The city of Langley has added yet another committee to its growing list of citizen boards.

This week, the Langley City Council approved an ordinance establishing the new Lodging Tax Advisory Commission. According to the city’s website, it joins the ranks of 11 other committees that regularly report to the city council.

In the past, it has been suggested that Langley’s plethora of city committees are in need of paring down. Instead, the council has increased the number, adding several more within the last few years, including the Dismantling Systemic Racism Commission, the Climate Crisis Action Committee and the Finance and Personnel Commission.

During a council meeting on Monday, Mayor Scott Chaplin sought clarity surrounding the new commission’s nature, residency requirements and proposed membership, among other things.

The creation of the new committee has been spurred in part because of concerns about the transparency of Whidbey Camano Islands Tourism, a joint administration board composed of some elected officials which has been funded by Langley’s lodging tax revenues in the past.

Langley, like most municipalities and counties in the state, adopted a 2% lodging tax, sometimes referred to as the motel/hotel tax. Under state law, revenues from the tax must be used to fund activities promoting tourism or tourism-related facilities or attractions.

State law requires jurisdictions with populations over 5,000 to have lodging tax committees that conform to certain rules, but jurisdictions under 5,000 population — like Langley — may voluntarily form a committee, which doesn’t need to conform to the rules.

Council members were initially in disagreement about whether to classify the new committee as a legislative commission, which would require two council members to be voting members, or a regular commission, which would ask one council member to serve as a non-voting liaison.

“Because of how much time we spend in these meetings, and how much other things we have going on, I don’t see there being an issue with it being a legislative commission,” Councilmember Thomas Gill said.

Councilmember Rhonda Salerno, however, said she felt that it was a big decision to make it a legislative commission right away.

Councilmember Gail Fleming said it made sense to her that the new commission should be a regular advisory one, along with all the other city committees.

“We don’t micromanage. We let them do all the research and the work, etc. We respect that and they bring it to council and we vote,” she said. “I don’t understand why the lodging tax commission would be any different than the other advisory commissions.”

Other council members, however, viewed the legislative format as a possible way to hasten often lengthy council discussions. Councilmember Harolynne Bobis pointed out that the council usually spends “the next 40 minutes” going through any recommendation made by the citizen-led committees.

Gill said he thought it would help streamline the process better to make it a legislative commission, but that things could go either way.

“As Harolynne has said, we have this really bad habit of getting reports from our existing advisory committees and then spending six months to a year telling them no,” he said.

Ultimately, the council unanimously decided that the new committee should start out as a regular advisory commission, with changes being made later if needed.

When considering residency requirements, the council agreed to adhere to a model used by some of the city’s other committees of allowing Langley residents and people who either work or own businesses in Langley to apply. If that criteria isn’t able to be met, Chaplin suggested opening up residency requirements further.

“My biggest concern with opening residency requirements up too far is, this is the city of Langley. This is not the city of South Whidbey,” Gill said. “If something needs to happen in South Whidbey, that’s what the port and the county’s for, not the city of Langley.”

As for the makeup of the new board, Chaplin provided a list of proposed members, which includes one council member, one staff member, concerned citizens, individuals from the lodging industry and funding recipients from tourism organizations.

Gill, who volunteered to be the council liaison, reported that he had heard some concerns from members of the public about a potential conflict of interest with funding recipients from the head of tourism organizations being part of the new committee. Others said state code requires these types of members on lodging tax advisory committees, though the rules don’t apply to cities as small as Langley.