A divided Ames City Council voted against a measure that would have allowed Ames residents to vote on whether to increase the hotel-motel tax from 5 percent to 7 percent.

During the five-hour meeting Tuesday night, members voted 3-2 against putting the measure on the ballot.

Council members Judie Hoffman, Russell Cross and Ann Campbell each voted against the measure. Herman Quirmbach and Sharon Wirth voted in favor of the measure.

Several Ames area hotel managers said they were pleased the vote to put the tax-increase measure on the ballot failed.

Sharon Doty, general manager of the Hampton Inn, 1400 S. Dayton Ave., said she does not support the tax increase.

“I just can’t see picking on hotels for the increase, because customers do notice when they have to pay more, and they are not happy,” she said.

Linda Christensen, general manager of the Microtel Inn and Suites, 2216 S.E. 16th St., also said she was relieved the council voted against putting the measure on the ballot.

“If someone was to start asking guests how they feel [about having to pay more in taxes], it’s a big problem and they don’t like it.

“I think in the future, it could have possibly affected business not only for our hotel, but for the whole community. People think that Uncle Sam already takes enough of their money through other taxes, so I think extra hotel tax might have turned them off to staying in Ames,” she said.

Council member Wirth said she was in favor of the measure because she believes it benefits the community.

“I think that certainly the activities of the group and projects of the groups involved add greatly to our quality of life, and I really felt that that was important,” she said.

Quirmbach said he believes this was a missed opportunity on the council’s part.

“We had a remarkable opportunity for a very small amount of money to foster and promote a wide variety of projects including contributing to the completion of the youth-sports complex and fire safety upgrades of the actors facility,” he said.

Quirmbach added that the tax would also have provided a reliable source of funding for the children’s museum, the history museum and Bandshell renovation.

“These are all projects that are widely recognized in the community as contributing considerably to the value [of life in Ames],” he said.

Quirmbach said he favored putting the measure on the ballot so Ames voters would be able to make the decision.

“I think that the ultimate decision belongs to the voters, that’s what the state Legislature specified when it wrote the statute that enables local communities to impose the hotel-motel tax,” he said.

Quirmbach said the 2-percent increase would have been split, with 1 percent going to the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and the other 1 percent to a fund to be used for matching money for local groups in the arts, recreation, culture and historic preservation.

“I think it, frankly, is irresponsible of the council not to exceed to that request,” he said. “The collection of groups that came together to support that represented a very broad cross section of the community. There literally would have been thousands of people, especially thousands of kids, who would have benefited from that.”

Councilman Cross said he was against putting the measure on the ballot because there are better ways to raise the money.

“I was opposed to this issue because I think there are other ways to raise funds. I also didn’t think the Visitor’s Bureau presented a strong enough case for use of dollars and the benefit that would have come from spending that money on their organization,” he said.

Councilwoman Hoffman said the extra revenue should have been doled out to more organizations.

“I was not opposed to raising the tax, but I felt that if it were raised, it should have benefited more groups,” she said.

Councilwoman Campbell said she also voted against the measure for a variety of reasons.

“The fact that this is a tax not on Ames citizens, but on visitors to Ames who stay in hotels,” she said.

Had the measure passed, Cross said the tax increase would have been effective until the public and the city council took action to reduce the tax by a referendum.