March Virginia City town council meeting

Virginia City held their monthly town council meeting on Thursday, March 7, 2025. Resort tax collection numbers for 2024 and short term rentals were discussed.  For the town of Virginia City resort tax helps to provide funding for infrastructure improvements, marketing campaigns and community development. Looking at this information regularly and comparing to previous years helps the council to better understand what needs to be changed and how the funds that were collected can be utilized and dispersed.

In 1990 Virginia City voters adopted a 3% resort tax on all goods and services sold within the town between May 1 to Oct. 31. A continuation of the resort tax was approved in an election held June 8, 2010. 

On May 2, 2019, Senate Bill 241 was passed which allows resort communities to impose an additional resort tax levy of up to 1% provided that the additional resort tax go towards infrastructure purposes. This resort tax also terminates once the infrastructure project has completed. 

During the Thursday meeting, the council reviewed the resort tax numbers from 2024. The grand total from the 3% category was $120,123.94 and the total from the 1% was $40,043.87. These two totals brought in a grand total of $160,167.81 for Virginia City. (For details and this image please see subscribe to the E-edition.)

“This indicates that the total spend with local businesses during the tourist season was a little over $4 million,” stated council member Amy Grice. This shows growth since the previous year, with projected growth  for this year as well. 

These funds help to support current infrastructure projects. “In order for the 1% resort tax to stay in effect, we are going to Virginia City voters on May 6, 2025 with another infrastructure project: Completing the historic streetlight replacement and improvement on Wallace Street (i.e. Main Street). The modern cobra-head streetlights would be removed and historically appropriate lights would be added in 10-12 locations to provide drivers and pedestrians with a safer and better lit Wallace Street. It's a $60,000 project with the Town of VC and Montana Heritage Commission each putting in $5,000 plus the cost of labor and materials. The project would commence immediately upon approval and the 1% remittances would cover the cost of the project in two years. Just like they did with the Parking Lot, we are optimistic that our voters will see the significant upside to this streetlight project, ” said Mayor Justin Gatewood.

 Short term rental issues in the town of Virginia City were another agenda item. In another comment from Grice, “A moratorium on new Short Term Rental (STR) was imposed in mid 2024 for eight months. The Planning Board worked tirelessly to research the issue and how it has been dealt with in other municipalities and came up with a draft ordinance which was modified and streamlined by the Town Council over several months, with the final ordinance passed on Feb. 6, 2025. By this ordinance, the Town of Virginia City establishes a limit of the total number of STR Business Permits permitted within Virginia City, calculated as 10%”. 

The 10% is calculated from the  total number of dwelling units in Virginia City, as determined by the Town of Virginia City's residential inventory, with the limit calculated annually by the Virginia City Town Council staff each February.

“I think the Short Term Rental Ordinances speaks for itself and strikes a good balance between maintaining a community and tourism. I am proud that our council passed it,” stated Gatewood.