One of the longest-running heartbreak sagas in Olympia has been over funding arts in King County. Each year for the past six, the nonprofit organization 4Culture, which passes along hotel-motel and other visitor tax money to the arts, has asked the legislature for a continuation of those funds as they start running out in 2012. The funds are mostly earmarked for Seattle’s two big stadiums, plus paying off the demolished Kingdome. In an ideal world they would terminate when the stadiums are paid off. In the real world, many clamor for their continuation.
4Culture, which gets some of this money, has a good place in the line for its continuation. They’ve played ball with the Sonics in some years, letting arts give a high-minded cover for the sports barons. The last two years, arts has played along with Speaker Frank Chopp, who wants some of the money for low-income housing. (Chopp’s demand is a stretch of the nexus supposedly established between taxing hotel visitors and providing benefits, like stadiums and culture, that bring more visitors.) Others like the UW, wanting the money for part of a new Husky Stadium, are also lined up. After all, these visitor taxes are just about the only new money around in Olympia.
Speaker Chopp likes to keep all the supplicants waiting to the last minute, so he can then cut the deal. And then he usually disappoints everybody because the deal won’t come together. Last year he set a new record in cleverness by giving 4Culture a promise of the funds, expiring in a year. And he assured the arts groups that he would definitely come through this year, so long as he also got, dollar-for-dollar, his low-income housing.
Once again: no dice. The bill for the visitor taxes has just failed in the House, probably for good during this session.
A lesser-known aspect of this saga is another culture-funding measure that has been told to wait in line for the 4Culture matter to be resolved. This is the effort to import from Denver a much-admired pattern for funding culture, arts education, “scientific institutions” like zoos, science centers, and botanical gardens by having local voters over four counties agree to tax themselves (either by sales tax or property tax). The advocates (including me for a while) courteously agreed to keep a low profile, so as not to confuse the minds of the legislators while they tried to resolve the 4Culture issue.
And so the arts groups, growing ever more desperate in the recession, face more uncertainty, more expensive lobbying bills, and still no public funding. It’s another illustration of how narrow the Seattle issues are for Speaker Chopp, D-Seattle. And of how the unwelcome idea of funding Husky Stadium renovations in tough times clouded everything.
The source article you site above was updated last night with some corrections, namely:
1) “Once again: no dice. The bill for the visitor taxes has just failed in the House, probably for good during this session.” was updated to say “Once again its looking like no dice. The bill for the visitor taxes has passed the House, stripped of Husky Stadium money, and now appears heading for defeat in the Senate. If it does make it through the Senate, it has a chance of going to the House for concurrence. Don’t hold your breath. ”
2) The statement “In an ideal world they would terminate when the stadiums are paid off. In the real world, many clamor for their continuation.” was changed more accurately to say, “Once the bonds are retired in 2020, 4Culture hopes to have a steady and increased share of these lodging taxes, used to promote tourism in many counties around the state.”
Lodging tax, isn’t scheduled to end. It is ongoing in 32 counties throughout the state to fund tourism promotion activities. The state is simply considering how to designate the use of King County lodging tax revenues in the future, after their current uses toward stadiums are retired in 2020.