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Lodging Tax Committee approves funding for Fourth of July event, discusses drone show contract and staffing
Summary
The Lodging Tax Committee approved the sole 2025 lodging-tax grant application to fund the city Fourth of July event, noted roughly $80,000 remaining in the lodging-tax fund, confirmed a two-year drone-show contract at a fixed price, and planned earlier application review and committee recruitment for 2026.
The Lodging Tax Committee voted to approve the only 2025 lodging-tax grant application, which will fund the city’s Fourth of July event, and discussed steps to shore up the grant process for 2026.
The committee’s chair introduced Ed Armo as the new grants manager and said responsibility for administering lodging-tax awards will move to his office from legal. "Instead of getting grants for the city, we give grants," the chair said, explaining the change is intended to create consistent meeting schedules, clearer deadlines and more timely decisions.
A committee member moved to approve the Fourth of July application and another member seconded; the chair declared the application approved. The transcript records no roll-call or vote tally. After the approval the chair said, "after paying for this I think we have about $80,000 left and the lodging tax fund has been collecting around $100,000 a year," and advised the committee may reduce next year’s allocations because recent spending has outpaced receipts.
Committee members also reiterated that the city has a two-year fixed-price contract for the drone show and said preserving the contracted price guided the decision to keep the program on the calendar. Participants flagged questions about expected attendance and the event’s budgetary impact as items to monitor.
Looking ahead to 2026, Ed Armo and other members discussed establishing an earlier review schedule and holding a meeting in October or November to consider applications so awards can be made near the start of the year. "We’re going to act like kind of proactively go out to some organizations and let them know that we have applications for funding," Ed said, describing outreach intended to broaden the applicant pool.
Members noted two vacant committee seats — including hotel-industry representatives — and said they will work to fill those positions by year-end so the committee has full membership for future decisions. Mackenzie, one committee member, supported another meeting before the end of the year to set timelines.
The committee adjourned after brief closing remarks. No further formal actions were recorded in the transcript.
