Should Summit County give less to the Park City Chamber of Commerce to enable the purchase of Bonanza Flat?

Most people around Park City want to “Save Bonanza Flat.”

Bonanza Flat is a 1300 acre parcel, near Guardsman Pass, that is for sale. Park City has an option to buy it for $38 million. Residents passed a $25 million bond to purchase it; however that ‘s $13 million short. So, they hoped others would chip in. Groups like Wasatch Back Country Alliance (and many locals) have … but Park City Municipal is still millions short.

Unfortunately, Park City is even farther away than it used to be. According to the Park Record, Summit County pledged $5.75 million towards buying the Flat…but they had to shave off $1.5 million off their pledge.

This leaves the Bonanza Flat effort at a $4 million shortfall.

So how does PC make up the difference? How do they use their money wisely?

During an interview, KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher asked Summit County Council Chair Chris Robinson about transient room taxes. Transient room tax is a tax on resort related things that can be used for specific items like recreation. Summit County is directing a couple of million of dollars of its transient room tax to provide money to buying Bonanza Flat. However, like most years before, the Council is giving the majority of the remainder to the Park City Chamber of Commerce.

Each year, Mr Robinson said, the County Council gives about 80%-90%of Transient Room taxes to the Park City Chamber of Commerce. Last year Transient Room Taxes were estimated at over $10 million. This would equate to $8 to $10 million going to the Chamber of Commerce every year from taxes.

The Chamber of Commerce then uses that money to fulfill their mission statement:

“The Park City Chamber of Commerce | Convention & Visitors Bureau exists to promote Park City and Summit County as a world-class destination for everyone from tourists to business groups to our local neighbors. We do this through coordinated domestic and international marketing efforts that work in tandem with those of our 1000+ members. Our mission is to promote the Park City/Summit County area as a historic mountain resort destination with an ongoing Olympic legacy, enhance the resort experience, and be an advocate for a vibrant, healthy economy.”

While we understand that we are a recreation-based economy, we’re not so sure that during current times we need to bring more people in. We aren’t sure that the average citizen is served by filling the Snyderville Basin to the brim.

Better put, would you like the Park City Chamber to spend millions of dollars advertising in New York and Miami and bring in thousands of more people to Park City … or would you like Summit County to pay for the rest of Bonanza Flat?

We think most Parkites would be OK with cutting the Chamber’s share in half (still giving them nearly $4 million a year) and then give $6 million to buy Bonanza Flat.

Of course the Chamber of Commerce would likely tell you that without them, visitors wouldn’t come, and we would lose sales tax revenue. Then when the visitors don’t come, they won’t think about buying 2nd homes — thus impacting property taxes, schools, and our standard of living.

There could be some merit to that, but we tend to think that for now Vail has a pretty good marketing effort. We’d guess other groups around Park City do as well.

We think it may be time to ask the Chamber of Commerce to do with a little less for a year or two.

There may be a time when Park City needs the Chamber of Commerce to bring in more visitors. Those taxes could be diverted back as needed. However, it doesn’t seem like that time is now. Our tax dollars could be spent on other more worthwhile projects for the time being.

If we truly want to save areas like Bonanza Flat, we need to rip the bandaid off of every area. That includes taboo areas like the Chamber of Commerce.