It’s easy, as they say, to find fault. But for the life of me I’m having a difficult time working out the details of just how Haywood County’s Tourism Development Authority should distribute its corridor funds.

But first the criticism.

Some members of the Haywood County Tourism Development Authority — and therefore by association the group as a whole — are sliding down a slippery slope. They are setting themselves up for charges that those in control of tax money normally spend a great deal of effort trying to avoid: ignorance and favoritism.

A couple of weeks ago the TDA voted on a list of funding requests from the three corridors into which Haywood County is divided for room tax collections: Maggie Valley, Lake Junaluska-Waynesville, and Canton-Clyde. Each corridor is allotted funding based on the room tax revenue it brings in, and the total allotted in this manner is about $140,000 of the $600,000 brought in each year from the tax. The remainder of the money is spent on national advertising and TDA administrative costs.

It is this corridor funding, however, that has been at the heart of the TDA’s controversies over the past decade. Just last year, in hopes of developing a better distribution method, the TDA decided that its legal mandate was to allocate funds based on individual requests. That was a change from its previous practice of simply giving most of the money to one entity — chambers of commerce—and letting that group distribute it. Even then individual groups could lobby for their events, but most of the decision-making process was in the hands of the corridor groups.

A glaring shortcoming of this new method was the ignorance by some board members about many of the tourism-related events that take place each year in Haywood County. As the TDA members started discussing events, it was obvious many had never attended them and perhaps had done little research. Perhaps that is a shortcoming of the county commissioner appointment process, but as TDA members each person on the authority has the responsibility of educating themselves and giving this board the hours of work it deserves. Otherwise, don’t apply for the job.

David Erickson, who co-owns a Waynesville gallery with his wife, saw this potential problem when interviewed for a story in July 2004 when the new method was first announced.

“I would hope as a positive side it would make the TDA board more aware of what’s going on in the respective communities,” Erickson said. Unfortunately, it seems that some members voted on these proposals without that knowledge. That leads to the kind of arbitrary spending that angers those of us who believe tax money should be well guarded.

Perhaps worse than the apparent ignorance is the obvious favoritism that showed in some of the funding decisions. Seven of nine TDA members are from Maggie Valley, and some of those members overwhelming graded events in their own community higher. There was talk of “weaning” some existing events that had been funded for years, but it seemed Maggie events were given a higher priority. The 27-year-old Maggie Valley Moonlight Race (a huge event) got its $2,000 request, while the 17th Apple Festival in Waynesville (as we said earlier, this is growing into a very popular festival) had its funding cut from $2,835 last year to $2,000 this year; the 2-year-old Barbecue Festival in the valley received its full $3,000 request, while the second annual Mater Fest in Canton got just $1,000 of its $4,000 request.

It’s hard to separate one’s self from the community where one works and lives. Many TDA members almost certainly feel that it is their duty to go to bat for Maggie Valley.

And in the end, the current system demands that Maggie Valley get more money. The allotment — about $85,000 for the valley, $40,000 for Waynesville-Lake Junaluska, and $15,000 for Canton — is divided based on percentage formula of where the room taxes are collected. Maggie Valley has more rooms than the rest of Haywood County. Therefore, events that might seem self-serving and that don’t put “heads in beds” may get funding simply because Maggie receives the lion’s share of the money.

Perhaps that is what needs to change. Those who stay in the inexpensive Maggie Valley motels will go to Waynesville for a festival or to shop. Those at a Waynesville B&B might head to Maggie Valley for a festival. Some of the expenditures — paying for a Miss Maggie to stroll along Soco Valley or paying to help fund the Atlanta Ballet — seem like they will do little to actually attract new visitors. As a whole, though, both make Haywood County a better tourist destination because visitors will feel good about their vacation.

This shouldn’t be mistaken as an anti-Maggie Valley stand. To the contrary, this county’s tourism future depends on the success of Maggie Valley. The lion’s share of the room-tax money is spent nationally to attract overnight guests, and many of those people like the quaint motels that still dot the valley.

But it is also true that, without Ghost Town, many more of those visitors are spreading their wings and taking in the county’s other sites. Perhaps it is time to throw the “heads in beds” mantra by the wayside when it comes to distributing this $140,000.

Along with tossing aside that “heads in beds” mentality, the distribution of the corridor money based on where it’s collected also needs to be revisited. Perhaps that over-riding philosophy was needed when there were few festivals and little money to go around. Now, with a full slate of local festivals and events and a tourism market becoming more competitive every year, visitor experience must be given a higher — and perhaps formally written into the bylaws — priority. That will keep people coming back. If that demands a re-write of the legislation, then so be it.

The one thing that’s obvious to those who follow the TDA is that the current distribution method for the corridor funds is too arbitrary. That’s no way to spend tax money.

(Scott McLeod can be reached at info@smokymountainnews.com.)