TOT not fair to hotel owners

Three years ago, the motel & hotel owners in Chula Vista voted to approve an amendment to the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) of 2 1/2% (on top of the existing 10%) that persons staying in our motels/hotels would have to pay. It’s purpose was to “put more heads in beds.” All the taxed money, in turn, was given to the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce to implement.

The 2 ½% tax has raised more than $400,000 per year. After three years, there is some dissatisfaction with it. (1) The Chamber has not produced any study or facts that show it had any impact. That seems a pretty elementary thing to do, but apparently they did not or cannot do it. (2) As best as we can figure, at least 50% of these funds went to supporting Chamber people and normal operations. (3) We have been told that the MEMBERS of the Chula Vista Chamber of Commerce only pay about $250,000 of dues themselves.

After recently watching four hours of brain-numbing discussion between the Chamber and our City Council, our conclusion is that the Chamber, while perhaps well-meaning in the beginning, ended up just suckering the motel/hotel owners and the City Council into a tax program which is being used primarily to support normal Chamber activities, with no demonstrated benefit to the motels/hotels. That simply is not fair to the motels/hotels. Looking at the numbers, it would appear that the Chamber members simply do not contribute enough to support their own Chamber of Commerce.

This is wrong.

Susan and Peter Watry
Chula Vista 

We must protect woman’s right to choice

Sunday is the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. This safe, legal procedure must remain available to women as part of comprehensive reproductive health care. Proposed restrictions to legal abortion care are unacceptable and are opposed by the majority of the public as well as the premiere health organizations in the U.S. and worldwide—organizations we depend on to advise us on health issues. Spending time attempting to restrict a safe, legal, and accepted procedure is not what federal and state legislators were elected to office to focus on.

Unfortunately 2012 is shaping up to be another year of extremes. Many state legislators have already signaled support for or introduced extreme legislation that will ban or restrict abortion. Legislation that will harm the health of women include “personhood” initiatives — measures to declare a fertilized egg a person — or laws that requires restrictive regulations on health centers, and bills designed to eliminate funding for family planning services, Medicaid, or Planned Parenthood health services. We must not let this happen.

Estela Blanco
El Cajon