April 20—Muscogee Tourism may receive a $455,000 grant from the city for capital projects and promotions.
The Muskogee City Council will consider transferring $455,000 from the city’s hotel and motel tax fund to city officials at its regular meeting Monday at 5:30 p.m.
Mayor Patrick Kehl said he wants the tourism board to manage the funds.
“They have experts on their boards, they have influential citizens on their boards who are capable or even more capable of making decisions about what to fund. We exist to do that,” Kale said. “We don’t believe in micromanaging.”
Councilor Jamie Stout, who is sponsoring the proposal, said he would like to see the money used for large-scale tourism promotion and tourism-related capital projects.
Her proposal said the funds could not be used for ongoing expenses, operating expenses or salaries.
Instead, the money will fund temporary needs such as updated signage, visitor center accessibility and a complete website renovation, she said.
Stout said the money could fund an overhaul of existing kiosk technology, which has been in use for nearly a decade.
Kale said the funds can also be used to recruit for new events.
“If you have a big event, or you have Bass Pro people participating, you may need to hire some people to run that event,” he said.
Stout said the city has accumulated more than $750,000 in surplus from hotel and motel taxes.
“In January 2011, Muskogee residents voted to increase the hotel/motel occupancy tax for Muskogee convention and tourism from 3 percent to 8 percent,” she said. “Section 74-130 of the same ordinance states: “All taxes collected pursuant to the provisions of this article shall be kept and used solely for the purpose of encouraging, promoting, and promoting convention and tourism development in the city. .”It has been described as.”
According to the agenda packet for Monday’s council meeting, the proposal directs city staff to prepare an additional document that would further define limits on the funds that would be transferred.
