Photos by Tom Rivers – Fishing is Orleans County’s biggest tourism draw, generating about $12 million of the $23 million tourism pie. The photo shows an angler at Point Breeze.

A new report about tourism dollars state-wide and per county shows New York is on an upswing growing 6.2 percent for $92 billion in visitor spending in 2012 , following an 8.3 percent gain in 2011.

However, Orleans County’s revenue barely budged, going from $21.01 million in 2011 to $21.13 million in 2012, a 0.1 percent increase, according to the state report prepared by Tourism Economics.

Orleans ranks at the very bottom state-wide among 62 counties for visitor spending. Tourism represents one of the best options for the county to stir business activity for many merchants. The visitor spending also represents outside money and isn’t merely redistributing existing dollars in the community. We should make growing tourism revenue a top priority for the county.

I think Orleans could do much better, given our dynamic and world-class fishery, our historic and agricultural assets, and our location near Rochester, Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

I strongly recommend the county work to develop a Sandstone Trail featuring our best sandstone structures, including the 68-foot-high Civil War memorial in Mount Albion Cemetery.

I think there are two factors that hurt us. We don’t have a chain hotel and many potential guests won’t consider a stay-over without a room at an established chain. County officials have tried for years to make the case for a small hotel to set up here. That would keep more visitors in the county longer. We draw people for day trips, but then the majority have to sleep in another county.

The outside counties use what could be our “bed tax,” money that could be directed to more promotion of our attractions. Genesee County boasts more than 1,000 hotel rooms. Many Orleans visitors end up staying in Batavia hotels. Genesee also has Darien Lake Theme Park and the Thruway corridor that draw mobs of people into their county.

Genesee takes in about $400,000 in bed tax to promote its tourism assets. That’s about 10 times what Orleans collects. (The bed tax is a 4 percent tax on lodging – hotels, motels and bed and breakfasts.)

Genesee saw its visitor spending jump 9.4 percent last year, from $81.9 million to $89.6 million. That tourism spending means more in sales tax, which can help offset property taxes.

We may not be able to sway a Holiday Inn Express-type hotel to open in Orleans anytime soon. The Orleans Economic Development Agency commissioned a study a few years ago, and the consultants found then there weren’t enough people and tourists to warrant a small hotel.

A second factor hurting our tourism numbers is a shortage of staff working to promote the county’s resources. The county is sorely understaffed in its tourism department. Wayne Hale is the tourism director. He also manages the Marine Park and is the county’s Planning Department director. Last year he semi-retired, but is still juggling three big jobs in a part-time role.

If the county devoted more resources to heritage tourism, it could create a package featuring the historic churches, including a stop at Christ Church in Albion, which has a 150-year-old pipe organ.

Genesee has three full-time people devoted to tourism promotion.

“Wayne has been instrumental through the years,” said Sharon Narburgh, owner of Narby’s Superette and Tackle at Point Breeze. “He has done a hell of a job, but there is only so much time in the day.”

Narburgh credited the county for creating a part-time fishing coordinator position about two decades ago. Mike Waterhouse is currently serving in the role. Narburgh said the county needs more people working on tourism promotion, helping to develop a plan for drawing more people to the county, and keeping them here longer.

“You need a person to coordinate all of this,” she said. “Right now we don’t have the people to do things the way they need to be done.”

Genesee is a bigger county than Orleans, about 60,000 people compared to the 42,000 people here. Genesee is about 1.5 times more populous, but they are bringing in four times the tourism spending.

Wyoming County would make for a better comparison. I would assume Orleans would draw more in visitor spending because Wyoming seems more remote. Both counties have about 42,000 people. We also have Lake Ontario, the Erie Canal, and a wealth of Medina sandstone and architectural wonders.

But Wyoming generates far more in visitor spending, $35.7 million in 2012 compared to the $23.1 million in Orleans. Our local government leaders should commit the needed resources to tourism promotion. It’s an investment that would bear big returns.

State should pay $1 per inmate per day to help prison towns offset some of the negatives

Photos by Tom Rivers – Albion Correctional Facility looms large at the end of Washington Street in Albion. The site is the largest women’s prison in the state with 1,050 inmates.

ALBION – When Waste Management made its pitch to open a landfill in Albion in the mid-1990s, the company offered the community $500,000 annually to lower the town taxes.

