Blair County Commissioner Amy Webster this week urged Logan Township supervisors to help the county decertify Explore Altoona as a Blair Tourism Promotion Agency, so the county can use some of the county bed tax money that funds Explore Altoona to develop trails instead.

The supervisors were noncommittal, although one asked for evidence that such a move would attract additional visitors, while another argued that the commissioners and Explore Altoona should find a cooperative solution.

Commissioners need resolutions from municipalities that represent at least 65 percent of the county’s population before they can decertify Explore Altoona, which has refused repeated calls to redirect part of its $781,000 annual share of the bed tax towards trail construction.

Commissioners are considering the development of Airbnb, additional restaurants, ice cream stands and other businesses along these potential new trails, which could connect to trails being developed in neighboring counties, Webster said.

Such trail development would not only bring people to the area for tours, but also to live, especially given the post-COVID trend of people working from home for businesses, institutions and agencies headquartered is elsewhere, according to Webster.

“These (recreational trail activities) are in high demand all over the country,” Webster said. “(And) manufacturing isn’t really going to come back.”

Economic development experts today are keenly aware of the value of outdoor recreation, said Steve McKnight, CEO of the Blair County Alliance for Business and Economic Growth, which commissioners recruited to the cause.

The goal is to harness the virtues of the area’s “quality of life” by attracting the “self-employed class” created by COVID, McKnight said.

This is a similar type of economic development opportunity that local leaders began taking advantage of 65 years ago, when they began building industrial and business parks to help the region grow. move away from declining rail employment, McKnight said.

“(It) worked,” he said. “Where would we be (without it)?

Blair County is currently at a similar “inflection point” and can take advantage — or waste — of this opportunity, he said.

Altoona can do what Asheville, North Carolina, began doing 30 years ago when it dedicated its lodging tax to building trails, bringing many people to the region and a proliferation of commercial development, he said.

Blair County actually has an advantage that Asheville lacks: its proximity to Washington, D.C., McKnight said.

Other Pennsylvania counties did what the Blair commissioners wanted to do, Webster said.

Supervisor Ed Frontino asked for evidence that what those other counties did increased tourism revenue.

Such evidence is necessary for supervisors to make an informed decision, given that “you’re asking us to take something away from something that’s working,” Frontino said.

She had no such evidence on hand, although it is available, Webster said.

“I would like to see cooperation rather than decertification,” Supervisors Chairman Jim Patterson said.

Patterson has heard good things about Explore Altoona’s work when interacting with colleagues at the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, he said.

The commissioners would also like to cooperate and have repeatedly tried to interest Explore Altoona in their proposal, in addition to a previous board of commissioners attempting this a few years ago, according to Webster.

“We were surprised that we got knocked back,” Webster said. “It’s been disappointing.”

Explore Altoona has been “collaborative,” according to its executive director Mark Ickes, who responded to an email request for comment.

The agency suggested commissioners consider three alternatives to realize their hope of securing funding for trail development, starting earlier this year, when commissioners broached the idea, according to Ickes.

One option is to “reanalyze” how the county distributes the 44 percent of the annual bed tax it controls, based on the memorandum of understanding that governs funding, including the 56 percent that Explore Altoona receives, according to Ickes.

Another option is to wait for the potential opportunity that tourism improvement district funding legislation could present “while it is passed at the state level, potentially as early as 2025,” Ickes wrote.

The third option is to obtain a tourism marketing research grant that could help establish a trail authority, Ickes wrote.

Leaders from both sides have talked and will continue to talk over the coming week, according to McKnight and Ickes.

“The door is (always) open,” McKnight said.

If commissioners are successful in decertifying Explore Altoona, they hope for the creation of a county-based authority that would continue the tourism promotion work currently done by Explore Altoona, while also handling trail development, according to Webster.

It would not be funded by local taxes, but by hotel stays, according to Webster and McKnight.

Funding from the bed tax would also be used to match trail development grants, Webster said.

The Logan supervisors were the second group of city leaders the commissioners’ representatives visited, following the Bellwood Borough Council, with whom they spoke a month ago, Webster said.

Bellwood’s council also hasn’t engaged, she said.

Commissioners plan to visit “as many municipalities as possible,” she said.

If Explore Altoona is no longer certified as a TPA, the organization will be dissolved, Ickes said previously in an email.

The current distribution of the tourist tax is complex.

For annual bed tax revenue of up to $1.136 million per year, 56% goes to Explore Altoona, about 20% to the Blair County Convention Center, about 18% to a stakeholder group for Altoona Curve Stadium and about 6% to other county tourism uses. .

For annual bed tax revenues above $1.136 million per year, Explore Altoona continues to receive 56 percent, but the remaining money sharing percentages change, with the county receiving about 57 percent, the convention center about 23% and the stadium group 20%.

Explore Altoona says using the bed tax for asset development is illegal, based on state Act 18, which limits the funding it provides for tourism promotion, according to Explore Altoona.

This position has been “refuted,” according to McKnight.

If the issue hasn’t been tried in court, it hasn’t been truly refuted, according to Logan Township attorney Dan Stants.

The Blair bed tax was used to improve Altoona Curve Stadium, and Explore Altoona didn’t complain about it, undermining its argument, Webster said.