said she hoped to address three points in her report that arose Aug. 2: the divisiveness of the issue, having a plan for the funding and finding a consensus.

“We’ve always known that the bed tax will be a divisive issue,” Quill said, “it is a process. And there is a plan (for the increased bed tax) and that is to increase the marketing and tourism infrastructure in the borough.”

She added that with regard to finding a consensus, the CVB is planning a “destination next” workshop as part of the group’s annual meeting in November.

“This will give all the groups involved a chance to put forward their ideas of where we go next with tourism progress,” she said.

Contact reporter Steven Merritt at 352-2269 or steven.merritt@frontiersman.com