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The City Council, at Mayor Peggy Dunn's urging, has authorized city attorney Dick Wetzler to draft legislation needed for the tax.

Wetzler says he's drafting a charter ordinance that almost certainly will suggest that the City Council set the tax at 6.5 percent.

That is the amount to which Kansas City voters raised their tax in an election this week. Overland Park's rate is 6 percent.

Charter ordinances go into effect 60 days after passage unless citizens mount a petition drive to put them on the ballot.

There's no rush to get this hotel tax adopted, given that construction of the hotel (adjacent to office space on Nall Avenue between 115th and 117th streets) hasn't begun. But there's no harm in making sure the legislation necessary to collect a transient guest tax is ready when the Hilton's doors open.

Many area cities with hotels already collect such taxes. The Hilton, however, will be Leawood's first hotel. Its location near Sprint's new world headquarters should help make the hotel successful and the tax a reliable source of city income.

Wetzler says the ordinance he's preparing should be ready for council action in a couple months. He plans to include language that would dedicate the income from the new tax to promote economic development in Leawood, though it will be up to the City Council to make that final call.

Unlike the 6.875 percent sales tax now collected in Leawood (1 percentage point of which is levied by the city itself), the hotel tax will be paid primarily by visitors.

But because both the sales tax and the new hotel tax will be collected from hotel guests, those visitors will be paying more than 13 percent on their room bills if the transient guest tax is set at 6.5 percent. That total is not out of line with what guests pay in other cities.

The hotel tax can be a helpful source of revenue for Leawood and there's no reason not to get it adopted as soon as practicable.

Editorials are written by members of the Editorial Board of The Star.