The Great Warrensburg Tourism Tax Kerfuffle

The DSJ and Digital Burg have been reporting on the kerfuffle:  the City of Warrensburg is considering taking over the Tourism/Convention & Visitor Bureau functions from the Greater Warrensburg Area Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center, and it has created quite a stir among the "usual suspects."  Of course, a lot of the data isn't available to most folks to help them make informed opinions.  I decided to rectify the information gap by obtaining a lot of documents and posting them at www.olddrum.net/tourtax/.   

This site contains documents going back to 1997-8 when the room tax was voted in and the first few years of its operation.  The update contains memos from a meeting in Dec 2012, a position paper developed by city staff, a proposed ordinance change (along with the current ordinance & contract), the Chamber's rather intemperate response to the proposal, links to updated financial data, and, of course, my latest letter to the editor evaluating all this. It also contains a link to a recent DigitalBurg.com report on a City Council Meeting - I'd also include links to the Daily Star Journal's extensive coverage, but that's "subscriber only."

While I am admittedly averse to all taxes, I especially despise those that are imposed by people in one location that will bear almost exclusively on people who do not have a vote on the tax.  Insult is added to injury when the money is squandered.