A spat is escalating over how funds from the city’s hotel/motel tax can be spent.

On Monday, the president of the Hotel Lodging Association of St. Joseph threatened to withhold support for renewal of the tax because the city appears reluctant to help the Convention and Visitors Bureau pay for a new downtown headquarters.

In a letter to the mayor, the city manager and the city clerk, Brandon Lee Wilson asserted that the new CVB facility “will be of significant help in expanding tourism in St. Joseph, in boosting our city’s economic development.”

“It will help our business and it will help our city,” Wilson said in the letter. Wilson is also Director of Sales for the Holiday Inn Express & Suites and the Candlewood Suites.

He pointed out the association’s support in the successful campaign to expand the tax to 6% in 2011. But he added that if the council and administration do not agree on the new facility, there would be no reason for the group to support renewal of the tax when it expires.

“If we receive no benefit from a tax we collect, it would seem logical to oppose continuation,” Wilson said.

The ballot language of the 2011 tax increase stated that revenue would be used for the “purpose of funding the promotion of tourism and convention facilities including capital expenditures.” But opponents argue that the campaign language used to help pass the tax increase urged spending on improvements on the riverfront area.

Council Member Ken Beck supports the Convention and Visitors Bureau’s request for $300,000 to help pay for the new center. He says the ballot language is clear as to how the money should be spent.

There are other requests for funds being considered by the city, including an effort to remodel Felix Street Square. Half of the tax supports the Missouri Theater and the St. Joseph Civic Arena. There are also renewed discussions about moving the casino downtown.

The City Legal Department is looking into the matter, trying to decide if tax funds from outside the downtown area can be used to fund construction of the CVB’s new facility.