Protocol Is a Private Matter

San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor has made two proposals in recent days that promise to provoke lively debate come budget time.

The first, an increase in the hotel room tax from 7% to 9%, would fund the second: a city protocol office.

Transient occupancy taxes, or TOT, as the hotel room taxes are known, are politically cheap funds because they are paid by tourists, not voters. The $23-million annual fund is used to promote tourism and support museums, theaters, parks and parades that are related to tourism, though some would argue only as distant cousins.

The proposed increase, which would likely raise an additional $7.4 million, is a good idea in a time when government sources of new funds are scarce.

How the money should be spent is another matter.

The mayor would like to see some of the money go to establish a protocol office--a function that has little to do with social etiquette, those in other cities say, and much to do with making the city more accessible to foreign business executives, who are accustomed to dealing with government officials.

San Diego can’t escape the fact that it is an international city. It may have outgrown the days when Mayor Pete Wilson drove his beat-up ’67 Mercury to City Hall, and it may need more than ad hoc arrangements to serve foreign officials and executives. But we question if a three- to five-person protocol staff, even one headed by a volunteer, isn’t lusting for a fleet of Cadillacs on a Chevrolet budget.

There are more crying needs for the increased TOT tax, ones that affect far more people. Balboa and Mission Bay parks, for example, are the foundations of the city’s tourist image and urgently need work to repair buildings and landscaping and prevent sewage spills. But funding is elusive, especially since the defeat of a bond measure in November.

Having a protocol office may well be a good idea. But with the mayor saying the city is almost broke, it seems illogical that tax dollars should be spent on a largely ceremonial function.

Other cities have found alternative routes, such as using private funding and volunteers. That method has been suggested by the county, which also wants a protocol office.

Competing protocol officers would certainly be overkill, and logic dictates that the protocol function should be centered in the city. But need dictates that private funding, not TOT or other tax money, should support such an office.