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good afternoon welcome to the skimi county tourist development uh council meeting today is February 18th it is approximately 3:00 p.m. uh Danielle was this meeting publicly noticed yes in the pensacol and news journal on February 13th great thank you uh if you would please call the role Ashley hoffberger present James Reeves here Shirley cronley here David Bayer here matish
Patel here Charles Bayer here Jennifer Bayer here Brad mullinex here Jason Nicholson here great thank you so much we have a quorum so this meeting is now called to order uh first item I'd like to uh welcome and introduce our two newest um I was about to say board members but Council members excuse me um Brad mullinex and Jason Nicholson welcome uh if you guys want to take
a minute introduce yourself to everyone or pass whatever you prefer I believe I'll pass it's honor B thank you it's an honor to serve the citizens of McAn County among such talented professionals as yourself really an honor thank you br great thank you oh and so when you want to speak make sure you press the talk button and when you get a light on your microphone it's hot thank you all right uh and welcome again next item is review and approval of the agenda uh
it has been distributed you have it before you are there any additions anyone would like to make hearing none we'll uh accept a motion to approve as presented is there such a motion we have a motion for Mr Reeves is there a second second second from the commissioner is there any uh debate or discussion objection hearing none please show it adopted thank you um next item is public forum uh we have a couple of signed up speakers uh if you would like to speak and
you haven't signed up please send Danielle um but we first we'll start with Lindsay Thompson oh okay well then we will skip to I'm guessing you are Sharon go come on down please welcome good afternoon if you could please put the microphone in phone thank you and introduce yourself for the record thank you Sharon goar I'm a 25- year Escambia County resident and I've been involved with the greater Pensacola Figure Skating club for almost 13 years now as
a result I've had a front row seat to the many missed opportunities for Ice Sports to bring tourism and other events um that would benefit our community on behalf of the over 500 skaters and players currently participating in Ice Sports we're requesting the opportunity to share our own stories to be able to show you firsthand the potential economic impact our Sports could have on the community if we had a year- round sheet of ice with a predictable schedule our organizations are unable to host any events which would bring tourism dollars to town due to our
current contract constraints no competitions test sessions games tournaments friendlies camps no nothing as previous prly mentioned we routinely receive tourism inquiries from skaters who need daily ice when they're traveling and this these inquiries will start to Skyrocket in a couple of weeks because of Spring Break and summer as a result of the lack of ice here in town these tourists decide to go elsewhere in Florida communities that have ice and beaches if they had planned to visit their grandparents they either cut their visit short delay or cancel
their plans when the kids need the ice to be able to continue Contin their training for competition there is no ice rink competition for almost 250 miles um we use pelum Columbus Georgia and Jacksonville for home rinks for hosting and training when there's no ice here we would love to be able to put heads and beds in Escambia County the Florida interclub Council us figure skating learned to skate USA Ice Sports industry plus the hockey organization stand ready to host
events here we just need a nice facility to to support it as a point of information we have three days of ice this week next Monday and then we go 40 plus days with no ice during our season we hope to have April ice but that's dependent on whether the ice Flyers make it to the playoffs this year so this isn't a schedule that's conducive to tourism or local use in addition to events our organizations could host there are so many more opportunities for instance did you you
know Texas Roadhouse annually hosts a meat cutting competition for their butchers that work for them and you know where they have those at an ice rink because they put the tables on top of the ice to keep the constant room temperature to preserve the meat how fun would that be to have here in town also becoming very popular are the weekend and weeklong adult only residential skating camps that include add-on for a full tourist experience and these people are spending big bugs to do these things supported by The Florida interner Club Council the city of Palms Figure Skating club just
hosted a small early season competition at the Fort Meers Stadium which is a municipal complex with one sheet of ice approximately 425 skaters plus their family members coaches and officials attended and these people all stayed in the hotels for two to three nights something we could easily do here if we had the ability we're just asking that you give us the the chance to share the details and more it's hard to tell you what we can do in 3 minutes um but if we could get a few
minutes of your time oneon-one we would um greatly appreciate that and if you've not had the chance to see amateur Ice Sports in action in Pensacola we have our last Monday class coming up uh from 5: to 600 so if you swing by you can see just what it means to the local community and after us you'll have a chance to see the um youth hockey on the ice but thank you as you make these important decisions coming up we hope you will give this some thought great thank you Mr uh and we had some ladies walk in the back or any of you Lindsay Thompson please come on
down if you would please speak uh directly into the microphone and introduce yourself for the record thank you welcome hello my name is Lindsay Thompson sorry I'm out of breath um my son is a junior ice flyer ice hockey player he's 9 years old and I am also an adult figure skater we actually got started together in the program 3 years ago and now he plays 10 new house and as far as speaking for tourism I wanted to let you know the opportunities that we have to bring massive amounts of ice hockey players and their families
to our areas so our team alone we have 64 rooms that we will be staying in a hotel in Nashville next month and it's $230 a night that's $44,000 that we're spending just on the hotel rooms I have a write up here and from an estimate from a travel family each family staying in $150 night Hotel three nights $200,000 a loan in hotel and registration fees exceed $50,000 for the
tournaments for signing up for the fees so as far as speaking for a revenue for tourism we have a lot of people that are very excited to travel here that would extend their stays stay at Pensacola Beach after we have people begging to come here and we have over 200 hockey players alone in our league that would all gladly skate year round so we have money and we want to spend it and we want to bring tourism to our area so do you have any questions for me does
anyone have any questions for the speaker no thank you so much we appreciate it thank you all right uh is there anyone else from the general public that hasn't signed up that would like to speak today no all right we will move on thank you very much uh next item on the agenda is election of Vice chair uh because of the uh the new appointed members uh one of the members who was looking to
