City, Chamber, and GMA dealings with lodging tax money

Marzeles Editor

After two heated verbal attacks on the Goldendale Chamber of Commerce by Dennis Schroder at Goldendale city council meetings in January, the Chamber addressed many of his comments.

The Sentinel reported on its rebuttal last week.

Schroder is not a city resident but has been involved in financial requests to the City.

Among other things, Schroder complained that the Chamber was sloppy about how it requested and used its lodging tax funding from the City of Goldendale.

Those funds, drawn from taxes paid at area hotels and motels across the state, are distributed each year by the state to counties and municipalities for them to appropriate to organizations specifically to increase tourism in the area. Because many groups request a slice of that pie, the City has to determine how much of its disbursements will go to each group, which in turn is based on the amounts each group requests; the request is not always what they actually receive. (Read the city council story on this page to see what organizations received funding for 2023.)

Schroder said the Chamber too often requested more money than it ended up using each year, meaning other groups—such as the Goldendale Motorsports Association (GMA), with which Schroder was centrally involved for many years—would be allocated portions that remained after the Chamber and other groups were given their slices. Because the funds are allocated this way, most of a year could go by, and then it would be discovered that more funds for other groups could have been allocated if the City had known the Chamber (or any other group) was not going to use all its allotted funds. According to Schroder, the Chamber ended up costing other groups (especially GMA, Schroder complained) by “reserving” money it didn’t fully use.

The Sentinel spoke with Goldendale City Administrator Pat Munyan, since Schroder’s remarks chiefly had to do with how the Chamber was using the City’s lodging tax funds, intended to be spent on events that would draw tourism to Goldendale. Much of what the Chamber does is focused on that goal, which is why it routinely applies for, and is granted, a portion of those funds.

“The City has an agreement for tours and promotion services with the Greater Goldendale Area Chamber of Commerce,” Munyan said. “I get that Mr. Schroeder feels that the Chamber is treated differently, and I guess to a certain extent they may be treated differently. But they’re a broader service organization, other than a one-time event putting on a car show. The nature of what they do is very different.”

The lodging tax money, Munyan was pointing out, is chiefly intended to fund specific events, not supply an organization with operating capital, though in the case of the Chamber, its scope of activities related to tourism attraction is much broader than typical of most groups.

“The Chamber has these agreements that have an appendix, a statement of work that just talks about general services like printing material, tourism, wifi, building operation, web-based marketing support, that type of thing,” Munyan says. “It’s just part of the function of a Chamber. What they were doing was taking whatever they were awarded per month and dividing that by 12, and then invoicing the city for those services.” That means the Chamber was not simply handed the whole sum of lodging tax money it was allocated at one time; it was required to spend money on a function or event, then submit receipts for its expenditures for reimbursement from the City’s allocated funds. Munyan says the City has asked the Chamber to break down its expenditures more fully in recent years.

Munyan believes some of Schroder’s points don’t really hold water. “He has a right to his opinion,” Munyan says, “and I respect that. But I don’t understand why he’s bringing us up continuously.” Schroder has a fairly long history of reproaching the City and making multitudinous public records requests to it. “He came in and complained, and the City listened to him and said, ‘Okay, we’re going to require a more itemized bill from the Chamber.’ And they’ve been doing that.”

In his last public comments at a city council meeting, Schroder made a thinly veiled claim that the City was covering its tracks by posting misleading or delib-

See Money page A8

The Goldendale City Council covered a lot of ground in a busy session Monday. It began with a unique presentation by five members of the Goldendale Middle School chapter of the Future Farmers of America. They presented a panel discussion podcast in which each FFA member played a stakeholder in the growing trend for electric vehicles, now reaching the agricultural sector. Last names were not listed on the program, but we can report that Madison played the part of narrator and host, Emma was a representative for the mythical Monarch Tractor Company, Jordan took the role of a U.S. Department of Agriculture representative, Sierra played a Goldendale farmer, and Jack was a local farm mechanic. Their discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of converting to electric tractors was well received by the council, which complimented them on tackling a very real controversial subject.

Mindy Jackson of the Chamber of Commerce and local artist Felicia Gray presented a video promoting Goldendale as a destination and unveiled the idea of a place where tourists could pose in front of a background showing the word “Goldendale” with imag- es inside the letters’ outlines depicting various local attractions. They also noted there would be a public meeting on the “Art at the Heart” project Thursday the 9th at 6 p.m. at the Goldendale Grange.

Mayor Mike Canon read a proclamation declaring February Red Cross Month, and councilors approved several other items, including:

• A Washington State Department of Commerce federal grant in the amount of $1,036,800 to build and operate a small business incubator center in the Goldendale Industrial Park.

• A $45,020.35 agreement for 911 and dispatch services for 2023 from Klickitat County Emergency Management.

• A $61,849 consulting engineer and survey agreement with Pioneer Surveying and Engineering of Goldendale.

• A two-year agreement for storage and office space at City Hall with Central Klickitat Conservation District. City Administrator Pat Munyan advocated it as a rentfree agreement, saying, “I think it’s very important that government agencies, instead of trying to bill each other for every little thing all the time, try to work together.”

And finally, councilors awarded $86,700 in tourism funds, short of

See City page A8

The Washington State Department of Commerce was awarded a $9 million grant last week from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that will provide new housing for people experiencing homelessness in Klickitat, Island, Mason, Skamania, Thurston, Whatcom, and Yakima counties. Funds will be used over the next three years for a variety of supports including temporary rent assistance, project operations, and supportive services for emergency housing assistance, as well as permanent housing solutions.

“Availability of rapid housing and supportive services is critical to bringing people inside today and preventing homelessness over the long term. This funding from HUD will immediately help to expand the work our service providers are able to

Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, R-Goldendale, wants to make sure companies don’t profit at the expense of sexual assault survivors in Washington state. The 14th District lawmaker has introduced legislation that would ban the sale of do-it-yourself (DYI) rape kits.

“In recent years, several companies have sought to profit by selling over-the-counter, do-ityourself ‘evidence collection’ do in communities all over the state,” said Gov. Jay Inslee.

“Washington is known for innovation and collaboration in addressing our greatest challenges, and homelessness is no different,” said Commerce Director Lisa Brown. “We are grateful to HUD for recognizing our successful approaches and partnerships that are making a difference. Homelessness is not just an urban problem, and this funding will be important to expanding some of those efforts in our rural communities.”

Klickitat County will see some of those funds via the Washington Gorge Action Program (WAGAP), which will receive $809,603 to expand services through a new program providing emergency housing vouchers and temporary rental assistance for approximately 28 households