{"id":1313163,"date":"2019-08-04T17:30:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-04T23:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=985309"},"modified":"2019-08-04T17:30:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-04T23:30:18","slug":"glenwood-council-looks-to-dda-tourism-funds-to-help-cover-rising-costs-for-downtown-amenity-upkeep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/glenwood-council-looks-to-dda-tourism-funds-to-help-cover-rising-costs-for-downtown-amenity-upkeep\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenwood Council looks to DDA, tourism funds to help cover rising costs for downtown amenity upkeep"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Crews continue laying bricks along Seventh Street in Glenwood Springs on Monday afternoon as part of the city’s “festival street” beautification project.<\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

After pouring millions of dollars into beautifying Glenwood Springs\u2019 downtown core, the question as to who should pay for what in the way of maintenance costs has come to a head.<\/p>\n

According to a city staff report presented at the Aug. 1 City Council meeting, in 2017 downtown maintenance costs were approximately $120,000. In 2018, that price tag ballooned to over $217,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce this festival street (Seventh Street) and plaza project is done, and all of the landscaping items that go along with that, it is projected to be upwards of $400,000,\u201d Mayor Pro Tem Shelley Kaup said during the meeting of the annual costs associated with the downtown\u2019s upkeep.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, the costs continue to rise,\u201d Kaup said.<\/p>\n

Not wanting those rising costs to chip away at the city\u2019s Acquisitions and Improvements (A&I) Fund, which voters overwhelmingly renewed in 2016, Council eyed two other sources \u2013 the Downtown Development Authority (DDA) and the city\u2019s tourism promotion fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole purpose of the DDA is to assist the city in developing the area within the Downtown Development Authority\u2019s geographic region to design and build infrastructure,\u201d Councilor Charlie Willman, who served on the DDA board for seven years before being elected to City Council, said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

That comes directly from the DDA\u2019s charge documents, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are ways to make that work so that we are not knocking heads with each other, but rather we are cooperating to make this a better city.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Willman, the DDA\u2019s 2019 budget amounts to a little over $700,000.<\/p>\n

Director of Tourism Promotion Lisa Langer, speaking before council last week, wanted input from the Tourism Promotion Board before making any spending recommendations. She was concerned about tourism promotion funds going toward \u201cmaintenance\u201d as opposed to marketing<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of what the money should be used for, we would like it to be purposeful and tourism related,\u201d Langer said of the city\u2019s tourism promotion fund. \u201cMaintenance is probably not the best word to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

The special fund accrues revenue through a special 2.5 percent accommodations tax on overnight stays in Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

However, Langer stressed that she was grateful that council asked for the Tourism Promotion Board\u2019s recommendation before just pulling from its budget.<\/p>\n

According to Langer, 92.5 percent of the revenue generated from the accommodations tax goes into the city\u2019s roughly $900,000 marketing fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tourism Promotion Board is very methodical and thoughtful in the budget process, and we will have to cut marketing,\u201d Langer explained, should dollars be diverted for maintenance of downtown amenities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no other way to do it, because that is what our fund is,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a marketing fund.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mayor Jonathan Godes called the ongoing budgeting discussion a reflection of City Council\u2019s desire to engage the DDA and Tourism Board in a more meaningful partnership and cost-sharing understanding.<\/p>\n

mabennett@postindependent.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Crews continue laying bricks along Seventh Street in Glenwood Springs on Monday afternoon as part of the city’s “festival street” beautification project.Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent After pouring millions of dollars into beautifying Glenwood Springs\u2019 downtown core, the question as to who should pay for what in the way of maintenance costs has come to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1313163","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-21 18:38:12","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1313163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1313163\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1313163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1313163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1313163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}