In his column, “Don’t Come Here, You’ll Drown” J.J. Gasparotti explains that Laguna is at the same time both spending tax dollars to bring in more tourists while also spending tax dollars to try to deal with the impacts of tourists. And the revenue the city collects from tourists does not cover what the tourists cost the city to provide the additional city services they require. So why should the city spend taxpayer dollars to bring more tourists when they both negatively impact quality of life and cost taxpayers more that they contribute? They are not paying their fair share of the costs they create.
As one of our council members astutely pointed out at a recent City Council meeting, “They will come anyway.” True, but until the city leadership and the business community that caters to tourists can figure out how to both mitigate the physical impacts of tourists and mitigate the negative financial impacts of tourists, why spend the taxpayer dollars paid in by the residents to bring more tourists? Why use taxpayer dollars to dig the hole deeper? As J.J. says in his column, this is no longer a time where the residents of Laguna work for tourist dollars. Today the residents are subsidizing the tourists and the businesses that are here primarily to focus on tourists. If you wonder why some of the things you’d like to see done that would benefit the residents are not getting done, a major reason is that a big chunk of what the residents pay the city is diverted to pay all the extra costs of servicing tourists. We hear about the extra revenue that tourists bring in, but we don’t hear about the extra costs.
J.J. mentions the $4 cost of tourists. Underscore that is the shortage per tourist per day, not the total cost. It is the difference between what the city collects in revenue attributable to tourists and what it costs the city. Minus $4 each. The $5.6 million annual sales tax increase recently voted down is peanuts compared to the $25 or $30 million per year that is not being collected from tourists that represents their fair share of the costs they are not contributing. Continuing to spend taxpayer dollars for this purpose and promoting city policies that do the same thing makes no sense, and thanks to J.J. Gasparotti for saying so.
John Thomas, Laguna Beach
