Thread: Port Fee for Transportation Now Being Enforced!

I heard last Spring (2005) the port had started charging this fee. Now they are enforcing it. Our Hotel is now going to Charge us a $25 per room Shuttle Fee (we still get to park two cars per room at the hotel for free).

http://news.galvestondailynews.com/s...f27d5d883a575e





End to tariff dispute in sight?


By Greg Barr
The Daily News

Published August 14, 2006
GALVESTON — Port of Galveston officials are trying to chop through some rough waters to work out an 11th-hour compromise in a lingering standoff with hotel and parking lot shuttle bus operators about unpaid tariffs.

The port set a Tuesday deadline for various entities that it says owe $231,000 in tariffs run up during the past 19 months.

Port officials said shuttle bus operators with unpaid balances would be turned away when Carnival’s Ecstasy cruise ship arrives Thursday, two days after the deadline.

The situation has become as intense as the last-ditch negotiations.

Besides an annual permit and vehicle sticker fee, the operators are to be charged $10 each time a shuttle bus drops off or picks up passengers at the island’s two cruise ship terminals.

Port officials said only one Galveston hotel — the Commodore on the Beach — has paid its shuttle bus per-trip access tariffs, as has Coach USA, which transports busloads of passengers to the cruise terminals from Houston airports.

One operator, Galveston Limousine Service, which shuttles passengers from airports and from some local private parking lot operations, settled its outstanding bill earlier this month after the port imposed its deadline.

“We have a better understanding of their operation, and we were able to work it out,” Mike Mierzwa, deputy port director, said Friday.

Steve Cernak, port director, said some progress was made this week in discussions with competing parking lot owners.

However, the same cannot be said for negotiations with the Galveston Hotel & Lodging Association, he added.

“Here we are, a few days out from the deadline, and they’re asking me to extend it (to Sept. 1),” said Cernak, referring to a letter received this week from the association. “They’ve had plenty of time to try to solve the problem, not extend it. There’s a deadline here, and (the hotels) need to come to the table and talk.”

For the hotel association, an attempt to solve the dispute was thrown into disarray earlier in the week.

Paul Shultz, hotel association president, was rebuffed Tuesday by the Galveston Park Board of Trustees when he asked for a contribution of hotel occupancy tax revenue to the port’s marketing effort to retain and attract new cruise ships to the island.

The so-called “HOT tax” revenue from city and state coffers is based on gross hotel revenue, and is the largest single funding source for the park board.

During fiscal 2006, which ends Sept. 30, the park board will receive about $6 million, or half of its revenue, from the hotel tax.

Schultz had spoken to port staff, and worked out a deal — pending park board approval — to redirect hotel tax dollars toward cruise ship marketing in lieu of the per-trip hotel cruise shuttle fees.

Dianna Puccetti, park board chairwoman, and Danny Weber, the board’s city council representative, did not mince words in their criticism of the idea.

Puccetti described Schultz’s efforts as a “guise” to make the board solve the hotels’ dispute with the port.

Park board attorney Carla Cotropia said she was uncomfortable with the proposal, while Weber said the park board should “not be a dog in that fight” between the hoteliers and the Board of Trustees of the Galveston Wharves, which oversees port operations and has instructed staff to get tougher in its negotiations.

Schultz said he was disappointed by the outcome, but hoped to regroup and see whether he could build consensus among park board trustees.

At least one trustee, Betty Massey, was more sympathetic and said she would like to revisit the issue.

“The park board should realize that when (the hotels) do better, we generate more revenue, and they get more HOT tax dollars,” said Schultz. “They need to be sensitive to that.”

For Cynthia Hayes, manager of EZ Cruise Parking, the situation has become an exercise in frustration. This week she reiterated her offer to the port of $1,200 a month — her buses currently are running up a port tariff bill of at least $4,000 monthly — while another parking lot competitor, Lighthouse Cruise Parking, has offered $1,000 a month.

Hayes said there is a big difference between the parking lot operators, who make the most trips to the cruise terminals, and the hotels, which make a lot more money from a guest staying and eating at a hotel than she does charging them $45 to park for a few days.

In essence, she said, paying the full $10 per trip fee could put her out of business.

“I’m really exhausted by all of this,” she said. “We just want to get to the bottom of it, and (the port) keeps stringing us along, setting deadline after deadline.”

Thats too bad! I can understand needing the tax, but it seems silly to charge places like EZ Cruise... wonder if this means we will have to pay for the shuttle when we go in Dec?

I'm glad I already booked with Galveston Limo service. Try them. McCruiser gave me the info Do a search on Galveston Limousine.