get reappointed did not get reappointed he was our vice chair of the board um Ronnie Rivera he will be missed on this board so but we do need to have an election for vice chair so at this time I will open the floor to nominations is there such a nomination I'd like to nominate Jason Nicholson for vice chair right so we do have one nomination for Jason Nicholson is there another we doubled the pay we doubled it
all right uh hearing no other nominations the floor is uh nomination is closed uh and by default congratulations we do not need to have a vote there was one nominated thank you Jason for are well I guess I should ask are you willing to serve as Vice chairman first I am willing to serve thank you uh well congratulations and thank you for the nomination all right uh then moving on to the next item uh is the review and approval of the December 17th 2024 meeting minutes those were also
distributed in the packet hopefully you've had the opportunity to to review them uh are there any uh amendments changes that anyone has seen move to approve we have second well we have a motion from Mr Reeves I don't know who second councilwoman Brier uh is there any objection hearing no no objection please show those adopted thank you all right next item is status of funds available Mr Hall the budget
office come on down see you're bringing backup bringing his muscle good afternoon council members Stefan Hall management and budget so I would like to introduce Jeremy uh he is my new senior budget analyst and he will be be providing you with the status of funds today right thank you good afternoon council members my name is Jeremy pag lean I'm a senior budget analyst with the esami county budget office today I I will be presenting you with the status
of the tdt funds through January 25 I believe the clerk's office has already provided you with a copy of the breakdown of the expenditures the fiscal year 25 collections with interest through the end of January 2025 total 5,426 N5 as compared to collections through January 2024 totaling 5,630 730 um that brings us to a decrease in collections of roughly $ 23,8 25 from this year
to last fiscal year 25 collections through January totaling 5,426 N5 are 26 47% of the fiscal year 25 TD budget of $2,500,000 the expenses through January 25 total approximately 4.3 $ 4.35 million and the current tdt cash balance is $3.4 million through February 2025 right any questions comments
who's getting the interest on that 30 million Mr Hall who gets to keep the interest from the the accumulated balance and the fund the board of County Commissioners does that stay in fund 108 the unrestricted portion that the County Commissioners everything that's in the church development tax fund stays in the church development tax
fund until it is expended great thank you um and just while I have council's attention um I would like to mention um here on the next board agenda we will be having the unified budget supplement which is in line with the approved tourist Development Council Reserve policy that amount uh for the unified supplement 1,3 was $690,000 just
ballpark so I would not like to estimate that just because there are changes in the market but uh let's see it was over a million dollars last year it was probably closer to two million okay and then can can you clarify for me that money stays in tourism development or does that go to the general fund it does not go to the general fund okay interest earned in the tourist development tax fund stays and
is recognized in the tourist development tax fund beautiful thank you great thank you to us there any other questions or comments for Mr Hall related to that item Mr Hall I wouldn't go very far because next we're having discussion on uh thank you for that update by the way um the report uh discussion on policies and procedures
um we have uh as you guys are aware uh this board has set out several different policies and procedures we uh we accepted and were then accepted by I believe the County Commissioners uh that we set up the we had a committee that's that set up those um restricted uh Reserve funds uh so that we can start to try to plan uh moving forward rather than just waiting until someone
shows up and spending all the money at the end of the year uh and so those funds um I believe this is this I think it's in everybody's I don't know if it's in everybody's packet or not but there is a tdt restricted marketing Reserve fund plan uh that and it shows the balance it's in the packet okay yeah I print I have mine also does everybody have this document okay uh were they are they in the is this in the packet Danielle yes it's in the packet okay thank
you um so this is uh really for an update at our last meeting um I think Tish I think it was you that asked what those uh the balance in each one of those funds are uh and so this report shows the balance in those funds it also has on there uh the um the policy behind how they would be funded uh with the 50% going to of the recurring fund uh 108 balance being carried over 25% would
go to the unified budget operation 15% to unified budget restricted Reserve with a $5 million cap on that restriction uh and a 10 % special event restricted Reserve with a $2 million cap so that we can build those reserves to those levels uh and you know once those at least those two the unified budget restricted reserve and the special event res restricted Reserve hit those caps then they would no longer need to be funded until um till those dollars were drawn out for
for programs um and so you see where those where they are right now um the unified budget marketing restricted Reserves at 2 and a half million the special event restricted Reserve is at a half a million the I don't know does the unified I will explain it the unified budget is the combination of the three major uh tdt recipients which is visit Pensacola um Pensacola Sports
and Ace art culture entertainment Inc those three organizations um they came together they cover arts and culture they cover Sports and all other tourism development um and is there any cap on the unified budget in in what way you mean every year in allocation what I mean is the more money we take in the more money the unified budget has so my question to you is
there any cap on the unified budget or does it just keep increasing as our collections increase every single year when we do we have our budget workshop and then we approve a budget and recommend it to the County Commission and then they adopt their budget uh it has an amount allocated to them so each there is no policy that caps if that's what you're asking for there's no there's no cap or B there's no top or bottom to that
number the only restriction on tdt as far as marketing is concerned is the statute requires at least 40% of the tourist development tax be spent on Advertising promotion your question sir thank you um any other comments or questions related to The the Reserve fund just want to make sure we have a couple new members really since we adopted this we the four on that end are all new our our Council uh city council
members and so what action would you want us to take on this or is it just strictly information that's informational um and then we have a we also adopted some policies uh and procedures on how we are going to um when folks make a request for funding uh how those requests will happen uh they have to their forms that they have to fill out uh there is I don't know there's a checklist Stefan
