Mckay, Ann Marie CC
Subject: Missing Information Regarding City Council Study Session June 9 2026 Item 5 REVENUE BALLOT MEASURE DISCUSSION.
Attachments: Study Session Item 5 Ballot Measures Comments.pdf From: John Thomas
Sent: Sunday, June 7, 2026 3:48 PM
To: McKay, Ann Marie CC<[email protected]>; Orgill, Mark <[email protected]>; Jones, Hallie <[email protected]>; Whalen, Bob <[email protected]>; Rounaghi, Alex <[email protected]>; Kempf, Sue <[email protected]>; Kiff, Dave CM <[email protected]>; Curran, Gavin CM <[email protected]> Cc: James Danziger
Subject: Missing Information Regarding City Council Study Session June 9 2026 Item 5 REVENUE BALLOT MEASURE DISCUSSION.
Regarding potential ballot measures, there is an important piece of information missing that should impact the council's decision.
The missing fact: the city's sales tax consultant has reported that 74% of bar and restaurant revenue is attributable to visitors. Neither the staff report nor the survey mention this major fact.
Both the TOT and sales tax questions were retested in the survey after providing additional information.
However, no disclosure of the amount of Business License Fee (BLT) that would come from visitors was presented, and no retest was made for the BLT with this critical fact.
According to the staff report, the top-listed theme from the town halls (page 3 and page 47 of the staff report) is that visitors and day trippers are not paying their fair share of the costs they generate and that revenue
measures should focus on visitor-paid sources before resident-paid sources.
If the city is looking for a tax that would largely be paid by visitors, and supported by voters, then the fact that 74% of bar and restaurant revenue comes from visitors is crucial information for the council and the voters.
• The staff report does not specify the share of hotel tax contributed by visitors, but it is widely assumed that nearly 100% of TOT is paid by visitors.
• The staff report says 55% of sales tax is paid by visitors.
What the staff report does not say is that 74% of bar and restaurant revenue is from visitors and that therefore that 74% of a business license fee charged to bars and restaurants would be paid by visitors.
That 74% number is from the same report the city has from its sales tax consultant that provides the 55% number for sales tax.
The highest citizen support on the survey was for the TOT, presumably because citizens understood this would be paid almost completely by visitors. However, there are considerations why further increasing TOT is not
ideal.
1 If you don't want to increase TOT, the next best choice should be to adjust the BLT since 74% of that should be paid by visitors and the town hall findings were clear that residents prefer revenue paid by visitors.
Since the 74% share of revenue information was not provided in the survey, and the initial question about the BLI was not re-tested with that tact, we cannot know the probable voter support for this measure. However, common sense suggests that the higher the share of tax paid by visitors, the higher the level of voter support.
VISITOR VOTER
TAX SHARE SUPPORT
SALES 55% 49%
BLT 74% ?
TOT 99% 75%
Graphically it might look like this estimate indicating majority voter support for adjusting the BLT is likely.
VISITOR SHARE VERSUS VOTER
110% SUPPORT
99%
100%
90%
80% 74% 75%
70%
a VISITOR SHARE
60% 55%
- VOTER SUPPORT
50%
49% • Linear (VOTER
40% SUPPORT)
0 1 2 3 4
I encourage the Council to let the voters decide.