Loveland voters are being asked now for a third time whether a “lodging tax” should be imposed on anyone staying in temporary housing in Loveland. Loveland’s City Council narrowly passed a measure in late August to place the proposed tax on Loveland’s November 3, 2009 municipal ballot. The election will be conducted by mail.
Read the LovelandPolitics.com story from when it was approved by council.
The lodging tax imposes a 3% tax on the cost of any accommodations within Loveland city limits for people renting housing for any period less than 30 days.
The ballot language claims the tax will raise $400,000 annually that will be used by Loveland “FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING FUNDS TO PROMOTE TOURISM, CONVENTIONS AND RELATED ACTIVITIES WITHIN THE CITY BY MARKETING THE CITY.”
We oppose the ballot measure because it is built upon a false premise perpetuated regularly by this city council majority.
The false premise is that every new revenue source is simply “profit” for the city. As proposed, the lodging tax can be used only to promote Loveland through public relations campaigns while the critical government services don’t have enough funds today to expand commensurate with our city’s growing population.
Mayor Gene Pielin said he wants to see a fancy advertising campaign in his favorite travel magazine for Loveland while other advocates on council plan to steer the money into Loveland’s Chamber of Commerce visitor’s center.
Local governments derive their taxing authority from the state’s “police powers” and are required by law to use the power to collect and spend taxes only for the purpose of promoting the health, welfare and safety of the community. The proposed lodging tax doesn’t meet this test and instead uses the city’s taxing authority simply to raise dollars for promoting certain businesses while ignoring the impact on critical city services.
Hotel guests do occasionally require local government services.
La Quinta Inn in Loveland, for example, has taxed the city’s already stressed police response time this summer by generating dozens of weekend emergency calls from nearby residents over late night band music for out-of-town wedding parties. Last weekend, the Embassy Suites Hotel hosted a gun show where Loveland Police were on-duty throughout the show and responded to an accidental gunfire incident which generated charges for reckless endangerment.
As conventions and promotions attrack increasing numbers of visitors to Loveland, our City Council has no plan to recapture or even understand how much money is spent to support the increased number of visitors in town.
As Loveland’s number of temporary residents rises so does the cost of providing all types of government services for them during their stay. Some have health emergencies while visiting Loveland while others can get into auto accidents or accidentally damage utilities while navigating local streets and increasing traffic on local streets.
Hotel guests who shop at Centerra in east Loveland will minimize the more general financial benefit of their stay to the city as much of the sales tax they pay in Centerra goes to McWhinney instead of the City of Loveland. Hotel owners who want better advertising can raise their own rates and use the money accordingly but it is not the proper role of local government to tax hotel guests for that purpose.
We do not oppose the concept of a lodging tax but do oppose one that can’t be used to support the general city services hotel guests are using. The same city council that recently approved of a budget to lay-off police officers and fire fighters now wants to further stress those services by increasing the number of transient people staying in town for business or pleasure.
Increasing the work load of Loveland’s emergency services while at the same time decreasing their funding diminishes the quality of life for everyone in Loveland and demonstrates poor long-term planning.
To propose a new tax that will not save even one police officer’s job or rehire a single firefighter is a smack in the face to the residents of Loveland not to mention first responders. Monies available for the General Fund need to be spent on improving and expanding those services most critical to Loveland residents’ health, welfare and safety.
Loveland residents should vote no for a third time against a lodging tax that at best can only be used to boost the advertising sales of a national magazine, subsidize advertising for the local hospitality industry or create a slush fund to support friends of city council members in Loveland’s Chamber of Commerce.
Well said. A tax is a tax. Increased funding always has the effect of growing the size and power of government over its citizens.
The idea of spending more money to market Loveland without improving what Loveland has to offer visitors, and hiking the cost of it to boot, is just the thinking of simpletons. Loveland can do better. It would be hard to do worse.
I agree 110%
If anyone staying in Loveland expects ambulance, police and fire to be available in an emergency than they ought to help pay the cost of having these folks on stand-by. This is a legitimate use of a lodging tax since you are making them pay a real cost of the city.
You know the hotel owners didn’t want the tax but said if there is one why can’t we get the benefit?
Anyway, keep up the good work. I don’t thing the clowns on city council even know what they are doing. The whole lodging tax proposal is stupid!
I disagree. I will support a lodging tax. The argument ignores the fact that tourists and conventions also bring tax dollars into the general fund from their sales taxes. I do not believe that the effect will be revenue negative. Tourists shop and eat. Your argument is true if and ONLY if none of these people will do anything but sleep in a room.
I called the following comment into The RH Line, and when it was not published I called again and found my telephone number has been blocked from calling The RH Line. Perhaps you will publish it.
RE: The proposed lodging tax. We don’t need it. We need lower taxes. We need real leadership.