I don't know if you want to address it uh but that should also be in your packet um it shows a sample application I'm sorry a sample application is in the pocket uh the policy and procedure um that shows the a sample of the form they fill out it's not an actual application but if you looked at Navy days their application that would be an example of one that is filled out
correct I mean if Navy days filled out an application they filled out an application and that's an example of a filled out application but well in my package I have a Navy days application completely filled out so uh for Council purposes so the tdt checklist is actually part of the miscellaneous Appropriations agreement that ultimately goes to the board for approval it is not part of their application process um but as you know we have any number of
questions uh that show whether or not a request uh is supports tourism um that is what would be in the application what staff does is we apply the applicable portion of the tourist development statute for the event venue service whatever the thing is that we are uh funding that supports tourism ultimately that gets approved by my board and that gets uh filed with the clerk's office my question would be the very first thing says that they have a have to have an amount of
money equal to the amount of money that they're asking from us the question would who verifies that up front or out back so that would be my office so we would look at that and make sure that they have funds to your point uh that are equal or greater than the request uh we request financials from from each entity uh requesting dollars from the county whether irresp Ive of
the source of funds so but yes that is that is that is looked at but I can put in ticket sales as meeting that criteria no sir so again they are required to provide some sort of financials um whether it's audited financials or um just something that they had their accounting firm to do some some something to show a p&l a profit and loss statement something that shows the sources of income and the expenditures that they have by organization but the sources to
answer that your last question J the sources of revenue could income could come from ticket sales you know whatever their program Revenue organization's revenue is so we would look at whatever it may be a year too old of whatever they have been doing which may be their most current financials but we're going to look and see what historically they've been doing not what they think so as part of their budget proposal it may certainly include tickets sales but we're going to look and see what they've actually done do you look at is there a requirement other than they
have an amount equal to what they're requested they don't have to spend it on the same thing do they um so well if it's tourist development tax it has to be in support of tourist development but other Revenue sources do not necessarily correct so if they have revenue from ticket sales and they want to spend it on a party a reception they could do that I just trying to understand the very first
thing says matching funds in an equal amount and I'm just it's interesting to me whether or not that has to be spent on the same project they're matching funds if it is within a program they can certainly reinvest those dollars in the program so so again as I'm if as I'm looking at a historical Financial uh uh profit profit and loss a financial statement so I'm going to look and see what
they've been doing so so long as they're spending uh whatever income that they've had off that on the event or whatever service or thing that they've done um then that's okay so you determine whether it's within the 1 two 3 four five and they you determine whether they meet the the matching criteria you kind of desar if I understand the question correctly yes so depending on on what
thing each of our partner uh Church development tax partners are doing yes so I do uh look at the governance of each penny to ensure that each penny is being spent properly thank you thanks so everyone has a copy of the policies and procedures and I just want to make sure everybody takes a look at it if we have any questions um please ask today if you have questions if not uh anytime at our next meetings Mr chair I just have one question on the uh date adopting and
date effective it it says February 8th of 2024's is that last year or should it be this year uh 24 was last year that was adopted last year it aded last year it was adopted last year great this is for informational only we're not we're not voting to approve anything in here today great thank you um all right um and I know I can't recall hold on one second
y That's it all right any other comments or questions related to to that did you have any comments Stefan related to the policies and procedures so you want to talk about the reimbursement process would the would the chairman want to discuss that now or or later in the meeting um I think this is the only time on our agenda we can okay all right um in our policies and procedures um we actually do
have um under Section 7 two um basically we have a a a generic uh list of items or or or a checklist if you will of of what it takes to get a tourist Dev elment tax reimbursement through through our County process um so what what I would say um I think that this needs to be updated in our policy
uh as as as some of our council is aware we've had additional uh attorney general opinions that have been applied to our tourist development tax reimbursement process we've had uh a change in some of those rules which ultimately make make things more accurate more um applicable and uh U compliant with Florida Statutes um so I think that it would be helpful for our clerk's office
to assist us with this particular section um to to have something that's more comprehensive clear and concise PR on what it takes uh to to get uh T development tax reimbursement so I again that is just something that I wanted to mention to council I think that might be very helpful not only for me and my staff uh for Council tour development tax partners and for our clerk staff as well great so so are you looking for like some sort of checklist so that everyone understands what the
expectation is to provide when they submit for the reimbursement of the use of the funds yes sir and it and hopefully that would include any updated rules um any other things that that are required uh again through our our Clerk's reimbursement process as well okay so beyond just clear checks bank statements showing the proof of expenditures but other evidence correct uh one example you know we had an attorney general opinion that that ultimately affected visit Pensacola with travel writers so I know we are we are working through travel policies and things like that
just to make sure that uh we're we're complying uh with statute um some of that gets pretty nuanced and having something that is very clear and comprehensive would be very helpful okay so they were also Melanie in my office was also working with the clerk's office on almost a quick reference guide so for example one of the last things that came up is you absolutely can't buy alcohol so yes you can use it for this but no you can't use it for that just so it's clear to whoever's applying for the money um that we're also working on that but to your point no public
