The Mountlake Terrace City Council is expected to approve on Monday, Mar. 4, an allocation of $17,170 of city lodging tax revenue to the organization that stages Tour de Terrace. The amount is $700 less that Tour de Terrace has received each of the past two years from the tax fund.

The city’s lodging tax fund is revenue collected from a special tax applied to receipts at Mountlake Terrace’s only motel, Studio 6.

“Lodging tax, under state law, has to be used for tourism promotion or tourism facilities or tourism-related events,” said Assistant City Manager Scott Hugill. “Tour de Terrace qualifies and these dollars are used for promotion of the event, newspaper and radio ads primarily.”

The city has traditionally provided some in-kind services to the community event that include barricades for parade and event security, sand and seed for the fields used by the festival, placement of promotional banners around town, and some set-up and clean-up for the parade and festival. The dollar amount of city in-kind services this year is being placed at $8,146.99; the Tour de Terrace organization will be required to reimburse the city for services rendered beyond that amount.

“There are no city general dollars that go to the Tour de Terrace organization to pay for this event,” Hugill told the city council on Thursday. “It’s all lodging tax dollars; that’s the cash that goes to the group.”

The lodging tax revenue allocation is expected to be part of the consent calendar at the City Council regular meeting on Monday. Mayor Jerry Smith and Council member Rick Ryan are expected to excuse themselves prior to the council vote, as they are members of the Tour de Terrace organization.

This year’s edition of Tour de Terrace is scheduled for July 26-28, with the carnival opening on July 25.