The debate wages on regarding Lodging Tax allocation

    After taking a brief hiatus for the holidays, the council rejoined for their first study session of 2019 with a packed to do list to discuss in preparation for the upcoming year. The to do list triggered debate over how to keep the city churning successfully and where to apply tweaks.
    The Chamber of Commerce was present to update the council and announced the new president for the Chamber, Bill Forhan. Nancy Smith reminded the council about the upcoming Ice Fest, the celebration of outdoor winter sports, to look forward to. Sunday, January 20 there will be the fire show and firework show - Mayor Farivar clarified that the fireworks that the Chamber will be putting on should be over by 7 p.m. at the latest, so any fireworks exploding after will not be the Chamber or the City doing so.
    Justin Erickson, representing Chelan County PUD, followed up the Chamber's report with a presentation over the PUD's Strategic Planning Efforts, or in other words possible upcoming plans for the year. Condensing the powerpoint down to what's possibly in store for the future for Leavenworth residents, one important possibility that arose was Erickson addressing the rate structure.
    "First strategic key question is related to our rate structure. I mentioned earlier that we've had very modest rate increase. There's a risk in going multiple years with no increases because then you may these instances with a major increase five or ten years down the road," said Erickson.
    Rates have only increased 9% since 2000 whereas inflation has been close to 40%. Erickson explained slowly easing the rate instead of the rate suddenly drastically spiking is the more favorable option. He also made sure to emphasize that it's crucial to pay attention and lessen the impact on citizens.
    "We determined that it is kinder to our users to have an incremental expected increase, 2%, 3%, 5%, whatever the number is so they know what it will be this year and next year and on to the future," said Mayor Farivar. "So I applaud you for thinking of incremental rate prices, that's appropriate I think."
    Some other future possibilities to gloss over are items such as taking early action on the relicensing Rock Island Dam which expires in 2028 to how to fund improvements to make the aesthetic pleasing. The plan will be finalized in the summer of 2019 and Erickson encouraged involvement from both the council and community throughout the process.
    "We'll be doing household mailers (for surveys) so everyone can weigh in," said Erickson.
    The next topic that has become a fixture for City Council to discuss - the Lodging Tax, how its allocated and the little fine print that makes up where the funds trickle into.
    "This topic ripples throughout our businesses in so many different ways, like at the city level, at the residential level, at the chamber business level," said council member Jason Lundgren. "It seems we need to have a finer point on what we're talking about here."
    At the study session, members of the Chamber of Commerce and the LAP committee made a full house as council members, once again, volleyed back and forth options for allocating the funds.
    "To break it in two pieces, although both pieces are combined, there's the overall that the council has talked about establishing some type of change in policy or establishing a policy on how lodging tax funds are allocated going forward," said City Administrator Joel Walinski. "There is also some pending action regarding LAP and allocation this year and that one's kind of left up in the air at this time."
    The LAP committee proposed to the council to add an additional $64,000 to the budget which rounds the full request to a total of $709,400. The council members then eyed the budget of both LAP and the Chamber and discussion swirled around how individual dollars are spent, however both Walinski and Mayor Farivar made it clear that was not the council's delegated responsibility. The city's role with the lodging tax is to be oversight and provide the funding, not direct it.
    Stemming from this debate was a common theme, regardless that some council members opinions didn't all align, they all pushed for there to be some collaboration between all the entities involved. The mayor stated that she will plan to set a future meeting for entities to collaborate and connect.

Some other items mulled over at the study session:
- Study sessions may make the jump to a later start time at 8:30. This has yet to be finalized, but is in the works for the January 22 City Council agenda.
- The annexation of 1140 Commercial Street, which was approved in August, was discussed.  The annexation was to make the property a part of the city and not the county.
- City council members will be getting training over social media in February. In 2019, technology plays an intricate role in a majority of people's life so the City's attorney firm will be giving a course over how issues that can stem from social media.
- Another future date to mark on the calendar is January 22 when the City Council will join the Planning Commission to discuss and prioritize what's important for the 2019 docket.  The council members were instructed to rate the items that they find should be prioritized with a scale of 1-5.