funds are expended for the purchase of alcohol no matter if it's tax or any other kid did you have your question yes sir in that same section it says that they must document in the post project report is there a reason why this this panel doesn't ever get a post project report from anybody that gets funds we don't get a copy of that so what you have in front of you is the post project today which is later in the current agenda so it's the annual uh reports for the tourist development tax from
2024 so that that is the report card that that me is mentioned in the section okay so yeah so we were provided with copies of everybody's annual report and that is the post project it's at the end of the year Recaps their their program that they receive the funding to support Okay so so where do we need to go to get a I I I guess we could request from the clerk's
office they're here today um correct that would be very helpful if the clerk's office would assist us with that that would be very helpful does anyone from the clerk's office wish to to address this with us no nope well well I think do we want to formally make a request for yes ma'am are you going to turn your light off or no that we have some sort of checklist of the expectation so that all of our outside agencies know exactly what it is they need
to submit so that we can more timely those folks can more timely get their uh reimbursements made absolutely yes we can make that request and Melanie and I are happy to head that up as well so we can work with the clerk's office on that thank you Commissioner of course thank you so but when the final report our request is given to us it goes to the County commission for funding
so we don't really appropriate anything that is correct everything gets funded by the County Commission I would say it would be nice as if it by the time it came to us we knew it checked all the boxes so if that could be a prerequisite of you guys recommending it yep that is part of the policies and procedures that there is the checklist that they will fill out uh that actually Stefan's office uh management budget office fills out to make sure and one of those checks is that it came to this board first for consideration before it actually goes
to the BCC that is correct commissioner so so my office does cite the statutory reference that's allowed that is attached to the agenda item that is approved by the board and when we're uh processing those payments the clerk has that on the top of that packet that is ultimately used in the reimbursement okay perfect it would also be nice if we knew it checked all the boxes for funding before cu the last one did not and I know the last one was a little bit different but I think is we're more yes I I agree so that one was a little bit of
a different circumstance and situation than than we've had so far yeah since we're speaking about that we're talking about wine on the water corre event and so I understand there were some issues with the actual program but the process of their funding request came to they checked they filled out the form uh all the application they came to us our board approved that uh then it was taken to your board and I believe it was approved there but then it was told it was not going to be funded
uh and obviously now I've been made aware they've rescinded their request but uh and that there was comments made that they needed to go through visit Pensacola for that request but we have no policy or or uh nothing in the law that requires that to happen so I'm not sure if that's something we need to update our policies on if that's what the bccc would prefer I think for us it would be good if all of the requests came through the dmos not just visit Pensacola but also Pensacola Sports to make
sure that they're all being vetted the same way I also don't know that those organizations have the amount of money that they need nor do I think they review grants often enough to meet that need in the community now so I think if if we do that it would require an overhaul of specifically how visit Pensacola works because they only review grants once a year and that's that wouldn't be enough for this right okay so probably a bigger discussion there yes okay got a question yes sir on the post project report is there anything that shows in there how do they prove room nights or
economic impact or is that just is there like an actual survey or something that's done that they prove or they just they go by the event holder so you will see that some had a a professional study done or a professional analysis done others are done in house um so the purpose of this um as a staff person I have no no opinion other than uh Council and the board approve these and clearly there is value in tourism for each of these Partners but it is for Council to have reviewed
those uh to ask those questions uh of particular any particular partner that you want to uh is there something that could be done better um you know to have have those conversations I think at some point we should require anybody that's getting funding if they're going to come back for funding they should have to prove the room nights because it doesn't make sense for us to keep funding something that's not bringing in room nights or economic economic impact so are you saying are you suggesting to do that through the use of uh like a service as an example uh
the hos Center to do an economic or a visitor interface survey is that I think we would make them responsible to right that's what I'm saying but are you wanting to require each yeah anybody that gets funds maybe a certain amount if there's a lower amount that somebody would but you know we haven't had really anybody that's come here for a low amount but anybody that you know if they're getting a a specified amount or over a specified amount that they should provide us with proof of room nights not just say hey my event I think I it had this many or we had this many ticket sales and because of this ticket sales this is what we think we brought in I think we should require
that you recognized couldn't they um if they were getting room nights couldn't they go through the hotel um that they to acknowledge how many room nights they stayed at that hotel the could but I would put that on them but I think most of the requests we're getting at two and 300,000 they're using they would have to use more than one hotel right right but I mean they could it is a way that it can be verified through going through the hotels but I would think we could put that
back onto the organization rather than any kind of County staff or ar I think that was what he was suggesting oh okay they should also be able to attract that by ZIP code because assumingly anyone who lives outside of a driving radius would be spending the night so if they track Sals by ZIP code would that surfice don't like ticket sales uh that could I would I would assume but sometimes they're not ticketed events uh that are receiving some funds from us and so uh I know visit
Pensacola Pensa Sports Ace the unified Budget Group and some of the others um uh Cadillac does for his event where they hire companies to come in and do the uh visitor interface and they collect and they end up reporting that economic impact of that that program to show an Roi on the investment so Mr chairman I agree with Mr Patel that you know I believe that in every uh end of event report or whatever the name might be we need to have some declaration or statement of the economic impact
