Suffolk hotel tax hike opponents: 'We're getting nothing out of this'
The Suffolk County Legislature is considering increasing the county's hotel-motel tax from 3% to 5.5%. Credit: John Roca
A plan to increase Suffolk County's hotel-motel tax by 2.5% to help fund infrastructure surrounding a proposed Ronkonkoma convention center received mixed reviews during a public hearing Tuesday.
Members of the Montauk business community were the strongest opponents, saying the tax would be paid disproportionately by the hamlet’s visitors without helping with local needs such as wastewater management and beach nourishment.
“If I took that money and bonded it on a project … we can solve our wastewater problem,” George Filopoulos, owner of Gurney’s Montauk Resort, told Suffolk County legislators during their monthly general meeting at the Suffolk County Center in Riverhead.
“We're getting nothing out of this,” Filopoulos said.
Under the proposal, the 3% hotel-motel tax on the per diem rate for nightly stays within Suffolk County would rise to 5.5%.
County officials estimate the tax, which now raises about $11 million per year, could bring in an additional $9 million. The tax is levied in addition to the county’s 8.625% sales tax.
The increase would partly support a new Suffolk County Infrastructure Fund, which could be used for “the planning, design, and construction of a convention center and surrounding infrastructure," according to the bill under consideration.
The convention center — Long Island's first — has been proposed as part of a $2.8 billion redevelopment project in Ronkonkoma known as Midway Crossing.
Officials also want to boost the county's annual allocation to the local tourism promotion agency, Discover Long Island, from $2 million to $6 million.
Montauk business leaders noted their beachside hamlet generates about $3.5 million a year in county hotel-motel taxes.
They also questioned how the convention center, which would be located nearly 70 miles away, could benefit them.
Mitch Pally, chairman of the Midway Crossing project’s nonprofit local development corporation board, said the convention center would create thousands of jobs for the region, and the county’s financial support is needed for the project to advance.
“There is no reason why other smaller municipalities … have the benefit of attracting conventions and the millions of dollars it brings to their communities and we cannot do so,” Pally said during the hearing.
Representatives of the East End Tourism Alliance, the Long Island Federation of Labor and the Hamptons Visitors Council, a consortium of local chambers of commerce, also spoke in favor of the proposal Tuesday.
The county legislature is expected to vote on the tax-hike proposal at a later date.
Also Tuesday, Legis. Bridget Fleming (D-Noyac) complained the legislature was being asked to vote on several law enforcement measures even though its Public Safety Committee meeting was canceled last week.
Resolutions typically are discussed in committee, where members formally advance them to the general meeting agenda.
The committee meeting was canceled Thursday amid a dispute between panel member Robert Trotta (R-Fort Salonga) and the Suffolk Police Benevolent Association, the county’s largest police union.
Kevin McCaffrey, presiding officer of the legislature, announced Monday he had removed Trotta from the committee, a decision that followed weeks of pressure from the PBA and the Association of Municipal Employees.
“Here we are, not having had any discussion whatsoever about it [the resolutions], for what appears to be political purposes,” Fleming said.
McCaffrey said the meeting was canceled because not enough committee members could attend.
Also Tuesday, the legislature approved borrowing $10 million for farmland preservation efforts in the county.
Vera Chinese covers Suffolk County government and politics. She joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.
