Sparks to Reno: What About Us?

Tucked into the northwestern corner of Nevada, a stone's throw from Reno and Lake Tahoe, is the city of Sparks, whose hotels the Reno-Sparks Convention & Visitors Authority collect bed taxes from in exchange for marketing it as a destination.

At least, according to Sparks City Council Member Ron Schmitt, that's what the authority's supposed to be doing. Things could be changing.

After what Schmitt said were years of problems, the situation came to a head when the city of Sparks hired “mystery shoppers” to call sales teams at different entities and ask what Sparks had to offer visitors. Six calls were made to the RSCVA, he added, and five times the response was that “there was nothing going on in the city of Sparks.”

“We've had long-running problems with the RSCVA,” Schmitt said. “What is the city of Sparks getting from (it)?”

According to Schmitt and at least two other council members, the answer was simple – not a lot.

So, the Sparks City Council voted 3-2 on July 28 to take the first step, a draft-bill request, toward asking the Nevada State Legislature to allow it to change its relationship with the RSCVA and form its own tourism authority.

“There's a severe breakdown here,” Schmitt added. “What's the RSCVA's mission? What are they supposed to be doing?”

RSCVA CEO and President Ellen Oppenheim said the authority's goal is to “promote the region and to promote attractions and amenities in the region,” which includes the city of Sparks.

If Sparks was unhappy with the way it was being served by the RSCVA, she added, it made “no overt efforts” to air its complaints before voting on the draft-bill request that could lead to the breakup.

Sparks city officials may have an agenda, Oppenheim suggested. A number of projects in Sparks that could eventually generate bed taxes are in the pipeline. For instance, The Legends at Sparks Marina, which will have a 300-room hotel, casino and 50,000 square feet of convention and meeting space, is set to break ground in the fall.

“I suspect that's behind their idea of promoting Sparks,” she added.

Michonne Ascuaga, CEO of John Ascuaga's Nugget, the biggest hotel-casino property in Sparks, said she had no clue before the city council vote that anybody in her city of 90,000 was thinking of a split with its larger sister city of Reno (population 210,000). “We had no indication (Sparks was) entertaining the idea,” she added.

Still, Ascuaga added, she's not interested in leaving the RSCVA umbrella. “Let's do this together and market everything as a region,” she suggested.

According to her, the Nugget is responsible for at least half the $4.8 million in bed taxes Sparks hotels contribute to the RSCVA annually.

Schmitt said the vote to file a draft-bill request does not mean Sparks intends to break completely from the authority. Instead, he added, Sparks city officials would like an agreement similar to the one that Henderson, Nev., has with the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority in which the smaller city keeps a portion of the bed taxes collected and operates a separate tourism authority. In order for that to happen, he added, Sparks and the RSCVA would have to come to an agreement that would then be approved by the legislature.

Oppenheim said she hopes it won't come to that. “My hope is we continue to work successfully and collaboratively as a region to promote this area,” she added.