Utica Mayor Michael Galime has proposed a 3% occupancy tax. The tax, which follows state legislation allowing the city to enact it, will generate revenue for city services, such as parks, and help reduce the burden on property taxpayers, he says.<\/p>\n
One small business owner who runs a bed and breakfast, however, disagrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like it could be a detriment, adding another additional tax to what we’re already collecting,\u201d said Rita Sleys, the owner and innkeeper at Rosemont Inn Bed and Breakfast, which she has operated with her husband since 2004.<\/p>\n
She said on average, a guest may spend about $150 a night before the county\u2019s 5% occupancy tax and the state\u2019s 8.75% sales tax.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy aren\u2019t we looking at more cost-saving measures?\u201d Sleys said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mayor’s salary and other people’s salaries were raised exponentially by the former mayor. That’s one area, but I’m not, I’m not a budget expert,\u201d said Sleys.<\/p>\n
The mayor responded.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us to not be trying to fund some of our parks department, some of our DPW, some of our economic development, you know, expenditures with the bed tax, we’re not participating like every other municipality in the state and country,\u201d Galime said.<\/p>\n
Sleys said she’s concerned with people choosing to stay outside the city, but Galime said tourists they have spoken with choose their hotels based on location.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything else, you know, you could think of that’s an actual event \u2013 conference, tournament, concert, OK \u2013 all of that tourism that’s happening in downtown Utica, people want to stay near that,\u201d said Galime.<\/p>\n
A draft of the proposal is expected to be presented at the next council meeting on Nov. 19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utica Mayor Michael Galime has proposed a 3% occupancy tax. The tax, which follows state legislation allowing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,6316,257,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,87,23503,6315],"class_list":{"0":"post-40501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-tourism","10":"tag-central-ny","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-headlines","13":"tag-new-york-news","14":"tag-new-york-state","15":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","16":"tag-new-york-state-news","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-shalon-stevens","20":"tag-tourism"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}