Monday letter: No on 2C
Citizens of Glenwood Springs don’t be fooled on Election Day. Question 2C, a lodging tax, is a debacle. It is an unfair and unnecessary tax that will neither fix the employee housing problem, nor help our economy. In fact, it may hurt our tourist economy as tourists stay elsewhere.
One: Ask yourself why one tiny section of the economy is being taxed, just one type of business — lodges. Many of our small hotels and lodges are family-owned. This 2.5% increase will have a detrimental effect on their business. Why aren’t all businesses having to pay this tax? They are supposedly all going to benefit from the tax as their workers will, allegedly, get subsidized housing, funded by this tax that is only shouldered only by our lodges. (The answer is tax, and spenders know an attraction tax or general sales tax would fail).
Two: Why do the citizens of Glenwood Springs have to subsidize chains like Jimmy Johns and Target? How about these businesses pay a living wage? If they can’t find employees, pay them more. That is how the free market works. This tax enables businesses, big and small, to pay their employees less because you, the taxpayer, are going to provide their employees with subsidized housing, enabling them to charge you the same costs while paying workers less. That is not fair, it is not right and, more importantly, it will not work.
I have been on the Glenwood Springs City Council for almost four years. The majority of them couldn’t manage opening an envelope, and, now, they want you to give them $1.5 million more dollars a year to do what? Build housing? No. Fix a national employee housing crisis? No. House a single worker? No. What it will do is create a new city bureaucracy with a new housing czar paid much more than most of us, who will throw your money at builders and developers and solve nothing.
I am not anti-employee housing, but this is not the solution. It is a boondoggle of more government, more sound and fury from your council, truly fixing nothing.
Tony Hershey, city council member
Glenwood Springs
Support Local Journalism
Support Local Journalism
Readers around Glenwood Springs and Garfield County make the Post Independent’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.
Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.
Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.