September 30, 2011

SandBox Comments: Glenwood Springs Post Independent "Glenwood sales taxes up 3 percent for August"

You're right, 'anonymous'.

It takes patience beyond measure.

One of SandBox Nanny's fav sayings, given to her long ago by an unlikely sage, is:  "What I hear you saying..."

She thinks that once again, she is being left by John Stroud with no other choice than to leave the PI, The City of Glenwood Springs and our local tourism marketing efforts in the hands of the 'kids'.

What she will do for Mr. Stroud, on this article, is use the tool of an unlikely sage:

"What I hear you saying, is that it is way too difficult to simply grab the statistical data that breaks down both the city sales tax numbers (and) the lodging/accommodations tax numbers; and post them up in the only daily newspaper 81601 has.  Because it is way too difficult to do that, you believe it best to continue to antagonize the folks who want to get down to the facts instead of the 'gild on the lily' as they are so fond of saying."

SandBox Nanny will add that she is very pleased to see the change in reporting that Mr. Stroud has made.  More and more we see just the facts and that is sincerely appreciated.

Congratulations to the City of Glenwood Springs on what looks like on the surface, a cresting over the peak.

'Kids', what can you do to help John Stroud hear you?

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"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."

2 comments:

gws44 said...

Talk about an 800 lb gorilla in the room.

They won't do it, Nanny. Neither one of them. Both have just had enough.

But for you, I'll bite one more time:

Mr. Stroud:

Sales tax data is lifeblood to a small business.

It is through the recording of the sales tax and lodging revenues that our city, county and state do for us that tells us our trends.

When we know the specifics of our trends, we can make decisions on where to spend our precious few dollars to grow our businesses.

When a business files sales tax to our city, county or state they have to provide details of what was sold, when it was sold and how much tax revenue the city, county or state earned from those records of exact sales.

You have to give the name of your business, your acct. number and other identifying data. So, for example, we can tell what sold at Juicy Lucy's over what was sold at Zhengs. Who bought construction materials and who bought tourist trinkets.

Nobody cares about your constant use of lump sums and percentages or the lodging bar graph charts that are just a different way of saying what you are also saying.

It's useless data. Utterly, completely useless. Except for one thing. A feel good coating to cheerlead the masses out here or a real downer guaranteed to sink them into a funk.

Avatars have been griping at you and your newspaper for how many years now? 4? 5? Longer? Saying this same thing over and over. It's pretty obvious that we don't have city management that cares at all about bringing real data in real time to the businesses. It's always been some kind of foggy area with all boards and councils just absorbing whatever is said and shown to them. With group after group, organization after organization feeling like they need to be created so they can do something to clear away the fog.

But the data is not in their control. It is in the control of the city and people just don't have the time or resources to go chase it down each month, that really is your job.

It's an easy job after all this time. We'll all even do our own analysis and ratios.

All you have to do, every month when the numbers are released is to go get the breakdowns and slap all those charts and spreadsheets on revenues up in your article. If there's sensitive data, redact it. You don't even have to add your comments or reports.

There you go, Nanny. Maybe we really will see Ted think again and look again at how he can better our financial situation and the deals the city cuts on our behalf. Maybe we really will see which hotels sold what, when and to what class of visitor. Maybe we really will see if we're making a bundle off Lowes or a fortune off downtown shops.

Who knows if we'll even get the information to find out.

Good news that we're inching along, still about 50 to 60% behind most all other resort communities, but nevertheless still inching along. Our office is wondering this afternoon, as we think about the BOCC readying to weather another recession, if some kind of miracle we've needed for over two years will be raining down on our heads here in Glenwood Springs sometime soon.

gws44 co-founder of smalltown7 said...

Glenwood sales taxes up 3 percent ... - Glenwood Springs - Colorado
GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — The city of Glenwood Springs saw ... The lodging tax revenues support Glenwood Springs' tourism marketing efforts. ...
www.postindependent.com/article/20110930/.../110929854
_________________________

It's called link baiting. One of the problems smalltown7 faced in blowing the whistle on Marianne Virgili, the abuses in the accommodations tax and Glenwood Springs Chamber Resort Assoc.'s failed oversight of Virgili, was to catch her doing what she does to cloud the rose-colored glasses. FCL (formerchamberlady) and FCE (Former Chamber Employee)are really the only reason we found success. They taught us that everything that makes that marketing of herself (Marianne) possible is kept fueled up right out in plain sight. They taught us how to use a few technology tools like alerts. Google alerts, bing alerts, yahoo alerts. Every search engine has a version. When a marketing campaign ties itself to every keyword known to mankind, the term "viral" takes on a whole new meaning. Link baiting used for positive brings good exposure. Link baiting for negative brings infection so deep on the web there is no clean-up. Nothing will ever clean it up.

Let's just take a hypothetical, Mr. Stroud.

Let's say that all these whistles for decades and all the elected officials for decades and even us, smalltown7 and followers. Let's say it turns out that we all prove that we had a reason to be so angry that our beautiful community and all of our hard work to be successful and live good, decent people lives is "infected" into the name of one woman who has the internet so impregnated with herself it can never be cleaned up? What if it takes the mother of all scandals to expose that? A scandal that you and your publication know about and participate in? If the taste of just the past week hasn't been enough for all reporters to see that avatars out here aren't telling tales and it really is the mother of all scandals; then why don't you just go see for yourself?

It's as simple as setting up some alerts. It's as easy as sitting down and searching the plaintiffs in that scandal and their names. Especially the female. Go out a few hundred pages on Google and read the pages after pages of her addiction to forcing our community to be tied to her.

Then sit down and ask yourself if it is not possible for you to make the effort to print in public news the details of our sales tax revenues so that we can all continue to make our community survive without you and your publication helping? Do you think you could do that? Give us some decent information to work with?

Because in the world of the common man out here, we already know that pitiful 3% increase you just pom-pom cheerleaded in your "eyes wide open" role as a shill for that woman, isn't because of "The lodging tax revenues support Glenwood Springs' tourism marketing efforts. ...".

It's because we're all walking around out here carrying yours and your publications dead weight on our backs.

Talk about an 800 lb gorilla in the room.