A proposed parking lot tax intended to help offset the costs of growing tourism traffic in downtown Jim Thorpe is still in the early stages of development, borough council members said last week.

“We’re trying to come up with some solutions to raise some revenue for the extreme costs of dealing with the downtown volume of people and traffic coming in … so we don’t have to pass those costs along to the residents through a tax increase,” Borough President Greg Strubinger said.

The potential tax has drawn attention from both residents and organizations that utilize parking as a source of income.

Jim Yaich of the Sam Miller Field nonprofit, which parks vehicles to fund youth activities in the area, raised questions about whether such groups would be taxed under the proposed ordinance.

“We’re a nonprofit, and I wonder how that works,” Yaich said. “My understanding is in Pennsylvania, if you’re a nonprofit … you should be exempt from that.”

Strubinger responded by acknowledging the matter is still under review and emphasized that details, including what types of lots would be included and at what size or paving standard the tax would apply, are still being considered.

“There’s some work to be done … but I mean, ultimately, it’s a tax on the visitors that are coming into Jim Thorpe to park,” he said.

He later emphasized that the goal is not to financially burden nonprofits.

“No monies will be taken away from the nonprofit,” Strubinger said. “It may be a case where you bump up the fee a little bit to cover the cost. It’s really some of the bigger lots that are going year-round where this revenue is going to help the borough.”

Former Councilman Bob Schaninger said the tax should be levied equally, no matter the size of the lot.

“Whether they have four spots or 400 spots, they pay,” he said. “I don’t care about the size of a lot. They’re making money off the fact that we as a town have to put up with nonsense for six months, and they’re making money off that.

“They should pay back the borough.”

Resident Brian Evans urged council to not discourage smaller property owners who are trying to help alleviate the parking burden.

“We don’t want to punish the small people who have just a few spots and are maybe making a few bucks on tourism and addressing a parking problem by creating a tax or an extra burden,” he said.

Evans suggested a system where only lots over a certain size or with a certain number of vehicles are subject to the tax.

Strubinger addressed the scope of the potential policy again by noting that the borough had previously considered taxing the train excursions themselves, but the state Legislature exempted railroads from local amusement taxes.

“If we could collect the amusement tax from the train, then we’re going to have maybe a different discussion,” he said. “But that was taken out of our hands because the law was changed.”