The South Haven City Council won’t be pursuing a beach concessions surcharge to help pay for a new lifeguard program after all.
Earlier this month, we reported the council held off on approving the renewal of the city’s contracts with concessionaires at South Beach and North Beach so the idea of the surcharge could be explored. Speaking at the council’s regular meeting this week, City Manager Kate Hosier said that plan wouldn’t work.
Mayor Annie Brown sought clarity.
“So the concept of adding a tax is illegal in Michigan?” Brown asked.
“Yes, you can’t add your own sales tax,” Hosier said. “There’s a lot of ways that we’ve been able to work license agreements around. But here’s what we’ve done is we’ve negotiated this flat fee because we are seeing an extreme benefit to the city with the beach cleaning.”
The flat fee is what the concessions operators pay to the city to use its property. Plus, Hosier said the concessionaires provide a valuable service to the city maintaining the restroom facilities.
“These concessionaires stock and clean these bathrooms several times a day, which they get heavily used. And should we have to hire two park staff to ultimately give us the same kind of services for those bathrooms, it would cost us likely around $45,000 out of the beach fund.”
Council member Joe Reeser, who proposed the surcharge idea at the last meeting, thanked the city attorney for determining it wouldn’t be allowed. However, he said the goal was really just to get the council and community thinking about creative ways a lifeguard program could be paid for without increasing taxes. He said one suggestion pitched his way is to sell advertising space on the lifeguard stands, for example.
The council then approved the concessions contracts for North Beach and South Beach, as well as the kayak rental contracts for both beaches and Black River Park, through the end of 2030.
