Chehalis resident Harold Borovec has engineered the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad & Museum Easter Train for 26 years.
The Chehalis City Council approved the city’s Lodging Tax Advisory Committee’s recommendations on Monday night, awarding $237,000 to nine organizations.
All but one of the requests was approved in the full amount or more.
The Lewis County Historical Museum was the only entity that received less funding than it requested. The museum requested $35,000, but was awarded $5,000 less than that. The money will be used to pay for the operation of the museum, market events and promote the museum.
The money comes from a tax on hotels and motels within city limits and is dispersed to causes and organizations that bring more overnight visitors to the city.
Other organizations received the following:
• Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum received $30,000 for marketing and promotion of the steam train.
• Veterans Memorial Museum received $23,000 for general marketing of the museum and its events.
• The city, for its Chehalis Wedding Show, received $13,000 to continue the show.
• Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce, for its visitor center services, received $40,000 so the chamber can serve as the official visitor center for Chehalis.
• Lewis Community Trails, for Ride the Willapa, received $29,500 for marketing and promotion of the event.
• Friends of the Chehalis Community Renaissance received $50,000 to fund year-round promotion and marketing of Chehalis.
• The city manager’s office received $1,500 to help fund several organization’s tourism services and for half of the maintenance cost of the city’s website.
• The community development department received $20,000 to fund athletic tournaments
The LTAC committee received the nine requests at $236,625 and approved the recommendation for an amount higher than that at $237,000.
“I can say that we’ve had two or three good years in the hotel, motel industry,” Councilor Terry Harris said. Harris is the council representative on the committee and is also committee chairman. “It really went fairly well, although it was nice to know we had more money in the account than what was being requested.”
Councilor Tony Ketchum raised concerns about the amount of money being allocated for the Ride the Willapa event, given that the end of the ride festival is held in Pe Ell and not Chehalis.
Harris said that although that is the case, there is talk about reversing the ride so it ends in Chehalis. He also said regardless of whether that happens, many of the people still come to Chehalis and stay at least one night in the city, adding money to the local economy.
There are still over $150,000 left in reserves from the lodging tax, which Harris said could be used to help move projects at both Recreation Park and Stan Hedwall Park to expand the sporting facilities and events held there.
Along with the approved funding, the council voted to reappoint LTAC members to the board.
Todd Chaput, of Holiday Inn Express and Suites; Gloria Choi, of Econo Lodge; Jena Sorenson, of Riverside Golf Club; Rick Burchett, with the Chehalis-Centralia Railroad and Museum; Alicia Bull, with the chamber; and Chip Duncan, with the veterans museum, were all reappointed.
“We have a good committee,” Harris said, adding the members are good stewards of the money.
Membership of the LTAC committee must include at least two representatives of businesses required to collect hotel-motel tax, two people involved in activities who are authorized to be funded by the tax, and one elected official who serves as chairperson.
The council approved both measures in a joint motion with a 6-0 vote. Councilor Chad Taylor abstained from voting since his business, The Silver Agency, has helped some of those requesting funds with marketing.