and I would expand it Beyond room nights uh just an example would be you know there are good many events that might serve one room night or two room nights but have a tremendous impact on l via attendance to an attraction or you know we think about Blue Angels air show just as the Pinnacle event but there are many others that provide an economic impact to the community that extends Beyond just the room Knights certainly the room Knights are the Catalyst for tdt and we want to see more of that um but but at least an estimate of what the economic impact might
be so if if that is the the wishes of this Council we can bring that back at our next meeting as an action item uh and um TSH since you brought that up do you want to bring that back as an action item on our next agenda yes sir have a recommendation to us all right okay great um well and I I guess I would also ask uh because Mr Reeves you were asking the question about um the finances and how do we verify the matching funds that is a requirement
of the you know the County's application for um miscellaneous appropriation um do we want to have some sort of uh a requirement on like a an audit or a uh for organizations that are receiving a certain level of funding um over you know over some certain amount or well I sure wouldn't name an audit because most of the people that we're dealing with are not audited NOS you know so but I think we ought to have some verification
if that's the first thing out of the box then we ought to know that that exists right somehow so how do you suggest we get that information I mean I I know when there were issues back in early 2000s with an organization on the application where it says I'd say see attach financial statement or here's a statement from my bank or here's
a statement from my mattress comp company that's under my mattress you know something that we shouldn't go any further if they don't have that basic I know in the application uh they have to provide last year's uh like a pnl I don't know if there's I think there's a balance sheet maybe on there also requirement uh is that I mean that's already part of this is this is that acceptable to you or do you think they need to have something
that that's why I was suggesting like a either an audit or just a you know independent audit independent review financials review is obviously a lot less expensive it's less invasive uh well I have a hard time with financial statements but you know BAS basically the when I looked at it had a financial statement U you know it didn't have any verification that says I hereby certified that this is true and complete but you had to look for it deeper in the application you
know just if you don't have what you you're asking for you know you're disqualified right off the bat but up I'm open do you have a suggestion there I just want to know who's going to develop this checklist um well get the clerk well this is part of the application process is uh is providing the financial and then at the end of the year the organizations are requiring they're submitting
their financials or submitting their annual report showing you know with a an impact study study if we're going to move to do that um you know some sort of independent uh economic impact study through visitor interface or however it's it's performed uh there were there was a time when the county was was requiring outside agencies to have a uh an audit um I guess the county has gone away from that um but as a result of I think it was the Arts Council in Northwest Florida
was falsifying some document Financial records uh and was shut down and after that all of the organizations that were receiving funds had to get provide audits uh or maybe it was just the Arts Council successor that was required to do it I don't know um but that was a requirement it was in the miscellaneous appropriation agreement uh but I I know we've gone away from that as a requirement uh and sometimes audits are expensive depending on the organization but reviews are a
lot less expensive but they're not as uh detailed and aren't necessarily as accurate because it's whatever you give them to review is what they review if you don't want them to review something financially you don't give it to them uh even though they're independent but stepen you you were recognized um so so the board's policy is um we do not require our um Community partner applicants to have an audited financial statement if you have it that's fantastic uh we we'd love to have it
um but yes those are more expensive uh but we do the board's the board's policy is we do require uh tax returns and financial statements so so again uh it's give us your p&l an income statement show us show us what you've got coming in what you have going out um certainly for not nonprofits or not for profits um there some of these things are expensive and and makes it a little more difficult for those folks to apply uh for for our board board grants or
maybe even TD tdt grants and and things of that nature so I just want to make that clear thank you well since I'm not hearing any recommendations uh I guess we can move on all right uh I think that any other comments or questions about policies procedures um thank you uh commissioner for uh working with your office to work with the clerk to
work on that checklist thank you um all right uh next item on the agenda is discussion about the chapy James Memorial Plaza Mr Reeves you asked to put this on the agenda uh you were recognized well first of all let me say this um I like to believe this assumption and the assumption is this if this board doesn't recommend an expenditure to
the County Commission they don't have the ability to make that appropriation that's an assumption that I'm making because that's the way I read the statute that we we recommend and if we don't recommend it doesn't happen so that that's that's number one as it
relates to this particular thing uh number two I had a discussion uh with a chairman of the County Commission and he told me that this matter was on the agenda uh for the County Commission tomorrow probably Thursday look at the county commissioner to your rights
you probably Thursday and that um that they felt that uh here was a fourstar general that was uh the only one around and uh a hero and that we really ought to either fund it or forget it and he led me to believe that the funding would be greater than the
$750,000 that we've already approved and the reason I wanted to put it on the agenda was if that's true then I would like us to either consider the additional amount or not consider the additional amount and stick with where we were but I just don't like the County Commission
moving forward with an approach appropriation that this board hadn't approved I'm not emotional about it I'm just feel like if that's our position we ought to stick with it and so let let us hear from the chappie James folks and see what the plan is okay so I see Mr Joseph in the back you guys want to
welcome you and please introduce yourself again thank you my name is Chris dosv I'm resident of Pensacola 1725 wayy Avenue thank you been here since 2009 but I went to flight school got my wings back here in 1986 um with regards to thank God we're just talking about a memorial and not uh buying eggs because the request be a heck of a lot more these days but uh in regards to the 750 to a million our initial request happened a couple years
