PORT ANGELES — It may be the middle of summer, but city officials already are working on the 2005 city budget.
The first public step of the process was the council’s July 22 work session to set goals for the coming year.
They decided to focus on strengthening the city’s public nuisance ordinances and beautifying the city’s entrances.
The next visible step in the long process is today’s meeting of the Lodging Tax Advisory Committee.
The group meets at 3 p.m. in the public works conference room at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
The 11-member board, which has three vacancies, is responsible for recommending how the city spends the almost $400,000 it receives every year in hotel/motel taxes from visitors staying in the city’s hotels, motels, inns and other lodging establishments.
Hotel/conference center
The task is made more interesting this year by the continued inability of hotel and conference center developer Randal Jay Ehm to produce proof of project financing to the city’s satisfaction.
Ehm, president of Ehm Architecture of San Diego, has proposed a four-story hotel and conference center with 171 rooms and enough conference space for 700 people — possibly under the Marriott brand — on 3.8 waterfront acres at Front and Oak streets.
The City Council has offered Ehm a 20-year, $100,000 annual subsidy from the city’s bed taxes to fund conference center marketing.
But the council also decided if Ehm did not produce satisfactory “proof of financing” by Sept. 3, it would reconsider the offer.