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County dislikes fine print in hotel-tax bills
By Trista Talton, Staff Writer Minor, technical changes the New Hanover County Commissioners want made to two hotel-tax bills shouldn't be a problem, said Rep. Thomas Wright, D-New Hanover. He and Rep. Danny McComas, R-New Hanover, who introduced the bills passed by legislators earlier this year, met briefly with County Commissioners on Thursday afternoon. "It raises some concern now that, at this time period, the commissioners are raising concerns," Mr. Wright said. "We spent countless hours working on this." The hotel-tax bills specify that a tourism authority be established in order for the city and beach towns to levy an additional 3 percent hotel room tax. The |city's share will go toward a convention center; the beach towns will use their money for tourism-related expenses. Rep. Wright's bill authorizes the city to raise the tax. The funds will be collected by the county, passed to the authority and held in a special account. The city must develop construction and financing plans within three years of increasing the tax. Rep. McComas' bill takes care of the beach towns. Half of the proceeds will be used for promotion and travel and tourism, and half for other tourism-related spending. The new tax is added to a 3 percent room tax already charged. Sixty percent of the revenues from that tax will continue to go toward beach renourishment and the remaining 40 percent to tourism promotion. One change the County Commissioners requested would affect the potential makeup of the 18-member authority. The bills specify that members will include the chairman of the County Commissioners and the mayors of Wilmington and the beach towns. The County Commissioners asked that the bills allow the chairman and mayors to appoint fellow commissioners or councilmen to take their places. Commissioner Bill Caster also plans to write a letter asking that the part of the tax that covers beach renourishment be used to replenish sand after a storm or other phenomenon. The bills now state that renourishment would only take place after a storm. Rep. McComas said he would have to look into requesting such a change. "This is standard boilerplate language that
is being used here," he said. |
