I have long advocated for a full-service hotel because of the enormous positive impacts it will have on Escondido's economic future.

In addition to the new transient occupancy tax revenues, it would turn a city parking lot that generates no revenues and the California Center for the Arts, Escondido, Conference Center into income-generating assets while energizing the rest of the arts center campus and downtown Escondido. Having a full-service hotel sparks interest on the part of other businesses and job generators to locate in Escondido. It's hard to overstate the importance a full-service hotel would have on our city.

The proposed hotel deal is as good as we could ever possibly expect in terms of what we would need to make a full-service hotel a reality in Escondido, given that we have no such facility in place. The passage of time has brought about a revised proposal that has less risk and a smaller investment on the part of the city than earlier ones.

But the revised hotel proposal still requires considerable investment on the part of the city, using a reserve account designated as our economic incentive development fund. Under normal circumstances, we'd be able to allocate these monies for economic development without a second thought, since that's the original intent of such funds.

But we are not living in normal circumstances. We live in times when we cannot predict much of anything positive in the short and intermediate term.

Our local economy is directly impacted by a national economic calamity in which, among other things, two of the Big 3 automakers either are in bankruptcy or in a forced sale while the banking and financial industries are teetering on collapse, along with much of the retail sector. Add to that a devastated real estate market.

Our state is virtually bankrupt, which greatly affects Escondido and the other cities and counties in California. We have no idea exactly how much the state's financial crisis will cost the city in deferred property and gas tax revenues, only that it likely will.

Locally, our tax revenues have been in a tailspin -- well before the calamities I just mentioned occurred. Again, we are living in times of great economic uncertainty, and it's this unprecedented high level of uncertainty that has caused me to rethink releasing the reserve funds designated for economic incentive until we have a better idea of how deep our revenue declines will go and when we'll reach the bottom.

Despite the fact that we've cut our general fund budgets to the bone in the past couple of years, I will not support using the economic incentive funds to balance this or future budgets, given what we think we know about the near and intermediate term. But I will rest easier knowing we have funds in reserve to provide an adequate level of fire, police, and public works services to our residents in the event that circumstances become even worse than we could ever predict.

Some have said such concerns are too cautious and even unrealistic. But who could have predicted the economic tragedies that have occurred in just the past few months? A better question: Who can say with assurance there are not greater tragedies ahead?

DICK DANIELS is Escondido's mayor pro tem.