To the Editor,
Re: Tax exemption offered as incentive for hotel, Nov. 8.
It is very hard to believe that our city fathers think that the best way to stop the $1 million-plus subsidy to the Vancouver Island Conference Centre is to offer another subsidy of another $1 million-plus per year to anyone willing to build a $40 million hotel, then offer more subsidies to other hotels to encourage increase in quality of rooms.
I thought council was elected to run the city and not the hotels? They have no business interfering with the free market of the hotel business.
I was just back from Las Vegas and maybe our council could learn from them without having to go there.
I went to the Specialty Equipment Market Association convention of over 120,000 people and we did not all stay next to the conference centre or even within one mile.
What we all did is have free buses picking us all up at different times of the day from the majority of the hotels.
This is much cheaper than giving millions of taxpayers’ dollars to hotels.
Take a bus and leave tax dollars for city use.
Terry Wagstaff
Nanaimo