Comments on: The rest of your ballot

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:58:50 +0000

I’m OK with F and H. For C, I think I’m going no. All talk aside of whether anyone will actually visit Oakland to pay the tax, for me, I would have preferred the measure to tax, give the funding to the listed organizations, and then FORBID those organizations from getting any other city funding. This should backfill the city’s current support, not lay a foundation for double-dipping. And maybe I could even stomach that if the Chabot Space and Science Center weren’t included.

By: Justine

Justine — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 06:59:04 +0000

There’s another election going on right now that V has not mentioned. In the best of the East Bay contest in the East Bay Express, V is a finalist in two categories: best blogger and best community organizer. Vote soon.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/poll?poll=oid%3A1026897

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:56:31 +0000

True. I usually book rooms based on the lowest available rate/vs. where I need to be and gasp on the way out. Let’s face it; an $80/night room rate really means $110. But since I’m not a “regular” traveler, I just pay it and move on.

By: dto510

dto510 — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:38:23 +0000

Because hotel taxes are not required to be included in advertised room rates, the hotel industry supports this tax. Originally the hotel operators were going to assess a BID-like fee on themselves to support the OCVB. But since taxes are not required to be advertised in room rates (while fees are), they decided to ask for a tax hike instead. Not terribly transparent to the consumer, if you ask me.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 03:07:55 +0000

in reality, rare is the person that looks at the hotel tax when booking a hotel. you pretty much assume that every city has a high transient tax that you are going to pay to fund their attractions. so it comes down to room fee sans tax and closeness to where you need to be.

By: Art

Art — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:19:13 +0000

As, I guess, an outlier here among OCVB-haters, I have to say that I really like the OCVB interactive commercial district maps, where you can identify businesses along the major neighborhood commercial corridors parcel by parcel. They should be updated more often than they are (and should extend beyond the usual suspects to include some less-yuppie parts of the city), but they’re definitely handy and I use them a lot. I also use the events calendar on their website frequently to find things to do when friends or family are in town, and find that it’s surprisingly comprehensive. And I like that they have master lists of all things Oakland in one place (e.g., all the farmers’ markets with dates and times….all the Oakland-made products….etc.)

Could they do better? Sure. But I actually don’t think they’re doing as lousy a job as the general sentiment here seems to indicate….certainly not such a bad job that it would discourage me from voting yes on C (especially since I think the other major institutions that benefit from that measure—the zoo, Chabot, and the Oakland Museum—are extraordinary).

Also, important to remember: not all Oakland tourists travel here from afar. I know lots of people with young kids who live in other parts of the Bay Area but make special trips to Oakland for Chabot, the zoo, Fairyland, MOCHA, etc.—and might start the day off with brunch at an Oakland restaurant, or a stop at an Oakland ice cream shop on the way home. They’re bringing tourist dollars into the city, too—just of another flavor.

By: Chris Kidd

Chris Kidd — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:44:44 +0000

Ralph, that’s exactly my point. People on this thread that are against the hotel tax treat it like it’s directly focused at tourism and The Marriot. I’d be interested to compare the gross receipts of regular hotels versus those that charge an, uh, *hourly rate*.

By: Ralph

Ralph — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:53:14 +0000

Chris, I think it would apply to those hotels where if you find a dead hooker in your room you stay for FREE.

if it didn’t i would suspect class warfare among the hotel operators

By: livegreen

livegreen — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:54:43 +0000

Here’s a legal question about Measure H: If a business changes entities, say from an LLC to a Corp. (or the reverse) and changes the ownership of a property from the old business entity to the new business entity, would this be considered a “transfer” or not?

Same question if a company decides to change names? (Which happens periodically, esp. for small businesses).

By: Chris Kidd

Chris Kidd — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:53:12 +0000

Would Measure C apply only to major hotels, or would it also apply to the plethora of no-tell motels that dot the city? Considering the blight, crime, prostitution, drug dealing, and public health & nuisance issues that these establishments create, I really don’t mind slapping some extra tax on them.