To learn more visit www.SaveOurBeach.net

In 2004 the County asked the State to allow it to raise the Occupancy Tax rate from 4% to 6% and allow it to use the tax increase for beach nourishment. Since the tax rate was raised the County has collected almost $150 million in OT revenues, but done almost nothing for beach nourishment as the audit reports show. In fact, the entire tax increase, $50 million, has been spent on questionable projects.

The Corolla Citizens Association has been lobbying the County for years to be more open to accepting ideas from the Tourism Community on Occupancy Tax spending. Further they have asked the County to adopt a business-like approach to choosing OT investments to ensure that investments get the best “bang for the buck” to attract tourists and increase the use of lodging and other facilities that generate additional tax revenues for the County. Most other counties in the state have a Tourism Development Authority composed Tourism Community leaders who decide on how to spend Occupancy Tax. Currituck is the only one where the Board of Commissioners makes these decisions. As a result there has been a significant amount of questionable spending as noted above.

CCA raised these concerns in several years ago and asked that the Commissioners engage in discussions to develop an open, business-like process for deciding on OT spending. Hundreds of Tourism Community folks worked to put together their proposed OT spending plan and asked the County to discuss it. Not only did the County not agree to further talks they began to cut off further discussions and indeed restricted public comments at BoC meetings.

This left CCA with no recourse other than to ask the Courts to resolve the dispute by examining Currituck’s OT spending and providing guidelines for future spending.

For more details visit the website www.SaveOurBeach.net