I’d like to address the recent news regarding the County’s Transient Room Tax (TRT) expenditures from both a technical perspective, as well as a moral perspective.
The relevant code section describes the tourism related expenditures in question as follows “an activity to develop, encourage, solicit, or market tourism that attracts transient guests to the county, including planning, development, and advertising”.
Under attack is the County’s responsible and educational advertising policy, as well as its trail ambassador program.
Responsible tourism development is now the best-practice standard around the globe. It is widely accepted as an integral part of tourism development. Any long term plan for a successful tourism economy must accept that the visitor experience is crucial to sustained success. And, that if a resort community abandons the caretaking of the land, and that experience, that they will have to procure new visitors every single year, as repeat visitation dramatically declines. And, with that degraded visitor experience we also see a similar decrease in quality of life for residents.
The State Auditor’s office is an arm of the executive branch, and so is not the arbiter of law. The judicial branch determines and interprets law where there is a dispute. And so, I would highly encourage the County Commission to pursue relief in district court as soon as possible. I do not believe that a fair and impartial judge would interpret the plain meaning of the existing TRT law as to exclude a responsible long term approach to tourism development.
I’m sure that Dougall knows full well that his capricious, and patently politically motivated assertions will not survive in court. But, that isn’t the point. The point is artifice, the point is to cast doubt on the current majority of elected officials for political purposes. And, I sense a political quid pro quo of some kind here.
Additionally, the flood relief TRT expenditures were made under a declaration of local disaster, which gives local governments the legal ability to expend their resources as necessary to mitigate the disaster. This action was also publicly endorsed by the Moab Chamber of Commerce.
The attack on the Grand Center funding is especially capricious. The Republican Party has certainly enjoyed this facility for their recent fund raising conventions. They raised over $30,000 from out-of-town interests at their Grand Center event (while dishonestly accusing the liberal side of being outside-funded).
Will this new interpretation of law apply to all Counties, the majority of which use TRT to fund multi-use facilities, or just Grand County? And, is Grand County now to either close the Grand Center or raise property taxes to fund the facility? I’d estimate that the Grand Center has hosted well over 1,000 conventions of a wide variety in its lifetime.
The two members of the County Commission who support the disintegration of the responsible tourism policies have an interesting and short history. One flagrantly lied straight to the faces of his community by misrepresenting his position regarding UTVs on City streets while campaigning in order to get elected (and immediately flipped 180 on his position once elected), and the other’s campaign was entirely paid for by the now infamous Kane Creek developers.
As to my moral interpretation of this:
Since when did being responsible stewards of the land become corrupt? I’m not aware of any established religion or moral philosophy that doesn’t compel us to be good stewards of the land.
We live in one of the most amazingly beautiful and unique landscapes in the world; loved at this point by literally hundreds of millions of people all over the world. What does it say of us that we, who live here, are the ones to attack it? To attack its integrity by dismantling any and all responsible stewardship policies. We may as well just say that what was once good is now evil, and what was once evil is now good.
I, as well as many millions of people, have a deep spiritual connection to this landscape. I would argue that it is that spiritual connection which drives our economy. I’ve never understood those who gaze upon this landscape and see nothing but dollar signs.
As it turns out, industrial level tourism is perhaps the worst fate to befall a beautiful landscape. Not because it’s impossible or difficult to sustainably administer a tourism economy. But, because the greed of men who are driven to exploit the land will eventually overpower those who love and respect it.
As the author of the County’s advertising policy, I do have to say that I never intended that the advertising would be all dry “recreate responsibly” messaging. There are thousands of interesting facts relating to Moab’s history, prehistory, and natural history that could be imaginatively used to draw visitors into the area, and foster a respect for the place. The execution of the concept is lacking, but the concept itself is sound, as has been proven the world over. Before abandoning our moral obligation to this place, we should evaluate the execution of the responsible recreation development concept. There is a lot of room for improvement.
Ultimately, I call on the conscience of this community to vote for those who support a responsible and respectful approach to developing our economy. And, I highly encourage the newspapers and debate forum organizers to exemplify this topic, so that the voters may know well who and what they are voting for. I really don’t think that a majority of citizens want to go back to the old “anything goes” advertising policy. We all know how that has panned out, and as the saying goes, “Only fools repeat the same things over and over, expecting to obtain different results.”
Chris Baird
Moab
