Galveston park board's questions not the only needing answers

The Daily News
By MICHAEL A. SMITH The Daily News
February 15, 2023

Even assuming the Texas Attorney General can provide the level of clarity leaders of the Galveston’s Park Board of Trustees hope to achieve by requesting an opinion about the letter and intent of various laws, such won’t come for a while, maybe for a year or more.

We’re not objecting to the request, per se, only arguing neither it nor what it’s likely to produce from the state’s attorney is a substitute for a general cooling of rhetoric and warming of relations between that key organization and the city.

We saw some of that easing of tensions last month when the city council voted unanimously to postpone asking voters in May to weigh in on a charter amendment that would have fundamentally changed the management of about $10 million a year in hotel occupancy tax revenue.

More of that is called for no matter what the attorney general does or declines to do.

Park board trustees voted Thursday to pose three questions to the attorney general’s office seeking guidance in an ongoing dispute over managing hotel occupancy tax revenue and the tourism board’s general rights and responsibilities.

The impetus was city council approval in December of controversial ordinances requiring the park board to transfer about $14 million in hotel tax revenue into city accounts, which city officials have asserted is required by charter and state law.

The votes were prompted by an assertion by City Councilman David Collins that the city and park board had for years inadvertently violated the city charter and state laws by allowing the park board to keep hotel occupancy tax in its own accounts.

The ordinances also required the park board to submit its budgets to the city council for approval and to submit frequent expense reports.

Park board officials have argued the city is attempting to undermine their organization’s statutory rights and responsibilities and was angling to spend the hotel money on things other than supporting and promoting tourism.

The query was an effort to clarify what various laws say and require, park officials said.

Trustees approved three questions to pose to the attorney general:

• “Given that the enabling legislation expressly recites the park board’s powers, duties and responsibilities (including but not limited to entering long terms leases, issuing bonds and other activities associated with an independent governmental entity), may the city, by ordinance, absent an agreement, limit the park board’s powers granted by the state?

• “Considering that Texas Tax Code ... expressly states that a ‘Park Board’ may use appropriated (hotel occupancy tax) funds ‘without further authorization,’ may the city lawfully exercise control over the park board’s use of those funds after the funds are appropriated to the park board? Relevant to this question is the city’s apparent reliance on Tax Code ..., which is more general (does not reference park boards) and is arguably controlled by the more specific language in Tax Code ... which expressly references park board authority to spend appropriated funds without further authorization.

• “Given that the enabling legislation expressly authorizes the city to designate parks and facilities to the park board and add to those designations over time (with no reference to removing parks and facilities from the park board), may the city lawfully remove previously designated parks and facilities from the park board’s control? Relevant to this question is the park board’s authority to issue bonds, enter into long-term leases, manage its facilities and staffing based on prior designations, and how those arrangements would be undermined by the city removing assets from the park board’s management and control.”

Not bad questions, perhaps, but also maybe not the best, most important, questions begging for answers about hotel tax revenue and Galveston’s future.

Some insiders in both camps have made convincing arguments that the core conflict isn’t about plundering the park board, undermining its authority or simply getting rules to agree, as city leaders argue.

It’s about the fact Galveston tourism is producing windfalls of hotel revenue while the city’s general fund is gasping in the grip of rising public safety costs and state-created garrotes.

In that context, it’s reasonable, maybe essential, for a community to ask, what would be the highest and best legal uses of excess hotel tax money not already funded by that revenue?

The council and the park board should be having that discussion while we all await answers from the attorney general.

• Michael A. Smith