UKIAH >> At least one local hotel was receiving threats this week after rumors flared about it gouging evacuees of the nearby Valley Fire.
“This was very hurtful for us because we have been in this town for more than 30 years,” said Mike Jivan, one of the managers at the Discovery Inn on North State Street. “It was just a rumor, and it just takes one person to start a fire.”
Jivan said the rumor began because of how the hotel’s online booking system calculates rates based on how many people are requesting rooms, raising rates when more people are interested, which is a common feature of on-line travel sites. On Sept. 12 when the fire started, Jivan said four people who booked rooms for that night were charged a higher rate that was refunded the next day.
“As soon as we found out that people were charged $40 more for their rooms, we refunded the money and apologized for the issue,” Jivan said, adding that in the meantime, rumors had been spread online about local hotels gouging evacuees, and he and his family began receiving threats.
“We understand people are furious, but please don’t bring our kids into it,” Jivan said, explaining that he tried to stay out of the fray online and focus on the people staying at the hotel. “We can’t contain the fire online, and trying to would only take our time away from helping the people here.”
Jivan said about 60 percent of the hotel’s rooms are currently rented to fire evacuees, many of whom have been given free toiletry bags, “and we’ve donated all of the hotel’s extra pillows and blankets to them.”
When the 49ers played the Vikings Monday night, Jivan said the hotel also hosted a watching event with food provided by Wingstop, the adjacent restaurant they own.
“We thought that might help people get their minds of the fire for at least a little bit,” he said. “We had a great turnout.”
The rest of the fully booked hotel, he said, is rented to firefighters and PG&E employees.
Shannon Riley, senior management analyst, said City Manager Sage Sangiacomo responded to the rumors of price gouging by sending letters to all of the hotels, reminding owners that “price gouging is a punishable offense and the City of Ukiah takes these allegations very seriously.”
Riley said the city has received no official complaints regarding a specific hotel, but that anyone who believes they were overcharged is welcome to contact her for assistance. She can be reached at 467-5793, or at sriley@cityofukiah.com.
At Wednesday’s meeting of the Ukiah City Council, Council member Kevin Doble said he was hearing nothing but good things about how the Ukiahans were responding to the latest fire plaguing Lake County.
“It’s quite an amazing community we have that has stepped up and offered help,” Kevin Doble said, adding that he had heard stories of “average, every day people taking the day off to drive to Lake County to deliver food and offer other help, and I’m really proud of that.”
Just one example of people in Ukiah offering help came from Jennifer Seward, the executive director of the Redwood Empire Fairgrounds, who met an evacuee from Cobb who hadn’t been able to get his cat when he had to leave his home, and didn’t have a way to search for her.
For the past few days, she said, the man kept asking her “have you found my cat, it’s all I have,” and on Wednesday night while searching posts online, Seward said she found a photo of his cat, Tin Tin, who had been taken to a hospital in U.C. Davis.
“So he’s going there now to be reunited with his cat,” Seward said Thursday. “I know it’s a very small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I know how important an animal can be to someone who has lost everything else.”
