THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 21, 1996 TAG: 9605210375
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 93 lines
A 1-year-old board created to help promote tourism in Elizabeth City and Pasquotank County asked its governing bodies for more power and money on Monday.
But the City Council and Pasquotank County commissioners, holding their first joint meeting in many months, told the city/county tourism board it would have to wait for an answer.
Both governments said they would decide individually whether to expand the board's decision-making role and increase its share of county occupancy tax money sometime before they finish their budgets for the 1996-97 fiscal year.
The six-member appointed panel was created by the city and county to act as a steward over tens of thousands of dollars raised in Pasquotank County by the tax on hotel stays.
The board, which ends its first fiscal year on June 30, started with $50,000 this year to dole out to nonprofit agencies for tourism activities.
The board gave about half of its 1995-96 money to the Elizabeth City Area Chamber of Commerce and divided the rest among projects such as Jaycees fireworks, the Episcopal Cemetery renovation and a study on starting up a theater project.
Panel members have also dipped into next year's expected funds, granting the chamber $11,000 to help fund a full-time tourism manager and authorizing $1,000 to update the city's walking tour brochures.
In future years, the tourism board's charter allows it half the county's occupancy tax money from the prior year.
Under the present rules, the board's next budget will be half of the $113,374 returned to Pasquotank County in 1995, or $56,687.
But tourism board members want a bigger piece of the pie to put toward tourism development. They asked the governments Monday to give them all but $50,000 of the county's occupancy tax money each year. That would mean $63,375 this year and probable increases each year in the future.
The county in March alone increased its tourism revenue over 1995 by more than 17 percent, County Manager Randy Keaton said.
The board also wanted to become a ``tourism authority,'' with more powers to make policy and create tourism plans, rather than just doling out city and county funds.
``We feel it is vitally important that we have an overall plan,'' board Chairwoman Patsy Houtz said.
Houtz said towns such as Edenton, Washington and New Bern had more-developed tourism panels and took in larger chunks of occupancy tax money.
Council and commission members had different initial reactions to the plan of beefing up the tourism board.
Pasquotank Commissioner Jimmie Dixon, who also heads the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Commission, said he supported the group's proposal.
City Mayor Pro Tem Anita Hummer said she thought the group should grow more before expanding its mission.
``The tourism board is in its infancy,'' Hummer said. ``I think another year in the original charter, the way we set it up, would be a good thing.''
Tourism Board members disagreed.
``To tell us to go back to just listening to grants . . . and really have no plan for tourism. . . . It would break my heart if you do that,'' Houtz said. ``I don't think I can keep working under those restrictions.''
The board was also scolded for helping to hire a tourism manager for the Chamber of Commerce. Some council members thought the grant to the chamber was an effort by the tourism board to hire its own director, which is not allowed in its charter.
City Mayor H. Rick Gardner called it a ``back-door approach'' and said he disapproved. But he backed away from the remark when board members said the new tourism manager, LuAnne Pendergraft, would be an employee of the chamber and not the board.
Also at the joint meeting, city activist Paul Bryant called on the Pasquotank County government to re-examine the way it elects School Board members. Bryant said the at-large system makes it difficult for black candidates to get elected. Two black candidates were defeated in races for two board seats this month.
``The last time a black was elected to the School Board was in 1984,'' Bryant, who ran unsuccessfully for the board in 1994, wrote in a letter to commission Chairman Zee Lamb.
Bryant hinted at the possibility of a lawsuit similar to the action taken by the Pasquotank County NAACP 12 years ago, which led to a ward system for electing City Council members. Four black members sit on the council.
But Bryant said he thought a suit could be avoided if a group of commissioners, School Board members, NAACP and other civic group members met to study the issue.
``Let's sit down and take a look at whether or not our present voting system for the School Board needs changing,'' Bryant said.
City Councilman Jimi Sutton told Bryant that the first issue that needs to be addressed is getting people to vote. More than a third of the county's residents are black. Only 25 percent of the county's registered voters went to the polls on May 7.
``There are enough people to elect one or several blacks to represent our children,'' Sutton said. ``The School Board is a matter of people going out and voting.''
City Councilman Zack Robertson responded with an ``Amen.'' by CNB