2 hours Ago By ADELLA HARDING Elko Daily Correspondent
ELKO — Elko will reword an ordinance designating a portion of lodging taxes specifically to a balloon payment for the Elko Convention and Visitors Authority now that the debt has been settled. The authority recently made the balloon payment and owns the conference center built behind the Elko Convention Center, although the authority now owes money to the county and a bank. Authority Executive Director Annette Kerr told the council the agency paid off the $6.
06 million balloon payment as of Dec. 31, but still has $5.8 million in loans for the conference center.
Elko County loaned authority $3 million and the authority obtained a $2.78 million bank loan with J.P.
Morgan Chase Bank to help cover the balloon payment created when the authority financed construction of the conference center that opened in the fall of 2015. The authority’s payments for the two loans total $625,121 a year for 10 years, Kerr said. Annette Kerr of the Elko Convention and Visitors Authority, far right, speaks to City Council members on Tuesday.
She asked the council to change the wording of the amended ordinance to reflect the changes, since room tax money is designated for the balloon payment until March 2026 when the payment was due and can’t be used for anything else. Kerr said authority used roughly $30,000 in that fund designated for the balloon payment to complete the payoff, but money going forward is tied up unless the balloon payment wording is taken out of the ordinance. “It’s simple.
We need to redo it and make this happen so they can continue to progress,” Councilman Chip Stone, who is the council’s liaison to the authority board, said. Councilman Giovanni Puccinelli, who was presiding over the March 11 meeting in the absence of Mayor Reece Keener, said the council should help authority. Councilwoman Marissa Lostra, who sat on the authority board before her election to the council last November, told Kerr she knew how much work Kerr and Stone put into paying off the conference center balloon payment, so “I am very proud of you to have that completed.
” Basically, the council’s unanimous vote was to drop the restriction on room tax revenue going to the balloon payment until March 2026, and change the requirement that once the balloon payment was made, the money would go to capital improvements. The changed ordinance would allow the money to go to the facility expansion fund instead. Elko City Council voted on Jan.
24, 2023, to amend the room tax ordinance to allow 1.5% of the 2.25% in room tax revenue paid for marketing and tourism promotion to go to the balloon payment.
In addition to the ordinance regarding the balloon payment, the council helped the authority in 2022 by raising the city’s lodging tax from 14% to 15% to provide extra money toward the balloon payment. The authority already owned the land where the 28,000-square-foot conference center was built behind the convention center, which is now in its 50th year, but the financing deal with JFM-ECVA LLC called for the authority to lease the building. The authority originally put $3 million toward the conference center, and the lease-purchase pact was $9 million.
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