After listening to hordes of residents and business owners, Mason City Council tabled Monday night, Nov. 23, a proposal to enact a ticket and parking tax on city attractions.

The proposal, raised two weeks ago, was to impose a 3 percent tax on admissions and 5 percent tax on parking. The tax would have affected most notably Kings Island and The Beach Waterpark.

Councilman David Nichols asked for the issue to be tabled until February.

Officials from both amusement parks, sided by the Warren County Visitors and Convention Bureau and the Northeast Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, said they oppose the tax, which is estimated to generate more than $4 million a year for the city....

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton...son-417638.html

Yes, there are extra calls, maybe they should set up a fund.

Kinda tiffs me off.....

Well I was thinking about writing this up as a Trip Report , but since Terpy started this topic, I'll add some info here.

I attended the meeting, and while the newscasts I've watched (Cincy 5, 9, 12, and 19) portrayed it as a "heated debate", it was actually quite a one sided discussion:

- There were two attendees who spoke that favored the tax (although one seemed to be having her mind changed by the meeting)

- There were about 30 attendees who spoke who opposed the tax. This inlcuded several KIC'ers, along with Mason residents, Local Business Owners, Members of area Chamber of Commerce, Local Tea Party Officials, A-Kid-Again charity rep and parent, along with KI, GWL, and The Beach employees

- The remainder of the audience who didn't speak was about 50-50 split of residents to non-residents and all but a couple seemed to oppose the tax

- In the end, it was very anticlimatic as the issue was tabled until February, which will be after the new city council is seated (two new members, Mayor who was abstaining anyway out of office). While I'd have like to have seen it defeated tonight, we'll have to do it all over again in Feb it seems

- Ryan's protest made all the local news, with Avatar and Beatle interviewed on 12

I rewrote an original article on this for the front page because I thought it would be more appropriate. Let's keep our comments there.