PORT ANGELES — The city Lodging Tax Committee unanimously recommended approval Tuesday of $86,300 in 2015 funding for the city Parks & Recreation Department and the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
The funding was already contained in a preliminary budget that the City Council was set to pass at its regular meeting Tuesday night after a second reading.
Mayor Dan Di Guilio said later Tuesday that he expected the council will approve the $129 million spending plan, which received little public comment at council meetings and at its first council reading earlier this fall.
Committee members expressed concerns at their meeting earlier Tuesday over taking action before all lodging tax applications have been received.
They will be considering the remaining applications, including requests of $23,500 by the Olympic Peninsula Visitor Bureau for marketing — and an as-yet unsubmitted request by the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce for marketing and the visitor center that is due today.
“I’m a lot more comfortable voting on an entire budget,” committee member and festival organizer Scott Nagel said.
“A key element is the marketing and visitor center.”
City Manager Dan McKeen told the committee “it would be good to know” the committee’s recommendation before the budget meeting.
“If we approve the budget [Tuesday night] and the lodging tax committee decides to cut back those funds, then we have a lot of work to do,” McKeen said.
“There has been some concern expressed about the sustainability of the budget moving forward and the flexibility of the budget we are dealing with now.”
He said in a later interview that the lodging-tax application process will occur earlier in 2015 during development of the 2016 budget.
“Other things were going on” in 2014 that prevented that from occurring for 2015, McKeen said.
Parks and Recreation
Lodging tax committee members Tuesday recommended that the council approve $62,000 to the city Parks & Recreation Department for baseball, softball and basketball tournaments.
The allocation includes $42,000 for the city’s sports and events budget and $20,000 for athletic field maintenance.
Corey Delikat, parks and recreation director, said the lodging-tax-funded events generate $2 million in tourism-related revenue.
Fine arts center
Committee members also recommended approval of $26,300 for the arts center, a 31 percent increase compared with the 2014 allocation of $20,000.
The additional $6,300 includes $2,300 to offset operational increases for operations that will total $16,300 in 2015, according to the arts center’s application.
It also includes $4,000 of $10,000 needed to put on the third annual Paint the Peninsula Competition and Festival, a juried art competition also known as a “plein air event.”
Robin Anderson, arts center executive director, said she hopes the event will expand to include Sequim and Olympic National Park.
“I’m very excited that we can make this a huge program,” she said.
“For a fairly minor increase in funding, we can really blow the top off this and bring this up to where we want to.
“In Year 5, we’re going to be a national program that is going to attract a lot of people.”
Paint the Peninsula is slated for Sept. 6-13, 2015.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