The company knew a landfill came with some negatives – an increase in truck traffic, seagulls, noise, odor, environmental worries and a stigma. The $500,000 was part of “host-community benefits package” to help counter some of the negatives. Albion town officials were never swayed, and denied the project.

When wind power companies built the giant industrial turbines in Wyoming County and other parts of New York, the companies paid the host communities big bucks for having these 400-foot-high structures in the rural countryside. Some of the towns are taking in more than $1 million annually from the turbines, which has more than offset town taxes. Schools and the county government also get a piece of the pie from the turbines in Wyoming County.

Towns that allow “noxious uses” generally receive some compensation for dealing with the negative impacts. Albion is home to two state prisons. It’s time the community starts receiving a “host-community benefits package” for these sites.

The Albion Correctional Facility is the largest women’s prison in the state with 1,050 inmates. The state has completed several construction projects at this prison in recent years, including a Special Housing Unit for inmates with discipline problems. This prison is highly visible along Washington Street at the west end of the village.

About three decades ago the state, when it was in a prison-building spree, constructed the medium-security Orleans Correctional Facility. This one today has 710 male inmates.

Orleans Correctional looks like it’s out of a movie set, set along rural Gaines Basin Road with the tall razor-wire fence and the ominous guard towers.

Together the two prisons consume about 500 acres. I think they also have a blighting effect on some nearby properties, discouraging housing development near the prisons.

The community gave up some good land for the prisons, land that could be tax-generating for houses, commercial development or even a cornfield. The state doesn’t pay village, town or county taxes for these properties. It does pay the school district a tiny rate.

We send our fire department and ambulances over there for calls. Our first responders have to train for what-if scenarios at the prisons.

I think the community should be paid for providing some services to the prisons, and contending with the negatives that come with these sites.

What would be a fair host-community benefits package?

Orleans County has a 4 percent bed tax. If a visitor is staying in a bed and breakfast with a $100 a night charge, the customer is taxed the usual 8 percent sales tax plus another 4 percent for a bed tax. That generates $8 in sales tax and $4 for a bed tax if the room is $100.

Orleans County in the past has billed Genesee about $80 a day to house Genesee’s female inmates in the county jail in Albion. That’s the price Orleans has put out as a daily charge for the county jail. If we used that number for the state prisons (I would think the state prisons would be a higher cost) and multiplied that by the 4 percent bed tax, NYS would owe the community $3.20 in a daily bed tax per state inmate.

But the prisons are hardly hotels and the state isn’t made of money. So I think the prison communities should give the state a deal and make it a simple formula. The state should give each prison community $1 a day per inmate.

In Albion, the two prisons have 1,760 inmates. The state should pay $1,760 a day or $642,400 a year as a host community benefits package. I would divvy up this money using a typical PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) plan used by the Economic Development Agency. You take the tax rates from each municipality and calculate a pro-rated share of the money based on the rates.

In Albion, the town would get 10 percent of prison money, the county 20 percent, and the village and school district would each receive 35 percent, according to my plan.

The Orleans Correctional Facility is lined with a razor-wire fence. The facility was built on Gaines Basin Road about three decades ago.

State-wide there are 54,600 state inmates. At $1 a day, the state should pay the prison communities $19,929,000 each year. That money would be directed to communities that need it. The state put these prisons in towns that were economically depressed and have remained so. (Frankly, $1 is too cheap and I’d welcome our state representatives to push for more. If you have a maximum security prison in your town, you should get double the rate.)

The prisons provide jobs and offer some benefits to the communities. The corrections workers and other employees spend money at local gas stations and businesses, boosting our local economy and generating some sales tax for the local and state governments.

But many of these workers don’t live in the communities where the prisons are located. The prison communities are serving as regional job outlets, with many employees driving from outside the community for the jobs. For the Albion prisons, Batavia, Medina, Buffalo and other communities get the benefit of decent-paying jobs for their residents but those communities don’t bear the negative costs of providing services and having good land gobbled up by these sites.

The state already provides a host community package for communities with an industry that brings some societal ills. The State Legislature and governor have directed state money to communities with video gaming centers.

The City and Town of Batavia, plus Genesee County share in that bounty each year because of Batavia Downs. Those communities use about $500,000 from a host community package to help offset taxes.

The gaming centers are advertised as attractions, drawing outsiders to the community to spend money at the race track and other businesses. The gaming centers are featured in tourism brochures. They are depicted as hip and trendy destinations.

The prisons feel like a black hole, sucking the life out of a big section of communities across the state. New York should help offset that with some money.