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JIM THORPE — Carbon County commissioners stand to lose more than $200,000 that funds Mauch Chunk Lake Park and community grant initiatives if they accept a deal offered by the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau regarding the distribution of hotel tax revenues. Commissioner Chair Wayne Nothstein explained that the county receives half of the $700,000 it generates from the hotel tax, and the vacation bureau is offering 20 percent on the first $500,000 ($100,000) and 10 percent on the remainder ($20,000) for a total of $120,000 rather than the roughly $350,000 the county currently relies on. Only one county out of the four represented by the vacation bureau agreed to the deal so far, he said. “We met several times with representatives of the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau,” Nothstein said. “They want all agreements to be the same. They negotiated with each county individually and expect us to agree to what the other counties, or other county, has agreed to.” The commissioners acted on more than $34,000 in community grant initiatives Thursday, funding groups such as the Weatherly Hill Climb Association and the Carbon County Lion/Lioness Fair Association. They’ve previously funded the 4-H program, which had representatives at the meeting for Pennsylvania 4-H Week, Nothstein said. “It’s organizations like those that are going to really suffer if we can’t come up with a better negotiation or a better deal with the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau,” he said. “We’re not very happy with them. We will not be able to fund a lot of these projects or functions here in Carbon County.” The county is tasked with adopting a hotel tax ordinance and collecting the funds through the treasurer’s office, but the county now has little or no say what happens to the money, Nothstein said. “We do not want to see that funding go away. So we continue to negotiate,” he said. Community grants approved Thursday were from funds generated last year, before the hotel tax legislation changed in April, Commissioner William O’Gurek said. The revisions in the legislation were completely adverse to the counties and the agencies funded by the program, solicitor Dan Miscavige said. “We’re going to fight for the rest of it in the future,” O’Gurek said, adding the board would like to see an agreement by the end of March. “I know I’m not voting to turn any money over to them for the first quarter of 2017 unless we have a memorandum of understanding, and it could go further than that. “We might vote to disenfranchise them as the promotion agency for Carbon County and go in a different direction. That’s where we stand with this,” he said. Commissioner Tom Gerhard said they’re disappointed with Carl Wilgus, head of the vacation bureau, and with the lack of communication and the bureau’s failure to recognize their memorandum of understanding, which guaranteed the county half of the money generated by the hotel tax. “The Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau has a presence in the train station and they pay zero rent. That may end,” Gerhard said. “These guys want to play hard ball. Guess what? We are not the bad guys here. We are taking a significant hit here and we’re just standing up for what we believe in.” The county made it clear to the vacation bureau that it wants a share of the money it generates to come back to the county for community grants, and have the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce distribute them, O’Gurek said. “They don’t want to give it to us,” he said. “We want that money to go to our organizations so they can continue to do the good work that they do. They’ve got to make up their mind, if they’re going to buy into that, or we’re going to get someone else to handle that money and give that money in the form of grants. “And it could be the chamber of commerce. It’s up to them,” he said. The county is not going to roll over and play dead because the vacation bureau wants to force a different deal, Gerhard said. “We’re not ‘yes’ people,” he said. “I’m on board with my fellow commissioners. We’re going to fight until we get it right.” Nothstein feels the bureau pitted one county against the other, instead of negotiating with all four counties at the same time, “That is not right,” he said, adding that he requested that each of the counties have voting membership on vacation bureau’s board. The county has one representative on the 40-member board. “Right now, we have absolutely no say,” Nothstein said, “other than coming up with an agreement and that will not happen under the current agreement that Wayne County has. It’s not going to happen.” O’Gurek explained that they want the county to share in the revenues it generates, and it didn’t have to be half. But the bureau wants to give the county only 20 percent, which is money that funds Mauch Chunk Lake Park. “It puts the commissioners in the predicament of saying if you’re only giving us 20 percent of the money, do you give it the park, or do you give it to the grant program?” he said. “If you give it to the park, the grant program goes away. If you give it to the grant program, then we got to use taxpayers’ dollars to fund the park. It puts us in a predicament that we don’t want to be in, especially when we’re the one that’s generating the $700,000.” The county isn’t asking for anything new but a continuation of what has been in place since 2007, Treasurer Ron Sheehan said. The commissioners at the time wouldn’t enact the hotel tax without the memorandum of understanding in place, he said. “We probably had the most lucrative memorandum of understanding,” Gerhard said. The county would be going from $350,000 a year under the old memorandum of understanding to $120,000 a year under the deal the vacation bureau wants the county to accept, O’Gurek said. “They get all the money,” he said. “If we’re going to be Santa Claus, we’re not going to be Santa Claus for one person. We’re going to be Santa Claus for everybody. We want to be able to give organizations like (4-H) grants and gifts, especially when we’re generating the money. “They don’t seem to get that message,” O’Gurek said. Read the original article here.