The Tucker County Commission while receiving some praise for their recent passage of a 2% amusement fee in the County, has also received a fair bit of criticism from the business community. The Commission held a Special Session December 4th to meet with members of the business community and the public to discuss their concerns over the fee and the roll out.
Commissioner Fred Davis described the process of drafting and roll out of the fee as “fast and furious” due to the imminent danger the ambulance service sees itself in currently. Commission President Mike Rosenau said that efforts have been ongoing for 30 years to fund EMS and businesses and the community should not be surprised by the effort. Commissioner Tim Knotts describes the measure as much needed and the fairest way he could see.
Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau said that he recently received a phone call from an attorney in Charleston over the fee. The attorney represented State Tourism and Commerce, Rosenau stated. “But not everybody feels the same way we do,” Rosenau said. “This week alone, yesterday, I received a phone call from Garner Marks, Chief Counsel for Tourism and Commerce for the State of West Virginia. He feels ‘Users’ of the ambulance service are tourists. Just residents and the residents are the only ones who should pay. That’s from State Tourism.”
Rosenau went on to say that the Commission has also received FOIA requests from attorneys as well over the fee. “We also have a call from an attorney in Charleston who wanted a FOIA request,” Rosenau said. “We answered the FOIA request and the things that he asked for were things that we’re not even at liberty to even have. Most of those things were funding, how its spent. All those are questions for the Ambulance Authority Board.”
Tom Price, General Manager of Timberline admitted during the meeting to seeing the FOIA requests and reviewing the documents. “I did see the FOIA requests,” Price said.
Rosenau said that he wanted the room to know that there was much opposition to the measure, including State Tourism. “Just so that everybody is aware, there’s several people that aren’t in favor of the fee,” Rosenau said. “Including State Tourism.”
Rosenau described a meeting he had last week in which someone suggested that everyone in Tucker County pay $100. Rosenau said he does not agree that would be a fair solution. “One of the meetings I sat in on last week, one of the members of the CVB Board said you’ve got 7,000 people in Tucker County, just charge everybody $100 then you’ve got it covered.” Rosenau said. “$700,000. That didn’t even make good sense to me. So if I’m a family of four, I’ll pay $400 and I’m already trying to put food on the table, pay my electric bill. I don’t get that. How is that a solution?”
Tom Price, General Manager, Timberline, spoke out against the measure at the meeting. Timberline was mentioned several times by supporters on both sides of the issue during the meeting. “My name got mentioned quite a bit,” Price said. “I’m General Manager at Timberline…I want to just explain that I am not against this, I am against how this was rolled out.”
Price said that Timberline had folded in the past and that the ski industry is not an easy one to make a profit in. “Timberline went out of business in the past,” Price said. “It is not an easy business to operate and make a profit. We’ve put an enormous amount of money into it in order to make it successful and that could be taken away very quickly.”
Price said that his company is very cost conscious and weighs the impact of pricing on their customers heavily. “Two percent sounds small,” Price said. “But we are very, very careful about how our customers are impacted by what the costs must be. One of the biggest barriers to the ski industry is cost and there are other places, there are places all over the country where people are charged more and there are also places like where my roots are from in the Midwest, where people charge a lot less. So, we are really, really conscious about it.”
According to Price, their profits for the year are made in the 20 week winter ski season and those profits have to get them through the remainder of the year. “Its hard to imagine the fact that we make essentially all of our money in 20 weeks,” Price said. “And we have to float the rest of it the rest of the entire period. So it may seem like there is ton of money rolling in during the winter, but in July its pretty tough.”
Price said that Timberline is trying to create new jobs and be a successful business and community partner. “We are trying really hard to be a good business and grow, trying to create good jobs, which we have been successful doing,” Price said. “Some of our employees are volunteer fire fighters and they are contributing members of the community. Its really, really important to us.”
Price said he heard of the fee, he felt he was being targeted and made to be villain. “When I heard about this fee, it was offensive to us because we feel that we are doing our best to be really good contributors to the community and we are being made out to be villains,” Price said.
Price said Tourism is about jobs. “And that is just tough for us as tourism,” Price said. “Really I kind of hate the word tourism, its really small business. We are people who are trying to run small businesses in the community that is going to contribute back. Have jobs for your children, have jobs for you, have jobs for all these people. Without the jobs, without the community support.”
According to Price, for the past three years, Timberline has hired EMS crews crews during their peak times to be on hand. “EMS wise, I have been working with EMS for the last 3 years,” Price said. “I guess, the first year we did Randolph County because you guys weren’t quite ready. But we have been bringing in an ambulance on our highest times, paying for it out of our pocket, so that there wasn’t a burden on the community. I thought that that was the responsible thing for a business to do was and it worked really well.”
Price said the fee would end Timberline’s ability to hire EMS crews this coming season. “I was really happy working with Tucker County making that work. It was good for them, it was good for us,” Price said. “We aren’t going to be able to do that this year, unfortunately. This fee is going to impact our bottom line.”
One of the largest complaints that the business owners had was that they were not consulted on the fee or how it would be rolled out. Greg Downing, owner of the Alpine Lodge in Davis said that he felt the process could have been more collaborative, It was a sentiment that was expressed by Price and many others during the meeting. “I wish this could have been more collaborative,” Downing said. “I know you guys could have done it the way you did it, that doesn’t mean you should have done it the way that you did it.”