ago uh increase in prices in concrete and steel precipitate the additional requests and we were advised that if you're going to ask ask to make sure that you have enough funds so we can complete the project at this point we've raised 1.3 million and so in addition to 1.3 the 1 million would cap off what we would need to complete the project um are there any other specific questions so what are you going to ask the County commission for on Thursday the 1 million the 1 million so I
I understand that the 750 is approved and um but they they haven't voted on the 750 so um what do you suggest Mr Rees well I suggest in the spirit of if we're going to approve appr yet before it goes to the County Commission then a motion to make it one million dollar would probably be in
order because you've been asking for this money for a long time and we know whatever 750 was going to do two years ago it ain't going to do today so and that's reality so I would suggest that we increase our recommendation to and I would like to make that motion and get somebody to Second it so we can at least discuss whether we should go from the 750 to the million so I would
move that we move up to the county commission's number of a million dollar we have a motion from Mr Reeves to increase the fund the funding for this project to $1 million is there a second I'll make a second thank you we have a second from uh commissioner hoffberger uh debate or discussion anyone have any comments yeah just a a few points I wasn't here for the vote on the $750,000 and I can't weigh into that but you know um putting my my Economist hat on I I feel
compelled just to offer a couple of data points on the allocation first of all I want to say just with a pause the the work that you're doing to create a a memorial to honor General chappie James is is um truly honorable I I appreciate your Valor in doing this exercise um I do want to point out that if we're on a 5% tax rate of tdt the the the Memorial Plaza would need to generate over 141,000 new and incremental room nights just to replace that catalyst tdt at 5% that's that's $20 million
in room Revenue that I'd like for the council uh to consider over the life of the plaza um again the 750,000 has already been voted but now we're talking about another quarter of a million dollars and I I read the Attorney General the second attorney general's uh opinion uh although she did not renter an ultimate opinion based on the ownership of the plaza in and of itself it did include some some reference and definition that I think we should U reconsider uh one being the
definition of promotion other being the definition of Tourism and I believe categorically a plaza is not allowed in the funding mechanism for tdt so maybe there needs to be um some reconsideration of that phrase I don't want to reconstruct the application but just for the council's consideration uh 20 mli million in room revenue and what I'm using is the average daily rate from from visit Pensacola's 2024 annual it's called a star Global report it's a bit of an
incestuous Hotel years report uh where we know how a particular Market is performing in 2024 uh the average rate was $141 so simply take $20 million divide it by 141 and you come up with a almost 142,000 room night so just for your consideration will the plaza um that I agree is needed and I support personally is the Plaza uh gonna generate 142,000 incremental room nights over its life I think you're taking you're taking this particular Plaza and isolating from
the overall scheme of that Park structure you have 13 acres there associated with the plaza with parking okay with boat ramps and a plan I believe the city to incorporate that into a coastal walkway and Park area sort of like what they have in Chicago all the way to extend to Bruce Beach so just to Simply isolate the plaza I think is very myopic and you're not taking into
account the overall General scheme imagine driving across that bridge and seeing an 80 foot flag pole everybody that comes to Pensacola is going to say to themselves they're going to say to themselves now that's a town I want to visit because they're proud to be Americans there's an intrinsic value to that that I don't think you can add up with any kind of calculation well unfortunately it's the it's the role of this board to add that up um and to consider all of the supporting
elements to the plaza look um I I want this to happen as much as any other citizen in scambia County um but I do need to reference the facts of the statute um we need to check statut boxes first and then we can talk about if it's effective or not secondarily but for me I'm having a hard time checking the first box is if it aligns with the statute um and then we can talk about you know whether it will generate 140 I hope it would I hope it would generate a half a million or a million incremental room nights you know I I have a personal vested interest in that
um but for the benefit of the board I'd like to share that data point with you thank you uh yeah and I'll just remind the board uh when we did the motion that uh the action that we took as a board was recommending to the County Commission to fund this project at $750,000 pending uh the outcome of the uh attorney general's opinion that it was an eligible under the statute it was an eligible funding uh project um I I went back to this the uh opinion as well or obviously it's not an opinion
it's a letter uh because they still need more information related to the ownership if if it is going to be a publicly owned facility they do Define promotion uh and advertising and then they also talk about uh the eligible eligibility for funding for construction uh that it is uh the statute enumerates certain items that are eligible for funding for construction and what is not enumerated the statute says is not eligible for funding and a Plaza in the letter
the Attorney General's opine or doesn't opine but uh states that Plaza is not one of the uh the items that is uh listed in the statute as eligible for funding for construction uh it can be used uh tourist development tax can be used for funding the promotion and advertising of if the County Commission uh deems it to be which is the local governing board the County Commission deems it to be uh tourism development uh and there's a couple of things that I think are
still outstanding one of the reasons the letter uh the Attorney General could not uh make an opinion was because uh at the time that they were considering it they did not have uh anything any commitment from the the City of Pensacola that they would own not only the land and they have an agreement with the City of Pensacola and the mayor has indicated that if we and if the county commits to spending the money then he will do the work to amend the agreement to fit
the Attorney General's opinion but he basically said I'm not going to put it on my legal staff to work out all that if you ain't going to appropriate the money so it's a chicken or egg situation our statute says we can't fund uh facility I'm not going to argue this has already been resolved as far as I'm concerned if if if the city is willing to take the responsibility
then we don't have problem with the attorney general's opinion in my opinion but I had been practicing law as long as you have well I'm you're the only lawyer at this table but I but I have read the statute and I'm not a lawyer but I have I have talked to lawyers and I have read the statute and it lists things that are eligible for con uh use of the tourist development tax for construction I agree I think this is a great project I personally have given to this project uh and would like to to see it come to fruition I know the project has changed
