City Council approves Hotel Occupancy fund grants

Palestine Herald Press 

Palestine City Council approved Hotel Occupancy Tax grants to seven Palestine businesses and entities during its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, Oct. 11.

Tourism Marketing Manager Mary Raum explained how the funds are generated for the Hotel Occupancy grants.

“All of the funds that are under consideration to be allocated for the Hotel Occupancy tax funding grants are HOT funds, meaning they are funds that do not come out of the general fund,” Raum said. “These are earned based on someone coming to town and spending the night in a hotel. We receive 7% sales tax on every overnight stay. That is what fully funds the Hotel Occupancy fund in the budget.”

Hotel Occupancy Tax Grant Applications approved for Fiscal Year 2022-2023 include:

• Dogwood Arts Council $15,000,

• Momentum Sportz $6,000,

• Palestine ISD $5,000,

• Palestine YMCA $8,000,

• Redlands Hotel $15,000,

• Texas State Railroad $15,000

• and the Texas Theatre $15,000.

The council also approved authorization for City Manager Teressa Herrera to execute an airport land lease for Hangar 35 at the Palestine Municipal Airport.,

Public Works Director Kevin Olson explained the situation.

“The title is a little bit of a misnomer, it’s not a hangar, it’s the commercial business for Flight for Life,” Olson said. “We realized that the lease expired almost two years ago. We moved forward with contacting them to establish a new lease, and in dealing with that they realized that their septic system, their generator and their propane tank was not on their lease property, so they asked that we expand the lease and we approved that.”

During the meeting the council also approved:

• the consent agenda items,

• a contract with Burgess Construction Consultants for building plan review services and overflow building inspections,

• an ordinance adopting the 2018 International Property Maintenance Code, the 2018 Energy Conservation Code, the 2018 Existing Building Code and the 2017 National Electrical Code.

The council went into a short closed session and took no action upon return to regular session.

With no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:05 p.m.