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In an expected Special Meeting called by the mayor, the Twentynine Palms City Council reversed its recent defunding of the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) and Reporter Heather Clisby was there …
Just one week after the Twentynine Palms City Council narrowly voted to defund and essentially kill the Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID), the council reversed course in last nights’ Special Meeting called by Mayor McArthur Wright.
At the September 12 meeting, the council voted against continuing a 1.5% assessment on all lodging which funds the TBID budget. After much backlash and reconsideration by the mayor, the Special Meeting to revisit the vote was announced Friday evening.
Numerous residents, innkeepers, and business owners addressed the council through letters and emails (read aloud by the mayor) and in person, primarily in support of keeping TBID, albeit, with adjustments, such a restructure of the TBID board and a budgetary review.
Mike Usher, owner of local eatery, Grnd Sqrl, urged the council not to abolish the TBID but to revise it. “Let’s work together to find a way to responsibly use all the TBID and Visit29 infrastructure that already exists, while establishing a new system that focuses on this new era of tourism in Twentynine Palms while producing the type of deliverables that many of the displeased contributors feel have been lacking. Finding a way to rework this system, one that derives an overwhelming majority of its funds from visitors that will be using our resources and services whether the tax exists or not, is critical to making Twentynine Palms the tourist destination in the Morongo Basin for the next 10 years and beyond.”
Ash Maharaj, owner of the Harmony Motel, recalled a pre-TBID era, and not fondly. “Having been here almost 20 years, this is the first organization that has provided a revenue in the form of an assessment fee that assists the city in their TOT growth and the greater lodging industry. Prior to the TBID, a group of innkeepers, including myself, approached then-City Manager Michael Tree in 2011 for a tourism budget. He allocated to us a budget of about $20K from the city’s general funds and agreed to pay a city marketing specialist. This restricted and minimum budget of about $150K for seven years brought us no revenue and gave us minimal marketing programs for that amount of money that was spent. Today, with the TBID, within five years, we have a surplus of $500K; in the five years we had an operating budget between $120K to $285K. Never had a deficiency. Increased the TOTs by 60 percent, hence, strengthening its contribution to the general fund.”
Resident Mike Cogdon, retired from government work, openly marveled at how it had come to this. “This is the first organization I’ve heard of to abolish a free income source. To complain that it’s a cost or a burden, it’s an absurd complaint. It’s somebody else’s money that we are able to use to support ourselves.”
After over an hour of public statements and feedback, the issue came back to council with Mayor Wright offering a mea culpa. “America is a democracy, plain and simple. I felt like I forgot that at the last meeting, and now I remember it,” said Wright. “With that, I want to make a motion that we approve this resolution.”
The resolution was approved 5-0 confirming the 1.5 percent levy of assessments to fund the TBID. City Manager Frank Luckino alluded to a strategic planning session, possibly in late October, that would allow for a more critical review of TBID.
