WILSON — The Wilson City Council approved Ordinance 849 Monday, dealing with the Transient Guest Tax. The ordinance raises the tax charged at local lodging establishments from the current .25 percent to 3 percent.

Also approved was the formation of a 10-member committee to make recommendations to the council on how to distribute the tax after it is collected. The committee will be made up of representatives from businesses affected by the tax, along with representation from other organizations and individuals in Wilson.

“It’s going to be following the guidelines of Kansas statutes,” said council member Gary Everett.

Mike Peschka of the Wilson Economic Development Corporation said his organization would be happy to find volunteers to serve on the committee.

“We’ll include people who are going to collect the tax as well as businesses and organizations that are involved in the tourism effort,” Peschka said, adding WEDC will follow State Statute 12-1695, which deals with the selection of members of the committee.

He hopes to have a list of names for the council by the end of August.

Council member Chuck Crawford asked what would happen if there were people who served on the city council in addition to serving on a board or a business requesting transient guest dollars.

“We need to decide ahead of time what we’re going to do when it happens,” Crawford said.

Everett said that would be a conflict of interest.

“We (the council) allocate that money,” said Mayor Larry Ptacek. “It’s not the committee.”

“Okay, we allocate the money, but what if the people we allocate it to are also sitting on this council,” Crawford asked.

Everett said he could see where Crawford was coming from.

“Larry and I are both on the Wilson Tourism hub and they’ve been doing things like the egg,” Everett said. “There could be things like that come up that the tourism hub asks for the city to put in something like that. I could see us having to abstain from that.”

“Say if I was a council person and my business put in a bid for a job, I’d have to abstain from the voting,” Ptacek said.“That’s just a known fact.”

In other business:

• Stacie Schmidt, executive director of the Smoky Hill Development Corporation, submitted her biannual review of economic development activities related to Wilson.

Schmidt said the list is not inclusive because a lot of things she does are for the entire county.

Schmidt said she continues to receive calls from people asking about the 15-year-old Kansas Free Land Program in Ellsworth County.

“The only community that is still getting any promotion from that free land is Wilson, because you are the only one that still has free land available,” she said.

• Approval was given to rent the ballfield in Jellison Park out for a sloshball game on Aug. 10. The alcohol prohibition at the ballfield was also waived for Aug. 10.

• Crawford said the drain at Old 40 and Ave. I was broken. He submitted a bid from Kyler and Son of Kanopolis to remove and replace the old box around the drain. He also submitted a figure from Kenny Branda on recrowning and resurfacing 31st Street.

Everett said there are a lot of unknown costs the council may have to pay during the remainder of the year and he suggested that work could wait until then to fit into the budget.

• The $4,300 annual stipend request from the Wilson Economic Development Corporation was approved.

The next meeting of the Wilson City Council will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 5, at city hall.