PORT ANGELES — The Port Angeles Lodging Tax Advisory Committee voted to recommend an additional $100,000 for City Pier tower repairs.
The vote, 3-2, will forward the recommendation to the city council, which will hear the proposal in late August.
At its special meeting on Thursday, the committee also heard a request for an annual contract to give the Field Arts & Events Hall a fixed percentage of lodging tax funding.
It was the second time that Mike Healy, director of public works and utilities, had requested lodging tax funding for pier tower repairs.
Originally, Healy said his team tried to find grants for the project, but none applied.
“It was only when we kept hitting walls that we came here,” Healy said.
Healy’s first request was for $688,000. However, when the project was bid at $574,464, Healy reduced the amount he was asking for by $114,000.
The new amount did not include contingency funds or money for change orders, Healy said.
Because of that, he requested $100,000 for new repair needs after the tower was reinspected in June.
“A lot of those elements were unforeseen because they had to be uncovered,” Healy said.
Some of the uncovered repairs include replacement of corroding steel and rotting/splintering wood.
Lodging tax funds must be used for activities, operations and expenditures that increase tourism. Healy said the City Pier tower repairs are eligible because the tower “has been used for tourism marketing by various organizations both locally and regionally and has drawn people to the area.”
“I don’t know that there’s a more identifiable structure that says ‘Port Angeles’ to the tourism community than that tower,” Healy said.
Committee members Caitlin Sullivan and Sydney Rubin voted against the request.
Sullivan said she wasn’t convinced that the City Pier tower repairs fell into the legal use of lodging tax funds.
If city council approves the recommendation, Healy said the tower repairs should be completed by end of August.
The committee did not vote on recommendations about annual funding for Field Hall; it will discuss it in future meetings.
Steve Raider-Ginsburg, the executive and artistic director of Fields Arts & Events Hall, told the committee, “Field Hall is a tourism-related facility.”
In addition to local visitors, Field Hall’s events attract about 4,000 visitors annually from more than 50 miles away, Raider-Ginsburg said.
Cities such as Bremerton, Yakima and Olympia provide a fixed percentage of their lodging tax funds to similar facilities, he said.
The Washington Center for the Performing Arts in Olympia receives half of the city’s lodging tax funds, according to Jill Barnes, the organization’s executive director.
If Port Angeles were to replicate Olympia’s model, Field Hall would have received about $429,000 from this year’s lodging tax funds, city Planning Supervisor Ben Braudrick said.
Barnes said performing arts and events venues are “the ideal candidate” for lodging tax funds.
“We know that arts and events are economic drivers,” Barnes said. “Events put small towns on the map.”
Deputy mayor and committee member Navarra Carr said it was “worthwhile to think about whether or not we want to have a percentage of our lodging tax funds just automatically go to Field Hall.”
The Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, which operates the city’s visitor center, is the only outside organization that receives a fixed amount of lodging tax funds each year, committee member Victoria Jones said.
Before they make recommendations, committee members said they would like to see how many nonprofits use the venue, how many offseason tourists it attracts, how much money it has already received from the city and Clallam County and a few proposed funding options.
The committee also unanimously approved a recommendation that the city’s legal department review each future funding request to determine if it is legally eligible, partially eligible or not eligible for funding.
That recommendation likely will appear before city council in early September.
“[That] will honestly make our lives a lot easier, and we can focus on the applications at hand,” Jones said.
This year, the lodging tax committee has spent about $1.7 million. That includes the 2024 projected lodging tax collection of $876,000 as well as $824,000 in lodging tax reserves.
________
Reporter Emma Maple can be reached by email at emma.maple@peninsuladailynews.com.
