Killington Chamber considering financial aid request from Town

At the EDTC meeting last night, member Bill Mercier, who is also a Chamber of Commerce member, related to the rest of the commission that the Chamber will be coming with its hand out to the commission seeking funds to support the conversion of Bill's Country Store to a visitor's center and, I would surmise, to subsidize its operations on a going forward basis. This because Mercier also floated the notion of the town providing staffing for the visitors center.
He explained that the Chamber could not afford to finish the project or staff it.
This is no surprise as I always thought the Bill's five intention was to ram the Bill's Country Store/Visitor's Center down the taxpayer's throats. If they can't afford it now they couldn't afford it a year ago either. They had the best ski season in recent years and should have had some discretionary funds to do the build out. However certain partners were investing and spending elsewhere. Chris Carr took over the Foundry (and rumour has it, is investing in a restaurant in the Boston area) and Steve Durkee is spending tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands in legal fighting the ski village,  the best economic development project the region has seen since the establishment of Killington ski resort.
There also seems to be some question as to whether the Chamber is in fact a tax exempt non profit. When asked by Jim Haff whether the Chamber was in fact non profit Mercier's reply was that it's a 501(c)6 organization. Upon checking the IRS database of registered 501(c) entities no entry was found for the Killington Chamber of Commerce.
When all is said and done, what is the point of  a visitor's center anyway. Beyond providing public bathrooms I can't think of anything. If money is going to be spent on economic development and tourism the point is to bring people to the area. How is a visitor's center going to accomplish that - it
only gets used when the tourists get here, it doesn't draw them here.
With all the looming property tax increases between the state and local funding needs do we really need to add to the tax burden with something as ill conceived as this visitor's center?

Vito