03/24/1975 Meeting - Laserfiche WebLink

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e D. Amendment, Room Tax Ordinance - Copies of proposed amendment were previously distributed to Council members. It would put the room tax ordinance into code form. Also, it eliminates the room tax review committee, established originally to work with the city administration in development of goals and procedures to assure that the collection process of the hotel/motel room tax would be compatible with the processes of the hotel/motel operators and to allow a method of give and take between the operators and the admini.stration if disagreements arose'.' about what was a reasonable process. Manager explained that the committee had met once or twice after the orig.inal ordinance was written but had been inactive since because of the city's good relationship with the operators themselves. The amendment retains an appeal process from administrative procedures if needed. Comm 3/19/75 Approve It was understood the amendment would be on the March 24, 1975 Council agenda for adoption. E.Room Tax.Allocation Recommendations - February 17, 1975 - Copies of minutes of the Room Tax Allocation Committee meeting together with report from the chair- man were previously distributed to Council members recommending allocations to: Altrusa Club for venetian blinds for international students lounge on campus - $600 Lane County Horsemen's Association - $500 Central Lane Family YMCA for roof replacement - $17,740 Councilman Murray expressed reservations about the YMCA allocation because he considered the Y, having international affiliation, would have resources the "go beyond Eugene." Also, he felt routine maintenance and repair didn't really fall within the scope of the room tax fund. Carl DuBois, Y director, said the Y was autonomous locally and did not have any outside financing. He said a fee was charged to members, however, the majority of the service provided by the Y was to the general public and for that reason he felt it would fall within the guidelines for room tax allocations. e e Councilman Haws asked how it would meet the criteria for not teaching or expound- ing any religious ideology. Councilman Williams answered that he had served for many years on the Y board of directors, and while it had the name "Christian" and attempted to be a Christian organization, there was no religious teaching in the sense of a church in its programs. He said when the Y was built it was the only community facility available, land for the building t.,as provided by the school district. He felt the city was not involved in similar kinds of services in many different areas. Although the Y charged fees, he said, they were a small part of the total budget for providing their services, and no one was denied the opportunity of participating. Mr. Murray moved seconded by Mr. Williams to approve the allocations as recommended. In making the motion, Councilman Murray expressed the reservation about getting into the position of making major allocations from room tax revenues for capital projects. Mayor Anderson agreed and thought the Room Tax Allocation Committee should keep in mind the source of monies involved and that consideration should be given recreational and cultural type activities that would generate more revenues for the establishments collecting the room tax. Art Fairchild, chairman of the committee, said they were well aware of this. He added that the roof for the Y was an emergency situation, it had to be replaced or the Y would have lost everything it had. Manager said too that capital projects in the past had not been considered inappropriate, calling attention to the construction of an auditorium as the major reason for initiating the tax, and past allocations for track improvements, etc. He said staff's major concern with this particular allocation was whether it met the criteria that the funds should not be used for debt retirement. That was the reason it was sent back to the committee when it was originally recommended, but the committee said they felt it should not be considered debt retirement. \"!.; 3/24/75 - 7