since its original concept um obviously it was to use the land and and raise the funds privately to uh to construct it it did not have the big concrete pad with the steps and the you know handicap access the pictures on the website show it standing on the sitting on the ground uh and but you know why that is the case though why we in Incorporated that raised Plaza I'm I'm assuming to make it no I don't want she tell us no because at that location during Hurricane
Ivan it's between four and 6 feet above sea level that was covered with 10t of water that's why so we're hardening the location in anticipation of a potential storm we've taken that into effect into account because you have a statue you have an aircraft and the flag B Will Survive but in big scheme of things we want to make sure that it would it will survive a storm councilman bear thank you Mr chairman and um you know after reading the Attorney General's
opinion and then listening to Mr Nicholson um I really just don't think this is the right Source I don't you know I think we have limited dollars I know we have a lot for tourist development but doesn't seem like it fits the statute and I think there's the county can do what they want I mean the County Commission has funds you know they can fund it in some other way but I just don't think tourist development tax is the way to go thank you thank you how move we call the question was there other comment did you have your light on councilman oh I withdraw that go
thank you just that I believe it would actually have to go back before the city council after all this as well I mean there's a lot of carts before the horse here that have me confused that's really where am I absolutely agree with um the entire Memorial I think that's a great idea I think it's good for the city um but I don't know that we are in the proper order of how things are supposed to be done and using the proper money that is supposed to be used for this and I'm
just um that's where I'm a little bit confused to tell you the truth and and for the mayor to say I mean for you know to for us to say the mayor says he's going to do this I don't think that actually it's in its purview it would actually have to go back before the city council at that point to see where it does we've got a lot of ifs still going in place a lot of um anyway just some consideration also for what's going on here is that call question yes we ain't getting any more
we still have some other members that not had the opportunity to speak to your motion I mean are they going to speak in favor I don't know but I don't think that's I don't think we are can I clarify something of all these other people I'd like Mr re said that if this board doesn't recommend it that it can't move on to BCC but I I don't think that's right I think this board whether we we recommend it or or or do not the board of accounting Commissioners can do as they
wish so even if we don't recommend it they can still go to board of County Commissioners and they'll still decide how they want to decide I believe you'd be correct wasting our time our our policy is that it has to come to this board for consideration before it goes to the County Commission that doesn't mean it has to be approved by this board before it goes to the County Commission I I will say as the County Commissioners we do respect your opinions so we do take it into consideration so it's not like it's a it's a moot point so if you say hey we
don't recommend giving above the 750 or we do recommend giving a million dollars that's going to be what carries most way with the board when we go to vote on it yeah I I just don't believe it's a legal source for construction all right well you're calling for the question so uh I guess those in favor of the motion was was for a million doll appropriation recommendation to the County Commission that was your motion correct all right yes so those in favor uh well actually let's call
the roll if you would please Ashley hoffberger present no it's a yes or no for the vote I'm sorry yes yes to F stands uh the 750 is already there the motion on the floor is to fund it at the full million dooll request rather than the 750 that we've already recommended okay yes in favor um James Reeves yes Shirley cronley no David Bayer no matish Patel no Charles Bayer no Jennifer Bayer
Brad Molen x no Jason Nicholson no so the motion fails uh do you have other any other comments you or discussion I have a few things I'd like to say yes sir this next week is a very important week in Marine Corps history I don't know if you're aware of it but February 19th historically was known as iima day one of my personal Heroes and Americans do not forget their Heroes was Gunnery Sergeant
John basalone John basalone received the Medal of Honor at his for his actions at the Battle of guad canal he rejoined his Marines and landed on iima on February 19th he was killed on that same day we landed 30,000 Marines on that island 30,000 after 36 Days of battle over 6,000 were killed over 25,000 were injured to put that perspective the last 20 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan
we had about 7,500 killed and 25,000 injured in a matter of 36 days we Su sustain nearly the same amount he's a personal hero minus so is General James General James on the other hand spent 35 years in in the service of his country 35 years participated in three Wars he celebrated his 58th birthday on February 11th 1978 he retired from the Air Force on February 1st of that same month
he died on February 25th not having received even 30 days as a retired officer he died basically he gave his entire life to sacrifice defending this country that's what he did the issue on iima it haunted me as a marine officer I spent 10 years on active duty and I'll tell you why it haunted me because at this point of Desert Storm I'd already flown 20 missions in defense of those
Marines and I knew this that in a matter of 3 days we were going going to assault this the country of Kuwait with 45,000 Marines and it haunted me to think because I knew I had friends that flew in the body bags they flew in a bag they flew 20,000 body bags on one aircraft into Saudi Arabia in anticipation of casualties that's what haunted me as a marine planner and Bomer thank God that did not happen and we only ended up with about 150 casualties veterans in this community may not
have the money to put their names on buildings and things of that nature but I can tell you this the time and effort and sacrifice that they have given to this country and this community is immeasurable and Priceless the veterans in this community want to see a monument honoring General James in this community and they expect the participation of people on boards whether it's a county or the council or boards like this we all benefit from the sacrifices I came back after Desert Storm
became a marine officer instructor at Northwestern University where I train two battalions of midshipman to become future officers but more to the point my son is currently forward deployed off the coast of China with the Marines and his Marines in defense of our national interests that's the kind of people you have coming from this community so when you think about dollars and you're concerned about whether it says Plaza or venue remember that and remember John basalone
