The Haines Borough Assembly on Tuesday showed support for placing the borough’s 1 percent municipal sales tax dedicated for tourism promotion and economic development back on the ballot, possibly as early as the October municipal election.
Mayor Jan Hill put the tax on the agenda as a discussion item following a request from resident Sally McGuire, who has considered a citizens’ ballot initiative to abolish the tax.
“I think we do need to keep (the tax), but I don’t think it should be dedicated,” said assemblyman Steve Vick. “They should be a department just like the rest and they should be budgeted just like the rest.”
The tax has been collected since the 1980s to support tourism promotion, and later was extended to cover economic development efforts. The tax generated $460,457 in fiscal year 2010, with $81,849 of that money going toward economic development.
McGuire said she was “just fine” with the idea of still collecting the tax, but not dedicating it just for tourism and economic development.
“It’s a half-million bucks, and if you guys want to repeal the dedication, that’s a half-million bucks going into the general fund for you to play with,” she said.
Assembly members Joanne Waterman and Scott Rossman also expressed interest in a public vote on the tax, with Waterman saying she “wouldn’t mind having staff investigate language to put that on the ballot” to no longer dedicate the tax revenues.
Rossman said he was against changing the tax, but has “never been opposed to putting anything before the voters.”
Borough clerk Julie Cozzi said if the assembly introduced the ordinance by Tuesday, July 26, a vote on the tax could be included with the October regular election, without any special meetings needed to speed up the process.
Hill said the tax again would be on the agenda as a discussion item at the next assembly meeting on Tuesday, July 12.
Both Rossman and assemblyman Jerry Lapp referred to the borough’s one-half percent sales tax dedicated to medical services to question resident Deborah Vogt’s argument that “there is nothing that invites waste better than a dedicated tax.”
“Suppose I gave you $100 to spend on clothes and you couldn’t spend it on anything else,” Vogt said. “Would you spend it on clothes? Yeah, even if you didn’t need it.”
Assemblyman Daymond Hoffman was absent from the meeting.
Duck and Karen Hess, Bart Henderson and Gregg Johnson spoke in favor of the current tax during public comments on Tuesday. Johnson noted the Tourism Advisory Board unanimously backed the tax.
“Everyone who lives in this community benefits from tourism,” Karen Hess said. “Without tourism, there would be fewer services for locals to use.”
She said the tourism department goes beyond recruiting cruise ship passengers and is working to attract more independent travelers, a market that “takes a great deal more advertising dollars, and sometimes to capture that market you must go to them.”
Tanya Carlson, tourism director, said increased marketing for winter tourism is another department goal.
Vick said he wanted to make clear he believes tourism is “a lifeblood for this town,” and said opposition to the current tax arrangement is not opposition to the industry.
“There’s no one sitting on this assembly who’s against tourism,” he said.