Lake Norman task force talk creates rough waters

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In case you missed it, there’s been some turmoil in the Lake Norman area involving Visit Lake Norman and the mayors of Cornelius, Davidson and Huntersville.

It all started earlier this month, when the three announced a Mayor’s Task Force on Travel and Tourism.

That news was a bombshell for Visit Lake Norman, a publicly funded agency created in 2001 by the Lake Norman Chamber of Commerce to market the lake communities and generate events for them.

The chamber wondered what was going on. What would this task force mean for the future of VLN?

But the chamber was more than shocked. It was perturbed.

Bill Russell, the chamber’s CEO, went so far as to air his concerns in a Feb. 11 blog posting, in which he wrote that the mayors formed the task force “without the knowledge or notice to Visit Lake Norman.” In addition, Russell wrote that he was taken aback that the task force lacked “any representation from the Lake Norman chamber or the leadership of Visit Lake Norman. However, the more troubling aspect of this was the lack of any hotel representation in this task force.”

It was an odd display of discord between a chamber of commerce and local government officials, who generally get along or at least keep their negative opinions about one another to themselves.

Since Russell lashed out, there’s some uncertainty as to what direction the task force will take.

On Wednesday, in Russell’s weekly e-mail newsletter to chamber members, he wrote that “roughly 10 days after the announcement of a Mayor’s Task Force on Travel and Tourism, the mayor-appointed committee has been suspended at this time.”

The chamber, he wrote, “objected not to the composure of the task force but the obvious omissions of significant stakeholders, namely the hotel owners themselves.”

In a way, the whole thing could be good for VLN, as Russell has used the brouhaha as a platform to discuss the way VLN is being funded.

State legislation passed in 2001 allowed for a portion of prepared food taxes collected in Mecklenburg County to go toward luring visitors to the towns in the northern part of the county, Russell said.

But, he said, the towns’ investment in VLN has steadily declined. Today, the towns collect about $2.6 million a year in hospitality taxes between hotel occupancy taxes and the prepared meals tax, of which only $44,145 goes to VLN, he said.

“That means approximately $2.1 million dollars of hospitality taxes, intended through state legislation to promote visitors spending, is currently being spent in ways which may or may not increase hotel and restaurant revenues,” he wrote in the Wednesday newsletter.

So while the news of the task force hit VLN like a rogue wave on an otherwise pleasant day at the beach, it could open up a conversation between government officials and the chamber about funding for VLN.

It’s an observation Russell himself made in the newsletter.

“Perhaps in an ironic way,” he wrote, “the mayor’s task force on travel and tourism may have already served its greatest function without ever convening by creating a dialogue and awareness that Visit Lake Norman is not receiving the funding it needs to make the Lake Norman region a destination for the amateur sports, recreational and leisure market.”

Editor Deon Roberts can be reached at [email protected].