The group fighting to ban vacation rentals in Palm Springs is now speaking out, making claims that TV ads opposing the measure are misleading and untrue. The yes on Measure C camp says the ads, which you’ve likely seen many times, are nothing more than a scare tactic.
“The first thing we see here is what the hit is going to be, which is terribly exaggerated. It’s based on a study done by the city which is terribly flawed,” said Robert Grimm, campaign manager for Yes on Measure C.
“They are just hitting at the residents to scare them…”
According to the TV ad paid for by We Love Palm Springs, a ban on vacation rentals would cost the city $10.5 million dollars and lead to budget cuts on programs like homeless services, the public library, rehabilitation of fire station 4 and the animal shelter.
“They are just hitting at the residents to scare them and they are not showing them that are others ways to cut. And there are more besides that, if you read the report that they gave back, there are many many places that you could cut that would not be resident affected,” said Grimm.
“The yes side was asked at the forum what they would cut and they just say nothing. They don’t have a response. So it’s not responsible to say, ‘we won’t make any of these cuts’ were going to have to make some cuts and everybody knows that,” said Palm Springs City Councilman Geoff Kors.
Grimm says what the city losses from vacation rentals, it could be made up with the an increased transient occupancy tax on hotels.
“What you do is let tourists pay for tourism, which sounds very logical. We could raise the TOT tax at hotels, it hasn’t raised since 2002,” says Grimm.
“If that we’re true than the hotels would all be supporting measure c because they’d make more money. And they’re not. The hotels are unanimous. The big hotels especially are unanimous against measure c because they know that if we lose tourist in this city, it’s going to negatively impact the destination,” said Kors.
