Hotel tax may have saved Mountain Laurel

By DAVID HULSE

MILFORD, PA — Pike Commissioner Richard Caridi says that the February 16 approval of a new hotel tax snatched the financially troubled Mountain Laurel Performing Arts Center from the brink of another and likely final financial failure.

The commissioners approved Ordinance No. 15 on February 16 to authorize collection of the tax beginning on April 1. Revenues will go to support tourism-related marketing and will be administered by the Pocono Mountain Vacation Bureau (PMVB), the regional tourism promotion agency for Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne counties.

But a related and equally important decision came earlier with the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Mountain Laurel and the PMVB, which would provide up to $1 million a year in operating capital for the financially troubled performing arts center in Bushkill.

Caridi said that lacking the completion of that memorandum, the Pike Commissioners would not have signed off on the new tax. While the commissioners cannot direct the PMVB how to spend the tax money, up to $775,000 annually from Pike alone, Caridi said they did make it clear that there would be no new tax without funding for Mountain Laurel. “We held their [PMVB] feet to the fire on that,” he said.

And lacking the new tax, Mountain Laurel would not have survived, he said. The funding, or promise of funding, was needed to leverage other funding that Mountain Laurel had to have this month in order to book talent for the upcoming season. “If they hadn’t gotten it, I’m sure the bondholders [the original financial backers] would have petitioned for the sale of the property and that land would have wound up as another housing development,” Caridi said.

Bob Uguccioni, executive director of the PMVB, said Mountain Laurel is still not out of the woods financially, as other funding issues have to be resolved by March 1. “They have to get funding from the governor’s office and other sources. Clearly, we’re one part, but if the others don’t occur, this agreement doesn’t engage,” he said.

Part of the process will involve the sale of a portion of the Mountain Laurel property to raise operating capital. Caridi said that Governor Ed Rendell’s office had insisted that local funding was needed to initiate any new funding that the center would get.

Uguccioni said the final deal with Pike also addresses other concerns about local marketing issues as a portion of the tax money is also being re-directed through the commissioners to fund local tourism marketing efforts. “It’s a win-win situation,” he said.

Caridi said the commissioners approved the ordinance with a three-year sunset, which would allow them to evaluate how the money is being used when it comes time to renew the tax or drop it.

In the meantime, Caridi was pleased that the commissioners had been able to act in a timely manner. “I don’t want it laid at my feet that I didn’t do everything I could [for Mountain Laurel]. I’ll be looking forward to the day when it doesn’t need Pike County,” he said.

Currently only Monroe and Pike counties will be collecting the tax this spring and between them $1.2 to $1.8 million in new revenues is expected.

Uguccioni said the PMVB is continuing to work with Wayne and Carbon counties, which are also represented by the PMVB. “We’re still talking,” he said.

Wayne County officials in past have been concerned about PMVB’s high dues, $60 per room for resorts. “We’ve promised to reduce that by half,” Uguccioni said.