Florence and Newport Events Centers

Several years ago, Florence built its "all events" center, which was later renamed the Florence Events Center. It's a wonderful place, really classy, but it loses money. As a result, the city is taking a lot of the cash generated by the local room taxes and putting it into operations at the events center. This isn't really what the room tax is for. It's collected by the lodging industry and should be used to promote tourism. Maybe that's why the idea of an events center in Newport has been such a tough sell. Tourism is very important in Lincoln County and the people up there probably don't want to find themselves taking their advertising budget and spending it to keep up a building that is largely for locals.