Lake Santeetlah – Funding for the town’s tourism authority was ended after the town council voted to discontinue charging a bed tax to lodging providers in the town, but the authority has been using unspent funds on a beautification project at the entrance to the town.
During the Nov. 10 town council meeting, mayor Connie Gross told council member Diana Simon – who was in charge of the tourism authority – to turn in a debit card Simon had been using to pay Tourism Development Authority expenses.
Simon asked for a formal request and as Gross started to write a request on a sheet of paper, Simon said it would need to be on town letterhead.
“Do not spend any more funds on the debit card,” Gross responded. “Is that clear? I can’t be any more clear.”
The town council received results of its annual audit that were clean – other than that some tourism development expenditures were mis-categorized and pending further review.
Jack Gross, husband of the town’s mayor, accused the authority of unauthorized overspending. He said that a gateway beautification project – in which tourism development was involved – did not include a sign identifying the authority as providing funds for the project.
In an email to The Graham Star following the meeting, Simon disputed Jack Gross’ assertions.
“This is not factually correct,” Simon said.
She said there was an error in the tourism development authority’s portion of the town audit. Some information that the auditor used was mis-categorized and the error was brought to the auditor’s attention.
“Despite the auditor making clear that the TDA portion of the audit was under further review, a citizen stated that the TOLS audit reported errors in spending by the Tourism Development Authority,” Simon said. “The citizen ignored the auditor’s word of caution and presented misinformation by implying the TDA be investigated.”
Simon said the town’s tourism development authority has worked closely with Graham County Travel & Tourism and GREAT (Graham Revitalization Economic Action Team) to promote Lake Santeetlah, which in turn brings tourism dollars to Graham County and its communities.
In the past four years, the tourism authority has exceeded $70,000 revenue from vacation rental guests to advertise and promote tourism in our community and Graham County, she said.
“This benefits everyone, from business owners to vacation rental owners, even outside of Lake Santeetlah,” Simon said. “It is unfortunate that this source of revenue to promote Graham County has been removed by the current sitting TOLS council.”
Parking issues
Town officials are hearing complaints about construction equipment being parked on town-owned property – but at present, do not have any authority to do anything about it.
The council appointed council member Tina Emerson to research the best step forward.
The group discussed installing no-parking signs, but first the town needs an enforceable parking policy before any other action could be taken.
Construction companies working on houses in the town have been leaving their heavy equipment parked along town roads. It saves the companies, often headquartered outside of Graham County, the time and expense of moving their equipment at the end of the day.
There is not a lot of public parking and the construction companies need to put their equipment somewhere, Town Administrator Kim Matheson told the board.
Emerson said she would put together ideas in time for the December council meeting.
The council holds its next meeting at 5:30 p.m. at Santeetlah Town Hall (1 Marina Dr.) Meetings are livestreamed on The Graham Star's Facebook.