Price said the fee is going to be a shock to Timberline’s system and will effect not only their bottom line, but also their employees. “It is going to be a shock to our system and it is going to affect our employees and that is who I care about more than anything, more than our customers, more than anything,” Price said. “Its going to affect them because it is going to affect our bottom line and they make money off our bottom line.”
Rosenau responded to Price’s comments by addressing the subject of a meeting he said they had in Charleston with Jessica Waldo of the Tucker County Convention and Visitors Bureau in State Senator Randy Smith’s office. “We set a year ago in Randy Smith’s office in Charleston, West Virginia, at that point we had a meeting with Senator Smith, we had a meeting with Jessica Waldo and we had a meeting with you when an amusement tax was being discussed,” Rosenau said. “You’ve known for years that we’ve worked on stuff like this. You told us then, there’s no way you would support it because it would put your company out of business and that the EMS problem was a problem of the County.”
Price denied the comment. “That doesn’t sound like something I would say,” Price said.
Jessica Waldo of the Tucker County CVB spoke on comments made by Rosenau in his opening statements, as well as on the overall nature of Tourism in the County. “I don’t want there to be a thought that over the years Tourism hasn’t contributed,” Waldo said. “The Hotel/Motel Tax has contributed to Fire and EMS.”
Waldo said that whenever the County has brought concerns to the CVB, they have tried to addressed them immediately. “The CVB is the Convention and Visitors Bureau for Tucker County, when it has been brought to my attention that it feels slighted, we work really hard to try to change our ways in the way that we do things to try to be as fair around the county.”
Waldo also said that the CVB operates according to their laws of operation and funding distribution. “We also abide by the law that is wrote on how we are supposed to operate,” Waldo said. “And we do abide by the minimum ways that we are supposed to spend our funding. We exceed those numbers and continue to exceed those numbers on the way that our budget is spent.”
According to Waldo, she presents an annual report to the Commission and local municipalities in the Spring. Waldo also said that budget, reports and other financial documents are always available for review upon request. “Every year in the Spring, I come down to the Commission and the Municipalities and present my annual report,” Waldo said. “Which I will be working on and submitting soon.”
Waldo said the CVB exists to promote Tourism in the County and support the economy. “Our mission is to promote Tourism in Tucker County and I am just paraphrasing here, but we are here to promote Tucker County as a Tourism destination and in turn increasing tourism in the area and people traveling and visiting, benefiting the tourism part and the economy of Tucker County,” Waldo said.
Kevin White, CVB Board Member and Parsons Fire Chief, said he felt he was the man walking a tightrope because he was not only a member of the CVB, but a stanch supporter of the County Commissioners and the 2% fee. White spoke out in verdant support of the measure. “So I’m the guy walking the tightrope tonight,” White said. “I’m part of the CVB. I’m one of the seven board members…I support the CVB. I know what wonderful work they do to promote our County and to bring Tourism here and to bring jobs here. I can understand what they are going through.”
White invited the room to attend CVB meetings and praised the work that the organization does. “If you could come to some of our meetings, which you can, and see the work that these people put in, and the tireless hours Jessica puts in to make sure that Tucker County has what it has, you would truly understand the purposes,” White said.
However, White said he was 100% behind the Commission on the measure. He said his stance stemmed from his understanding of the importance of EMS and the work they do. “Now, I’m 100% behind the County Commission,” White said. “That’s why I’m the guy on the tightrope. Because I understand the importance of EMS. I understand the importance of finding that financial component that is fair as possible to everybody to suit everybody and it has.”
White said he has been a fireman for 38 years and Chief of Parsons for 12 years and understands the unique burden EMS workers face. “I’ve been a fireman for 38 years,” White said. “I’ve been the Chief of Parsons Fire Department for 12 years. I have brothers in black that have been with me for just about as many years as that. I understand what they go through on a daily basis, the burden and I’m not putting our burden on the people or the guests that come here. The burden is on our entire County. We still have to find a way.”
White said that he does not have the answer, but feels this is the most equitable and fair option he has seen. “I’m not saying that I have an answer,” White said. “I’m saying over the 38 years that I have been doing this, this is possibly the quite fairest proposal I’ve heard of because even me if I go golfing, I will pay. I go kayak I will pay it. So as Commissioner Davis said, it goes to everybody. If I have my family come in, we are going to pay it.”
White said he felt that the County Community are a Team and the businesses and the County Commission need to find common ground in order to come together to make the fee work. “We are a team here, somehow, someway, we have to figure out a way to find common ground, come together and do this,” White said. “I can’t tell you that this is going to fix all of our problems, I pray it does, I truly do, because I understand what me and Sheriff Kopek is doing, some State Police, EMS. We spent 14, 16 hours last Thursday night standing out in Canaan Valley, out in 219, out on 72 and out on the Tucker County line, trying to make sure the people in this county were safe. A lot of those people were volunteers. And they don’t get paid nothing for it and some of them even miss work to do this. Our Team consists of every single individual in this room. Somewhere we have to find common ground and make this work.”
For more on the 2% fee, see our other companion pieces on the positive comments and Mike Rosenau’s address to the crowd in this issue.
