The Tri-Cities Council kicked off its “Shop Local!” campaign with press conferences in Bullhead City, Kingman and Lake Havasu City on Tuesday.
The campaign is designed to help improve commerce for businesses in the county and to help generate sales tax revenue for the cities.
“There’s a two-year lag in our shared state sales taxes. We’re going to see a downturn in that shared tax,” Kingman Councilwoman Carole Young said. “We wanted to do something about that. As a team we decided we want to get this out by ‘Black Friday.’
“We want this to last past the holidays and into the next few years.”
The campaign includes a variety of posters and bumper stickers touting the benefit to the community of shopping locally. Each of the posters is localized to the city and features something about what local sales taxes fund, like police or fire services.
“We expect to take in about $12 million in sales taxes, but it costs about $14 million to provide police and fire service,” Young said. “A lot of our residents go out of town to shop and dine and they shop on the Internet. If 30 percent of our business goes out of town (local businesses) are losing $200 million in business.”
Sam Medrano, Vice Mayor of Bullhead City, lamented the plummeting of trade in the city.
“We recently had layoffs in Bullhead City,” Medrano said. “The future doesn’t look bright in terms of sales tax revenue.
“We need to encourage people to know they can help the local economy simply by shopping locally.”
He said most people can find the goods and services they want locally.
“There are over 2,000 licensed businesses in Bullhead City. There’s no reason to go to Las Vegas,” Medrano said.
Lake Havasu City Councilman Don Callahan touted the recently added shopping opportunities in the city.
“We have a brand new mall open for its first holiday season,” Callahan said. “We have a brand new Dillard’s, an expanded J.C. Penney as well as a number of other stores.”
The campaign encourages people to shop within the county even if they live the city in which they live to make their purchases.
“If you can’t find what you want in Bullhead City go to Kingman. If you can’t find it there go to Havasu,” Medrano said.
The panel suggested if customers have trouble finding a product or service they contact the local chambers of commerce.
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