The Corrector just got an update on what has been happening with the TBID district that was proposed by the Havre Chamber and a few of the local motel owners. You may recall our story back towards the end of February about the motels banding together in order to charge themselves a room assessment of one dollar per night which would be used to promote Havre and the attractions we offer. http://havredailycorrector.blogspot.com/2010/02/local-motels-band-together-to-promote.html
After taking the proposal to the Hill County Commissioners the motel owners and the Chamber was made to wait over a month while the commissioners, still stinging from the passage of the City of Havre’s recent annexation decided to punish these businesses which were now in City Limits and vote no, no, and hell no. The motel group rebanded, re-wrote the proposal and submitted it to the Havre City Council who took one look at it and voted immediately to accept this great offer to promote Havre at no cost to the local taxpayers. This room assessment would be paid by people spending the night in Havre and was estimated to be able to generate close to $80,000 per year to be used to promote Havre. http://havredailycorrector.blogspot.com/2010/03/hill-county-commissioners-give-motel.html
In light of this we have to wonder why we would continue to support a business that thinks so poorly of us “backwards thinking” people. Why oh why would the Town Pump Corporation take this attitude towards Havre? Maybe it was because their motel is now ranked #5 of the 6 ranked by the travel advising websites such as http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g45209-Havre_Montana-Hotels.html ? From the “Premier” motel to a ranking of 5 out of 6
Be sure and recommend the motels that support Havre. The 3 leaders in the drive to help Havre were the Havre Super 8 @265-1411, the Great Northern Inn @265-4200, and the Americinn @395-5000
What say you “backwards thinking" peeps?
I don't really see much difference between this and the active shouting to stop, destroy, and forever kill the medical marijuana industry that is attempting to do business in Havre.
ReplyDeleteWell, I know I won't be supporting the Town Pump any where now. What a bunch of cry babies. And to DeConstructor: the topic is not marijuana.
ReplyDeleteBut on the other hand the Town House did host the Medical Marijuania convention that was held on Easter Sunday here in Havre. So let the growers support them and the rest of us can go elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThese people that own this motel are from Butte and thats where all the profits are spent.
The town house motel has been suffering because there has been little to know upkeep of the facility the town house is milking this cow dry
ReplyDeleteThey need to invest in their business but I guess they are happy being full when the summer traffic shows up.
Why were the motels annexed into the city of Havre? Why did they take theirs and the Havre Chamber of Commerce's "scheme" to the County Commissioners for approval when the City Council voted immediately to accept this great offer to promote Havre? How does the Corrector quote what the phone conversation between the Town Pump and the Chamber was? Is the raising of room prices really the way to entice people to Havre? Does anyone really think the free advertising for these motels won't cost someone some money? When they all suddenly start failing, who will get the blame?
ReplyDeleteTom Patrick is part owner in the American inn,so i will be boycotting him and the townhouse inn.The railroad made Tom rich and he can't even give his workers a christmas bonus,he takes the food out of railroaders and their families mouths,and he won't even give a railroad discount.So have fun in the carribean you scab.
ReplyDeleteHow many of you "boycotters" use Havre motels if you are from here?
ReplyDeleteI am a member of the Chamber so I do know that the phone quote used here is pretty accurate. I don't know anything about bonuses from Patrick but I do know as a business person things were real tight this last year. There were no bonuses at my place either and I just was happy to make it thru the last year with this crappy economy and hope the economy improves next year
ReplyDeleteMy thought was that if this advertising campaign brought anyone at all to Havre that would buy something from us in the process it would be a good thing for everyone
Things like this is why Havre is dying on the vine. Nobody wants to promote Havre.
ReplyDeleteAlso Fedup the railroad puts that contract that Patrick holds up for bid eery year. You should buy some heavy equipment and you could be rich too and sitting in the caribean> I don't know how much Patrick makes but I do know he provides jobs for lots of men
To superman patrick does not bid on that job at all,he happened to be a brother in-law to an official at the bnsf car dept.And he pays his laborers $10.00 an hour.
ReplyDeleteTo willy some of us have out of town family and friends that come to town and word of mouth is a powerful weapon.
I do not understand the Tom Patrick comment He is a partner in the hotel and his hotel offered to pay the tax to better the community. If fed up is a employee of Tom's he should seek other employment and if he is a rail worker he should look at his labor union and ask why they have allowed the railroad to give his job to a outside contractor?? could it be that the railroad lottery was paying out to much???
ReplyDeleteAs far as the alleged comment made by the Town House Inn think about it if you were going to give a community FREE money to promote the town and you had to fight and begg people to do so what would you think. I really do not think that the managers of the town house asid that the whole community was backwards thinkers it was probably directed at the people that were trying to tear appart this proposal and turn this good thing into a what if boogie man as normal. Some of the leaders in this community are looking for the down side of things and in doing so we as a community miss out on the chance to better our town.
ReplyDeletefredy must think the cheap motels in this town should support his business. Is he paying an tax to promote Havre
ReplyDeleteBill, I not only pay heavy taxes but also contribute to every single tourism promoting thing the Chamber does
ReplyDeleteAnd the cheap motels already opted themselves out of this assesment. It was only the 4 larger ones that agreed to this to begin with. And besides that, the dollar was to be paid by people traveling thro and staying at the motels. Every dollar that would have been used to promote Havre was to come from an out of down person
What exactly do you do Bill to promote Havre?
and on top of that Bill, the Townhouse already allows this assesment in their motels in every other town. Even Shelby has this in place. Havre is always the last to do anything to promote themselves and when someone trys idiots like you find fault with it
ReplyDeleteWe are doomed to die by our own hand
Just to clarify for everyone wondering about this TBID. The TBID is not a tax and it is collected from a tourist when they stay at the hotel. It does not affect locals and does not affect the base rate of stay at a hotel. Those familiar with Billings, they have an assessment for their downtown businesses that was used to fix up down town Billings which desperately needed it. 100 % of this assessment stays right here in Havre for locals to govern towards promoting Havre. With the annexation of the 2 hotels into the city limits, Havre will now have a kick back of bed tax that is collected that we were not able to receive before that annexation. Havre will now have funds to promote us, but the $$ have to be spent out of state. So the annexation was a very good thing. This assessment can be used with out any stipulations. It was brought to the commissioners so that any new hotels built in Hill County could be part of this. With out going through the whole process again. This is not a new thing Billings has had this in place for the past 2 yrs,other towns include Missoula, West Yellowstone, Great Falls, Bozeman, Helena, Kalispell and Glasgow. Now how many of you have stayed in one of these towns and have made a big stink about the extra $1. I have not heard of one person yet. This would be such a great thing if we could get Town House corp. to sign. It is a NO BRAINER, no free advertising that will affect anyone. No hidden costs that come back and bite someone. But Havre does need to do something to advertise and this will not only help just the hotels. The people that stay at the hotels also buy gas, food and shop. Now with the dollars spent at the hotels, gas stations, restaurants, retail stores support jobs for other people that need insurance, have medical needs, get their hair done and need vehicles. It all helps no matter what you do in Havre.
ReplyDeleteCorporate for the Townhouse was in Havre yesterday and met with Debbie Vandenburg. Interesting to see where that meeting goes or if the public will even get told what happened.
ReplyDelete