Columbia Hospitality Association claims city is improperly funding hotel tax committee

With little more than a month before voters head to the polls on Proposition One, a proposal to temporarily increase the lodging tax 1 percent temporarily, the Columbia Hospitality Association is accusing the city of Columbia of improperly using $100,000 in taxpayer money.

The CHA said in a news release Tuesday morning that “the city has designated $136,118 in lodging tax funds already collected to put the initiative on the ballot – a use that has nothing to do with the promotion of tourism.”

“I sit on the advisory board for the Convention and Visitors Bureau and it was mentioned at our last board meeting that the money for the ballot initiative would be coming out of the CVB funds,” said Teri Weis, the sales director for the Holiday Inn Executive Center. “[But] they’re not tourism expenditures.”

The lodging tax increase would boost the current tax from 4 percent to 5 percent.

The Foundation for Columbia’s Future political action committee has been designated to promote Proposition One to voters this summer.

Co-chair Jackie Jones said she didn’t know for sure where the money went but confirmed Tuesday it was not used for promotion of the tax.

“Obviously there’s different ways to show support in terms of helping with the campaign and spreading the word, yard signs and various things that go along with that,” she said. “It’s been wonderful in terms of the people willing to step up and use their contacts to help support it.”

According to its quarterly report for the Missouri Ethics Commission, the Foundation for Columbia’s Future has already received thousands of dollars in campaign donations.

Veterans United Home Loans has donated $10,000 and Emery Sapp & Sons Inc. donated about $5,000.

Other donations in support have come from banks and businesses including Landmark Bank, Columbia Insurance Group, MBS Textbook Exchange, Central Missouri Aviation Inc., and Broadway Lodging.

Individuals who have donated include former Columbia Mayor Bob McDavid and former University of Missouri athletic director Mike Alden, both of whom are members of the committee.

The committee has spent $3,500 on polling with the Remington Research groups and almost $7,000 in advertisements with Cumulus Media and Zimmer Radio.

City leaders have told ABC17 News that only 1 percent of the tax will be used to fund a new terminal at Columbia Regional Airport. The rest will continue to be used to fund the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“Everybody wants something but nobody wants to pay for it, unfortunately,” said Jones. “It seems to me and to our group that this was a reasonable approach to doing it in terms of visitors to the city, many of whom benefit from the airport directly or indirectly.”

CHA has countered that the city added the words “economic development” to an original ordinance that laid out what the lodging tax would fund. Until 2012, the ordinance mentioned only tourism and conventions.

“It’s immoral at the very least. If it was good for tourism and economic growth for hotels, we would be the champions of it,” said Ed Baker, executive vice president for holiday inn executive center. “But we’ve already been lied to once when they changed the ordinance. We’re the professionals in the industry and we’re not backing it.”

ABC17 News talked with Mayor Brian Treece Tuesday morning. He had not heard about CHA’s accusations at the time. We’ll continue to follow up to find out why money from the Convention and Visitors Bureau was used.

Voters head to the polls Aug. 2.