Two propositions on Bexar County’s Nov. 4 ballot ask voters to decide the future of the county’s venue tax — a rare pot of funding that doesn’t come directly from residents’ pockets, but from those visiting San Antonio.

While few are arguing against raising and continuing that tax, there’s a fight brewing over whether it can or should be put to a different use.

The county is asking voters to increase its tax on hotel rooms from 1.75% to 2% — the state’s maximum — and extend an already existing 5% tax on rental cars to generate hundreds of millions of limited-use dollars over the next 30 years.

Language to do so is included in both Props. A and B, which would also commit the money to expanding the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo grounds on the East Side and a proposed NBA arena downtown.

While supporters say the taxes on visitors will fuel development without burdening local taxpayers — opponents remember a time when they had more say over how venue tax dollars were spent.

In back-to-back events across town this week, county leaders and community activists delivered competing narratives on an issue already confusing many voters just weeks out from the election.

“In the past, we have paid for other projects with this money,” said Adrian Castro, a member of the COPS/Metro Alliance, which opposes public dollars for private development, and presented its alternative vision for the money at City Hall on Thursday morning. “I don’t see anything that says that it has to go to a Spurs arena.”

If the propositions fail, county leaders acknowledge they’ll have to go back to the drawing board.

But it’s unclear whether ideas brought forward by the community would be eligible for the same money, or what county leaders would do with facilities it already owns.

“I can’t tell you how to vote. That’s your decision,” Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai told residents gathered on the East Side on Wednesday night. “That’s why this town hall meeting is so important, so that you can have the correct, accurate information, and you can get your questions answered.”

Limited-use dollars?

At the Expo Hall behind the Freeman Coliseum, roughly 150 residents and business owners took in dozens of signs and renderings that county leaders hoped would give them a clearer picture of what they’re voting on starting on Oct. 20.

Sakai said the plans were created in response to the Spurs owners’ desire to move the team downtown — an idea that once seemed scary, but ultimately left potential for long-promised redevelopment in the Eastside home they’d be leaving.

The Frost Bank Center where the team currently plays was supposed to lure bars and restaurants to an otherwise industrial part of town.

While those businesses never materialized for basketball fans, county leaders hope turning it into a rodeo district will draw different visitors who travel and stay overnight — supporting different kinds of amenities.

“I need the Spurs to leave the East Side,” Sakai told attendees. “Because status quo will not change this facility.”

Opponents of the Spurs arena aren’t taking a side on the East Side redevelopments.

But their broader messaging around the venue tax seemed to have struck a nerve, with signs posted around the Expo Hall repeating the idea it can only be used for “venue” projects.

“State law prescribes specifically what these dollars can be used for,” said state Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (D-San Antonio), who chaired a committee of leaders that developed plans for the new rodeo district. “It’s not just money they will come into the coffers that could be used any kind of way.”

That argument has been a tough sell to those who remember a 2008 venue tax election that solicited feedback from the community, and then put money toward arena upgrades, youth sports facilities, the Mission Reach eco-restoration project and Alameda Theatre renovations, among other projects.

“This is your money, and if you vote against Prop. B, it can stay your money,” Castro said at Thursday’s press conference.

Whether the group’s “alternative vision” is possible, however, depends in part on how the state views the projects.

Texas law spells out a wide variety of venue tax uses — including aquariums, municipal parks and eco restoration. But since the fees target hotel and rental car prices specifically, cities and counties are supposed to prove they’re going toward projects that will draw in more visitors.

The Texas Comptroller approved the county’s plans for a November venue tax election for the NBA arena and East Side renovations. If those measures fail, new projects would have to garner that same support.

“That’s the reason Barbara [Gervin-Hawkins] is very involved, because it does engage the state of Texas and what the Legislature allows us to do,” Sakai said.

Will Props. A and B raise taxes?

Adding to the confusion on venue taxes is an arena project with a funding mechanism that’s much more complicated.

County leaders on Wednesday were peppered with questions about whether the projects would impact property taxes — and leaders repeatedly assured them that they would not.

“N-O, no,” said Gervin-Hawkins. “This is not property tax. It’s venue tax. … there’s no property tax involved here.”

That’s the case for Prop A. However, if Prop. B passes, it will only fund a quarter of the proposed $1.3 billion Spurs’ arena, which does lean on property taxes for the city of San Antonio’s $489 million portion of the bill.

City leaders say they plan to use property taxes from new development around the arena to pay for its construction, meaning it would come primarily from properties the team’s owners would help build.

In the Nov. 4 election, residents of Bexar County’s many smaller municipalities will weigh in on their only contributions to the projects, through the venue tax.

For San Antonio residents, however, Prop. B has become the catch-all referendum on their contributions to a publicly funded arena district, in part because the city doesn’t have to put its money up for a public vote.

“The city is proposing to use that additional property tax [revenue] as a way of financing their contribution toward the new arena,” County Manager David Smith said Wednesday. “The county has made no such commitment.”

County leaders are so wary about the broader sports and entertainment district known as Project Marvel, Smith avoided even naming it when asked if the county planned to help pay for surrounding bridges and streets.

“We’re not talking about infrastructure. We’re not talking about anything outside the four walls and the roof of that arena,” Smith said. “So the short answer is, nothing in this visitor tax has anything to do with that bigger project.”