The recent Letter to the Editor of Jan. 4, “We’ve got enough tourists already,” hits the nail squarely on the head.
Tourism and second-home owners may benefit segments of our economy, but they also have significant negative impacts and increase costs, including driving home prices up, increasing traffic and parking congestion, and most importantly, increasing the need for affordable housing for the workers serving our part-time residents and visitors.
Rather than investing millions to bring more visitors here, wouldn’t it be better to use the lodgers tax to support building more affordable workforce housing and improve our parking and transportation systems? Shouldn’t the visitors who create the burden pay for fixing the problems they create?
Let’s say “no” to more marketing money to bring more tourists here, and revise the ballot question to provide support for affordable housing, parking and public transportation.
Can’t the authors of the lodgers tax increase propose a better use of the money our visitors provide, a use that benefits the sustainable future of our community and its precious quality of life?
Daniel MorgensternDurango
