Days Inn Payment Pact Collapses – December 1, 2010
Kevin L. Hoover
Eye Editor
ARCATA – The City of Arcata’s patience with Valley West’s Days Inn motel is wearing thin.
The troubled motel has been behind on its water bill and has not turned over its full share of the Transient Occupancy Taxes (TOT) that it collects from lodgers.
Last March, Arcata won a $92,667.99 judgment related to delinquent TOT against the motel’s owners and a lien was placed on the facility. Suggestions that the business’s water might be cut off started payments flowing again, and in June, the City and the motel forged a payment agreement with owners Silver Creek Hospitality of San José to pay off the $123,995 of TOT and $23,617 water charges owed. The terms were for 12 months at six percent interest.
City Manager Randy Mendosa said the owners have been paying the monthly payments for the past debt of about $124,000, but never resumed paying the City for the current TOT and water utility charges which have accumulated to over $60,000 through September.
“The payment agreement required they continue paying the City for current TOT and water, so they have been in continued violation of the payment agreement since they signed it,” Mendosa said.
A notice delivered by the Finance Department on Oct. 7 gained no response, so a letter threatening legal action was sent Oct. 26 (see page 7). Mendosa said he is reconsidering the water cutoff, but is concerned about the employees’ jobs and is reluctant to create a boarded-up motel at Arcata’s northern entrance.
Calls and e-mail messages to owners Mukesh Mowji, Tarun S. Patel, Anil R. Patel and Days Inn Manager Mike Miller were not returned.
