Letter to the Editor

Fellow Eureka Spring Voters, as General Manager of the Basin Park & Crescent Hotels many have asked me to share my thoughts on one critical issue that is on the City of Eureka Springs ballot. Issue No. 3 asks you to eliminate the CAPC commission and remove the tax that supports its important work. I STRONGLY OPPOSE this idea and ask you to vote against this item.

Here’s why: When potential visitors decide to take a trip, the thought of coming to Eureka Springs doesn’t happen without effort. In fact, thousands of hours and significant financial investments are made to keep Eureka Springs on top of mind as a destination. We make this investment so when visitors are ready to travel, they remember us and they BOOK EUREKA.

This work, often unseen, is the foundation of the tourism that supports our city’s sole industry. It includes the following, funded by CAPC tax collections:

• VisitEurekaSprings Website

• Instagram, Facebook, Social Media posts

• Nearly a Million Dollars in Brand Advertising

• Production of City Wide Festivals: Folk Festival, May Festival of the Arts, Music in the Park

• Financial Support & promotion of All Festivals and Events, Including our Blues Festival

• Annual investments in Christmas Lights & promotions • Management of the City Auditorium

• Visitor Center grant to the Historic Museum

• Wedding and Group Travel Sales

• Answering Lead requests by handling Phones and Emails.

I asked my team to think of it like this: At the hotels, imagine the negative impact on hotel revenue and specifically their job if we decided to eliminate: Our Marketing Team, Our Weddings & Sales Team and then stop all events we host:

• Blues Festival,

• New Year’s Eve,

• OzMoMu

• Christmas. Our business could be cut by as much as half, and our ability to reinvest in the physical plant of the property, “Protecting the Irreplaceable” would stop.

In the City of Eureka Springs, CAPC collections pay for similar services. These activities generate visitation, and the visitors then pay city sales tax to fund our city infrastructure, police, and fire departments. The CAPC tax is used to attract visitors, the city sales tax is used to pay for services.

In summary: Outcomes are clear. If this vote passes, the city’s office of advertising and promotion and the auditorium will lose all funding, services will stop, and they will close. Those outcomes translate into fewer visitors and less sales tax. Unacceptable.

I strongly encourage you to vote, and I ask you to vote AGAINST Issue 3.

— Jack Moyer