Mayor Proposes Increase in Rooms, Meals and Entertainment Tax

By Gordon Dritschilo
Staff Writer - Published: October 21, 2010


The Rutland Redevelopment Authority wants another $120,000 a year and an office in City Hall.

The requests were part of a reorganization plan for the group that board Chairman Mark Foley Jr. outlined to the Community and Economic Development Committee Wednesday. The committee took no action, but the aldermen present had generally favorable reactions.

As only three members of the Board of Aldermen attended the meeting — Sharon Davis, Kevin Coleman and William Notte — Davis asked that Foley's proposal be distributed to the rest of the board and scheduled another committee meeting for 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“I'd hate to have the debate, at budget time, directly about the RRA,” she said, adding that she was disappointed at the low turnout by the board.

The proposal included a number of suggestions for how to pay for the additional $120,000 — the RRA already gets $60,000 from the general fund. Mayor Christopher Louras, who said the funds will be in the budget proposal he will present to the board Nov. 1, said he recommended increasing the city's rooms, meals and entertainment tax to 1.5 percent.

With that money, Foley said the RRA would hire an executive director to administer all grants for the city except those for public safety and recreation and work with the administration on dealing with blighted properties, even assisting in eminent domain proceedings where the city saw fit.

Foley included a proposed agreement for services requiring the group to develop a plan dealing with the Cottage Street and Church Street corridors and to make quarterly progress reports to the city.

Notte, the Board of Aldermen's representative on the RRA's board, said the amount sounded reasonable.

“You're going to be hard-pressed to find a lot of people who don't feel it's a duty of the city to promote economic development,” he said. “I would argue it's even more irresponsible to under-fund economic growth. You're going to create the illusion that something's happening while things are backsliding.”

Coleman said he would be willing to spend even more money on the RRA, but he wanted to see a plan with measurable goals.

The proposal came out of eight months of discussions with groups including multiple levels of city government, the Rutland Region Chamber of Commerce, the Rutland Regional Planning Commission, the Housing Trust of Rutland County, the Downtown Rutland Partnership and the Rutland Economic Development Corp.

The RRA finished the 2008-2009 fiscal year owing the city $13,000. After struggling with its budget, the group's board voted to eliminate the executive director's position in January and then launched a process designed to determine the organization's future, and if it even had one.

Foley said they concluded that the RRA's original configuration was sound, with one exception that caused it to lose its way. The charter included no mechanism for funding.

While the RRA got some money from the general fund and more from a special tax assessed in the downtown, Foley said the group relied on grant administration fees to cover much of its costs. This drove it, he said, to seek out the sort of grants that would sustain its budget and took attention away from the city's needs.

Foley, Louras and Davis all said addressing the city's blighted properties would increase the tax rolls while making Rutland more attractive to businesses, with Davis adding it would help with the drug problem.

“There are other people working on recruiting the 250-person employer,” Foley said. “That's not our charge. Our charge is making sure they have a place to eat.”

Foley said that while vacant housing seems like the larger problem at the moment, the RRA would also tackle blighted commercial properties.

“That process is under way,” he said. “It's ongoing. What it really needs is a champion, a director.”

gordon.dritschilo@rutland herald.com