Visitors Committee pauses rocks lighting over funding rules

BRIDGEPORT —The Morrill County Visitors Committee voted Sept. 16 to pause a proposed lighting project at Courthouse and Jail Rocks until the county creates a visitors improvement fund.

County Attorney Kirk Fellhoelter told the committee the county’s existing 2 percent lodging tax, adopted in 1982, may be used only for promotion — advertising, signage and attracting visitors — not physical improvements. Nebraska law allows a separate improvement fund for expanding or maintaining attractions, but Morrill County never created one.

Fellhoelter said promotion money cannot be transferred into an improvement fund.