$96,000 in Hotel/Motel Taxes

When I first heard a few years ago that the City intended to go for a hotel/motel tax, I had my reservations about how any collected monies would be used.

So I started looking around for the "hotels." Finding none, I began counting the motels. That didn't take long. Their owners were concerned about competition and whether the additional expense imposed on their customers would reduce their business. If you are like me, you wonder how many tourists come to Woodstock and stay at the Days Inn, the Holiday Inn Express or Super 8. My guess is that most of their customers are commercial customers - business people or employees of companies doing utility work in the area. It's only a guess on my part.

The two bed-and-breakfast inns in town were able to fend off the City and get an appropriate exclusion. Any taxes from them would be miniscule, compared to the other "hotels and motels."

At any rate, motel guests coughed up over $96,000 for Woodstock's coffers (no pun intended) in the last year.

As I recall, the hotel/motel tax revenues are to be used to promote Woodstock - as a whole. Let's see who got the money. According to this week's Woodstock Independent,

$30,000 Woodstock Opera House
$15,000 Woodstock Downtown Business Assn.
$12,000 Woodstock Chamber of Commerce
$12,000 McHenry County Visitors and Convention Bureau
$ 6,000 Challenger Learning Center for Science & Technology
$ 5,000 Cultural Diversity Commission (what's this? Commission appointed by whom?
$ 5,000 Farmers' Market (5 G's, so the fixed business' customers have no parking 2X/week?)
$ 5,000 Groundhog Days Committee (for a one-week-end activity?)
$ 3,000 McHenry County Heatwave (has anyone heard of this?)
$ 500 Woodstock Folk Festival

What's wrong with this picture? Which one of those businesses promotes Woodstock, as a whole. Which one is really trying to attract business to Woodstock; i.e., customers to come to Woodstock and shop; you know, spend money!

Maybe there is a clue in my use of the singular verb "is". The answer will be singular. Which one (not ones)?

My answer is the Woodstock Downtown Business Association. This forward-looking group is working hard to create something new, alive about Woodstock.

The Opera House? Last time I checked, this is run by the City, so it looks to me like the City is collecting the money (tax) and distributing it to a City operation/department. Take a look at the ticket prices next time you are thinking about attending some event there. They have Chicago and Sears Centre pricing on tickets - effectively, in my opinion, eliminating a large portion of Woodstock's population from family attendance.

What would be the benefit to the entire Woodstock community if this $96,000 had been spent promoting "Woodstock"? When it is doled out piece-meal to many organizations, isn't the effectiveness of the money diluted? Sure, those organizations can use it to meet their own payroll, but what does that do for the City?

The downtown area around the Square needs a huge make-over. What makes customers come back time after time? In each block are a few nice stores. And then there are the others. Woodstock needs a long-range plan to revitalize downtown - to make it exciting, vibrant, "electric", attractive.

And it needs to control the loiterers in the Square and on the sidewalks around the Square. The level of pride of our young people in Woodstock is evident - barely. When groups of kids congregate and block the sidewalks, the cops and the merchants need to move them along. We want visitors (and residents) to have a "Wow" experience - and not "Wow! I'm never going there again!"