Park City tourism commission faces dissolution, finance confusion abounds

By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1

The Park City Tourism commission members discussed their possible dissolution and the confusion wrought by that decision.

The Park City Commission voted to dissolve the tourism commission during a special-called meeting on May 13 in a 4-1 vote, though Angela Briggs, Park City ABC administrator, informed the tourism commissioners that as of yet no official action has been taken.

Park City Mayor Larry Poteet said it would take at least three months for the dissolution to be finalized as several city ordinances would have to be done away with or amended — for example, according to the Tourism Director Linda Watts, the city would need to “do away with” and possibly redo transient room and restaurant taxes.

“So they’re going to have to, in order to dissolve us, do away with all those taxes, and if they wish to join another then they’ll have to redo those,” Watts said.

The Kentucky League of Cities does confirm a majority of tourism funds come from room, which has some flexibility, and restaurant taxes, which “must be turned over” to the tourism commission.

Watts, stating she was quoting Poteet directly, said the responsibility of tourism would either go to Jenniffer McNett in Cave City or MacLean Lessenberry in Glasgow, though no official word has been said regarding this.

This move to dissolve caused confusion among the commissioners especially in regards to their 2024-25 budget, which Eric Helton, chairman of the commission, said would be done by the end of June.

“Which is it? Are you dissolving the commission or do you need our 24-25 budget?” Helton said. “Those two things just don’t line up.”

“They want the budget for next year but then they voted to dissolve us so why do they need the budget,” Watts said. “I’m very confused. I don’t understand why [the city commission] is doing this, but it’s a done deal so we need to figure out how we can take care of our contractual obligations.”

Commissioner Joe Bailey said in response, and in response to the “contractual obligations” brought up by Watts, that they should proceed as usual until informed otherwise.

“The city’s going to do what they’re going to do, so we don’t need to worry about that,” Bailey said. “We need to move forward until we are notified and move business ahead just like we’re supposed to.”

The other subject discussed during the special-called meeting was the confusion regarding the “request for funding” that needed to go before the city commission. KLC states “every [tourism commission] must submit a request for operating funds to the local governing body or bodies that established it.”

Helton informed the tourism commission of a letter he had received from the city commission on May 9 asking for “a formal request for funding” for May and June with an outline of how the funds will be used.

Watts and Helton said they believed that the specific Kentucky Revised Statute was satisfied by their commission’s budget submissions.

“One, we’ve always submitted our budget so there’s that,” Helton said. “Two, as far as the city’s request for us to submit a budget, I mean we already have a timeline on our budget, we were going to work on our budget in June and it has to be turned in by July and we’re happy to do that, but the city’s not going to have it before their June meeting…it just isn’t going to happen.”

In response to the city’s letter Watts showed the commissioners a copy of her response sent on May 12, in which she asserted since her hiring in 2020 the tourism commission has “operated according to state and federal law without exception.”

This confusion had tensions running high as commissioner Bailey, intermittently spoken over by Helton and Watts, chimed in about some calls and research he’s been conducting.

“I’ve been doing some checking on stuff…around the area and we have not been doing stuff correctly,” Bailey said. “I talked to the state…we are going to start doing things in a better manner than what we’ve been doing…we have to have a budget to the city before July 1 because that’s their fiscal year [and] we are a part of the city; we are an entity of the city whether you like it or not because we are appointed by the city commission…so what I’m saying is we are going to start operating like we are a part of the city; we are not going to keep them out of the loop.”

“We need to narrow down our numbers and send them to the city before July 1 so they can review them and they can put them into their budget,” Bailey added.

Bailey recommended “working together” with the city and “starting over [with] a happy medium [they] can work on together.” At that Helton said he believed the city commission’s decision to dissolve the tourism commission was an overreaction.

“What you don’t do is destroy the wagon ahead of time because you don’t like the colors of the wheels,” Helton said. “Yes, we need to work together…but you don’t get to say ‘we need to work together but in the meantime we’re going to vote to dissolve.’ If there was a time to work together it would’ve been a month ago.”

City Commissioner Gary Carroll, who was the one vote against dissolution, said, both as a business owner and an official of the city, that he did not want to see the commission dissolved because there “wouldn’t have another tourist commission in Park City.”

In the end, Poteet said the decision was an attempt to use the money in the best way for Park City.

“As the mayor of the city of Park City it is my job…to make sure all taxpayers’ money is spent in the best way,” Poteet said. “All I’m trying to do is, per KRS policies, that the money is being spent the right way.”