PENDLETON Pendleton City Council after a public hearing at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday will vote on whether to extend a hotel bed tax, without which convention center improvements will go unfunded.

City Council on June 19 voted for City Manager Robb Corbett to draft an ordinance for the Tourism Promotion Assessment Charge. A yes vote by city council Tuesday is the last necessary move to extend TPAC from 2014 to 2017, Corbett said. Convention Center Executive Director Pat Kennedy told the East Oregonian in June a breakout room expansion project meant to draw larger groups to the center would be impossible without extending TPAC. He said the convention center collects $80,000 yearly from TPAC, which funded the lobbys $250,000 remodel.

TPAC funds Travel Pendleton and convention center improvements and is sustained by funds from collecting $1.50 per person for every hotel room, and 50 cents a motor home space. The tax generated $200,541 in the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

Jim Gorham, Travel Pendleton Committee chairman and owner of the Rodeway Inn, 310 S.E. Dorian Ave., said TPAC is supposed to increase hotel stays by attracting larger groups to the convention center because of improved facilities. The convention center collects 45 percent of TPAC funds, and the remaining $19,700 a year goes to Travel Pendleton, its former director Yolanda Lennon told the East Oregonian in June. Lennon semi-retired in June to start a one-woman marketing venture, Yo! Oregon. The Travel Pendleton committee in June was searching for Lennons successor nationally and throughout the Northwest, said Gorham.