Amy,
How often would YOU pay a lodging tax in Loveland? Low tax arguments are great, but I really believe this will have a positive net revenue effect which would in turn allow for lower local taxes. I’d love to see Loveland eliminate sale tax on grocery (food) items. Many states don’t tax basic grocery needs with the exception of prepared foods like deli fried chicken and such. Restaurants bills typically still pay full retail sales tax.
In order for Loveland to eliminate these regressive taxes on groceries, they’d need to have additional revenues. Lodging tax might be a good start. Make Loveland a desirable place to visit and take the visitor’s tax dollars.
I agree with Eric, you are missing the bigger picture. When you bring tourism to Loveland the people who stay in the hotels also eat in our restaurants, fill up their car at our local gas stations, and run to our local Walgreens or Walmart to pick up the random item they forgot to pack. All of this increases the sales tax revenue to Loveland, and therefore helps boost our local police department, and fire fighters. Let’s make sure you really look at the bigger picture here.
As someone said, those visitors spend money on things other than hotel rooms! I found online a study done by the State of Colorado that shows these visitors spend over $3 in the community for every dollar they spend on hotel rooms. If that doesn’t benefit the community and job creation, I don’t know what will. This site seems bent on pointing a finger at the goose that lays the golden egg and scream “look at all that free food the goose is getting!” while ignoring the benefits of the golden eggs. It makes zero sense to oppose a tax that is paid for by non-residents and provides jobs and sales tax revenue from other spending by these visitors. It can’t be that hard to see that…..
I too support the lodging tax.
It isn’t a tax on the citizens of Loveland it is a tax on visitors that bring outside dollars into our community. Those dollars are spent in our restaurants, shopping areas, entertainment, and services like gas stations, etc. that increase sales tax revenue within our community. In effect, they contribute to increased sales tax revenue that would be used for emergency services, and so on.
Local residents do frequent local hotels, so yes Lovelanders will be taxed. Also, nearly every government has issued some type of excessive lodging tax, so when you travel you get hit.
The government and bureaucrats are the only beneficiary.
Since Loveland doesn’t have that extra tax, its hotel occupancy costs are cheaper than local city-competitors. Thus, some of the tax revenues Loveland already receives are probably because people choose to stay where its cheaper. Some of those people may choose otherwise, if there is no cost benefit. That means the lodging tax will have to first backfill the lost revenues it created before generating any new revenues.
Even supporters of the tax admit that revenues from this effort will be small, perhaps only be enough to print glossy trifold brochures and stick them in kiosks filled w/ other, more interesting offerings — “Vist Pikes Peak”, “Mine for Gold”, “Ski Breckenridge”, “Guided Dog Sled Tours”. Go to any motel and you’ll find dozens of them. You probably pass them right by. This “marketing effort” won’t make Loveland stand out, but it will raise the cost of what we offer. It might be different if parents came to visit their kids at the university (Ft. Collins, Boulder, Greeley), but they don’t. It might be different if we were a holiday destination (Estes Park, Vail, Winter Park), but we’re not. We’re a great place to live, work, and raise a family. Any self-respecting conference planner who considers bringing even a medium sized group to Loveland has to weigh the fact that it doesn’t have the night life of Denver, or the scenic beauty of Estes, or the number of restaurants of Ft. Collins. Mainly what we offer is a lower price and reasonable proximity to other places. We do have the sculpture show, but that’s the exception. Most events at the Bud Events Center won’t bring people who stay the night. (Would you drive for hours & rent a room for the night to see REO Speedwagon?)
Think about it before you vote in a tax that could drive away nearly as much business as it attracts. Instead of attracting strangers who disgorge oodles of dough, the primary payors may be your children’s grandfather, when he comes once or twice a year to see the kids.
The anticipated proceeds from this tax will pay for much more than just rack cards and saying otherwise is disengenuous. The Ft. Collins Convention and Visitor’s Bureau has a similarly sized budget and is responsible for bringing many major events to Ft. Collins, events unrelated to the University. A study conducted by the Ft. Collins CVB in 2005 showed that 16.6% of the sales tax collected by the city came FROM VISITORS! If we want to increase SALES TAX revenues, employment, etc., then we need to increase visitors. Rack cards? No, a professional staff trained and experienced in bringing visitors to our city is what we need. Besides, why isn’t grandpa staying with you?
Have you ever called up a hotel you were thinking of booking and asked if they have a lodging tax? Probably not.
And if you did, did you then decide to cancel your vacation plans because that hotel/community had a lodging tax? I highly doubt that as well.
I’m also guessing that grandpa isn’t going to choose to stay in another city/town because we do have a lodging tax. He’ll want to be as close as he can to his grandchildren-maybe even prefer to stay with you.
To add to Larry’s comments – Fort Collins and Estes Park are the 3rd and 4th most visited Cities in the Colorado, respectively; behind Denver and Colorado Springs. Not because they don’t have a lodging tax, but because they do have one and use the funds to attract conventions, events and visitors to the community. The lodging tax proceeds will be used to market Loveland to attract conventions and visitors to our community.