WEEKEND EDITION
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2020
City defers TOT payments SERVING OUR COMMUNITY SINCE 1879 • WWW.TRIPLICATE.COM
Hotels can wait until August for transient tax payments By David Hayes The Triplicate
While Crescent City is experiencing a shortfall of tax revenues during the coronavirus shut down, the City Council approved allowing innkeepers extra time to remit their transient occupancy taxes (TOT) for the first quarter ending in March.
At a special meeting on April 28, the council members unanimously approved an urgency ordinance allowing owners of hotels, motels Airbnbs, vacation rentals and RV parks until Aug. 31 to remit the 10 percent TOT. Finance Director Linda Leaver explained that the move allows city staff to capture the funds in the current fiscal year 2019-20. A second option of deferring the TOT payments until Oct. 13 would force staff to count the revenue to the 2020-21 fiscal year. Leaver said in her research,
there aren’t many cities deferring TOT remittance, but those that are have set the end of August or sooner as a deadline. “Deferring payment of this TOT might provide some shortterm cash flow relief to these businesses to allow them to get some other plans in order or obtain other financing to help them through this,” Leaver said. She said 21 lodging facilities have already remitted their TOT for January through March. “If the hotel uses that TOT money to basically pay its own expenses during this time, then,
of course, they’re going to be faced with having to recover that money in order to pay the city back at a future time on top of whatever TOT they will owe in that future quarter,” Leaver added. The transient occupancy tax is a 10 percent tax the city imposes on guests who stay at lodging facilities city limits. The TOT makes up 25 percent of Crescent City’s general fund, with the money going toward public safety, recreation and other city services, Leaver explained. However, City Manager Eric
Wier said with the closure of the facilities that collect the TOT, the city is in jeopardy of losing several hundred thousand dollars in revenue. “Cash flows will be starting to be depleted so we do have to be very mindful from a fiscal standpoint when it comes to all decisions from this point out,” Wier said. A special City Council meeting was scheduled for May 7 to discuss the city’s financial situation, Wier said. Please see TOT, Page A7
County requests relief in next bill Supervisors seek assurance small communities aren’t left out of stimulus By David Hayes The Triplicate
Surviving the crisis
Contributed Photos
Jeffe and Tera Wood’s small family farm has been hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. The family raises sheep, pigs and cattle on the farm near Crescent City.
Woodhaven family farm adapts to COVID-19 economic closures
By David Hayes The Triplicate
Last week, Jeffe Wood stood within the boundary of his new 70-acre farm, feeding hay to his 300 or so East Friesian sheep. As the co-proprietor of Woodhaven Farms with his wife Tera, Wood was both amazed, thinking back to their start with just 30 sheep while still attending college, and terrified at the uncertain future of their industry if the economy doesn’t open back up from the COVID-19 shutdown. Wood, 34, grew up in Crescent City. He and Tera started Woodhaven Farms when they were still in college, “because I
Sheep feed on hay at the Woodhaven Farms near Crescent City. need to do things with my hands or I get bored,” Wood said. “We decided what’s better than starting the business we wanted right now in school and
we can practically apply what we’re learning in class. I’m an animal science major, wife is major in microbiology,” Wood said.
Tera was going to be a veterinarian, he added but concentrated on raising the family instead. They chose to raise a dual-purpose breed of sheep rather than a single-purpose dairy cow or beef cow. “Other parts of the world, milking sheep is more common than milking cows or goats. Their production is ideal for a family or a small town to have few of those sheep, where a cow produces tons and has a lot of high feed requirement. Sheep are browsers, more sustainable, makes you think about natural ecosystem and how they work,” Wood explained. Please see Farm, Page A2
Log Cabin Diner opens, then closes its doors
By David Hayes The Triplicate
Ed Salsedo and Sherry Scott just wanted to reopen their Log Cabin Diner to dine-in service so they could pay the bills. The Yurok Tribe just wanted to keep the elderly, vulnerable population within the reservation in Klamath free of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Three days after first opening the diner, Salsedo told The Triplicate on Tuesday he and Scott have relented to official pressure and will only offer take-out dining options. “We’re going to be doing takeout. We’ll do their game for right
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now,” Salsedo said. “We put a couple tables outside and we welcome people to come order and eat the food outside.” The decision came the morning after the Yurok Tribal Police Department, in coordination with the Yurok Tribe’s Incident Command team and Public Health Officer, delivered a cease and desist letter Monday night advising Scott and Salsedo to immediately discontinue a dine-in service. “We informed the diner owners that they must take the sitdown option off the menu. The letter is one of multiple actions we have taken to prevent this Please see Diner, Page A7
David Hayes, The Triplicate
The Log Cabin Diner offered dine-in service on Saturday but stopped after receiving pushback from county and tribal officials.
Del Norte County Supervisors voted Wednesday in a special session to send a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urging them to make sure smaller communities get a piece of the pie in the next COVID-19 stimulus bill. District 1 Supervisor Roger Gitlin was the lone holdout, wanting the county to explore other interventions rather than a bailout. The letter first thanked Pelosi and Schumer for their advocacy of funding state and local governments of all sizes during the pandemic, then urges them to continue that advocacy in the next round of stimulus. The letter also points to Del Norte County’s support of HR 6467 — the Coronavirus Community Relief Act. The CMRA proposes $250 billion in direct funding to all local governments on a per capita basis, allowing them to use those dollars to offset a loss in revenue due to the pandemic. “It is critically important that in any future negotiations,” the county’s letter reads, “you please support ensuring that all local governments get some funding, including smaller counties like ours, and that minimum thresholds or funding formulas like (Community Development Block Grant), which leave us to rely on the state for a potential allocation are not used.” District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard initially proposed drafting and sending a letter to Pelosi and Schumer. He said the California State Association of Counties, Rural Counties Representatives of California and the League of California cities have been lobbying for the issue in both the House and Senate. “A lot of COVID relief packages come directly to businesses, which are in dire need of funding, but counties are also suffering. It is our intent to push both the Senate and the House to move forward with direct funding to counties where the state wouldn’t have administrative oversight,” Howard said. Please see Stimulus, Page A6
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