Geoffrey Ritter
Carbondale Times   

A local tourism bureau targeted by some critics as ineffective and adversarial now faces the possibility of significant funding cuts from both the Carbondale and Jackson County governments.

Mayor Joel Fritzler says he will propose at the Feb. 7 City Council meeting a reallocation of more than $100,000 in funds from the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau to a handful of other community organizations in the city. Such a reallocation would account for more than a quarter of the annual operating budget overseen by CCTB and its longtime executive director, Debbie Moore.

At the same time, a far smaller figure — about $12,000 — provided annually to the bureau through a Jackson County hotel tax has become the subject of increasing questions, with some business owners in the county contending that the tax only subtracts from their bottom lines and results in no tangible benefits.

Members of the Jackson County Board’s land use committee have in turn suggested that the tax could be reduced in the future or simply redistributed, although they have yet to take any formal action.

“A lot of people have expressed concern about the Carbondale Convention and Tourism Bureau,” County Board member John Rendleman said at a land use committee meeting last week. “Maybe we ought to reduce the tax a little. Maybe it shouldn’t go to Carbondale and Murphysboro.”

The issue is expected to be discussed again at the committee’s next meeting Feb. 28.

Fritzler’s proposal for Carbondale funding, if enacted this spring as part of the city’s budget process, would represent a dramatic shift for the city, which in the past has provided more than 80 percent of CCTB’s annual budget. Fritzler said he would reallocate the funds into a number of other city organizations, including Carbondale Main Street, Carbondale Community Arts, the Chamber of Commerce and the Park District.

The specter of funding cuts comes just when the tourism bureau is facing increased criticism throughout the county. Most notably, the county land use committee has heard repeatedly from some owners of cabins who pay a lodging tax that then is used by the Carbondale and Murphysboro tourism bureaus to promote travel to Jackson County.

Jill Fager, who owns Cabin on the Hill cabins in rural Carbondale, says she sees no results from the 5 percent hotel tax she pays to the county that then is routed to the Carbondale and Murphysboro tourism offices. She further says that Moore has been adversarial to her in the past and has been unwilling to listen to her concerns about how the money is spent.

“The tourism bureau has not been very helpful to us,” Fager said. “It’s ridiculous. [Moore] doesn’t even do anything. We’re just tired of this, the way the tourism people treat us.”

Dorothy Lada of Oak Grove Cabins in Makanda expresses similar frustrations, and she has gone as far as to set up a tourism website that is exclusively for businesses and attractions in Makanda. While her business is not within Carbondale city limits, Lada says she pays the same hotel tax to the county and has the same vested interest in the CCTB.

“Carbondale Convention and Tourism are not representing us,” Lada said at last week’s land use committee meeting. “Debbie Moore is not doing a good job representing Makanda.”

One group, Escape Locally, which runs a website promoting Southern Illinois tourism attractions, also was at the land use committee meeting and presented some ways that it could help to further promote the county.

Moore told the Times Monday that she is hesitant to respond specifically to any of the complaints because she doesn’t want to “get in the gutter and fight.” She said that if she is to face decreased funding, she will “have to roll with it.”

“In my 20 years of doing this, I’ve learned that it’s impossible to please everyone,” Moore said. “We don’t worry too much about it. If we worried about that kind of stuff, we’d never get anything done.”

First established in 1982 as a subcommittee of the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce, the CCTB became an independent not-for-profit corporation in 1985, and Moore took over as executive director in 1992.