and remember Americans do not forget their Heroes thank you thank you Mr doph and thank you for your service to our country uh and your passion for the uh this this project and everything you're doing I just want to make make sure you understand we are not trying to conflate the two issues one uh General James was a hero a local hero and we appreciate his service and what he did for our country uh and clearly what he did for our community uh but we as a tourist Development
Council are obligated to follow the laws that were written by the Florida legislature uh and that law does not allow us in my interpretation and many other people I've heard on this dis today uh that this law and and the attorney general has uh written in her letter uh that this law does not allow us there is no there is no section of this law that allows us to use tourist development tax for the construction of that Plaza we we hope that we will be able to use that those funds
to Market it because I think it is uh a tourist uh attraction uh I think it's important to our community uh to recognize it and thank you for all the efforts you're doing to put this together Mr Hall Council chairman uh before we leave this item um so ultimately previously this council did approve this particular item uh contingent upon the Attorney General
opinion that we received um did you want to discuss the independent analysis uh for this item so Mr H thank you for reminding me uh Mr Hall asked uh if we are going to fund this if we if the County Commission is going to consider this to be tourism development uh and we spend money on that um whether or not they should do a uh engage the hos Center to do a study an economic impact study
of this project to show uh because a portion of the the statute requires an economic impact study and that is for public facilities under that section I think that's A5 a56 something I don't know uh anyway um they're approximately $3,500 to $5,000 is the study um the cost for the study uh is their interest in doing that um this the study will just show the economic impact
of this project if if it comes uh you know what type of return not necessarily for construction but also for marketing and if it is something that's valuable for us to Market uh so that is the request from the budget office for this Council to consider Mr bear Council thank you Mr chairman so let me get this straight we're asking if we should do an economic development study for something apparently looks like we can't fund with tdt money we can fund the promotion of it that's but not but not the construction correct cor what was the $750,000 allocated for construction that
that was for construction pending the outcome of the Attorney General's opinion saying that it was an eligible construction project okay well I wasn't here when that happened but I almost think that we need a motion to undo that 750,000 for construction if we're going to put something towards promotion that's one thing but I feel like we're not in keeping with statute right now if we leave that 750,000 that we're recommending to the County Commission was that in the form of a motion I well I wasn't on I don't know if we're it's not a reconsideration because I wasn't on the
I wasn't here I don't so does that not fall under outdoor Museum I'm sorry does that not fall under an outdoor Museum the construction of the monument is that not what that's because I thought that was their argument that it's a museum I thought they were trying to pitch it as an outdoor Museum but I'm not sure sure that it is a a museum it's a plaza and there's a difference it's not an aquarium it's not a plaza it's not a sports arena or a Coliseum the the chairman is correct with the
particular uh words that are specific in the statute so the chairman is is correct uh from that perspective so the ultimate uh point of of getting that independent analysis so there were there were two two basically two things in that uh attorney general's opinion uh the main one or or or one of one of those was the ownership issue um and the second you know uh depending on if if the board my board uh wanted to move forward with it having an independent analysis to assist
the board in making that factual determination that uh this investment directly and primarily supports tourism in the area that's what this this analysis would either show or approve or disapprove well I I mean given the statute given and the the Attorney General opinion I would make a motion that we I don't know the proper way to say it we send the 750,000 or recommendation to the County Commission so I guess we do have a deputy County attorney
do Kristen do you want to address how I think councilman bear is trying to figure out how to make a motion of some some sort to resend the original recommendation by this board for the 750,000 allocation well if is there an action that we can that we take I think that would be appropriate verbage if that is what the intent is uh I don't believe that has ever occurred so was that a motion that was a motion thank you uh we have a motion on the floor to
resend the original $750,000 recommendation for funding for that project is there a second I'll second it we have a second from Mr Patel is there any debate or discussion just I'll make a comment thank you Mr chairman um I believe in this project too I'm a veteran and so when I hear another veteran talk about us not thinking about veterans it really strikes me so and I wish Mr doph was in the room because as a veteran who served and served a year uh on
and soil um I know the sacrifice um there were people in my unit that were injured we didn't lose anyone uh there were other civil Affairs officers like me that were killed in action um some of them uh gave was one that was very uh close to me and in rank and family situation who took his own life being over there so there was a lot of stress um in my service as well and so I have great respect for you know General James and I want that that um the plaza or whatever we're going to call it
to be there this has been a really a challenging project uh as a council member watching you know the mayor uh have to navigate this and who's going to own it who's going to maintain it there's a lot of moving parts to this but I think today ultimately what I'm trying to do is put this in the right position because I I don't personally think you know we have an attorney general opinion which it's not super clear but it limits us and I feel like the statute um there they're we I'm
new to this board so I know we talk about things that um that really we want to increase tourism with these dollars I'm just not convinced that this particular project will do that um I think it's another feather in our cap as far as things we can offer people along with Veterans Memorial Park with the Naval Aviation Museum we have a lot of great history here Fort Pickin plus we have beautiful beaches there's lots we have to offer but as I think about the limited dos we have for
tourism development I read this attorney general's opinion look at the statute and think about this project I just don't think this is the right source for the funding which is why I made this motion thank you thank you councilman comments U Mr chairman um I concur with Stefan that I believe a a independent study on the economic impact or the the forecasted economic impact of this Memorial as it were uh would be tremendously value valuable in uh future years uh I wouldn't ask to
amend the motion but I would ask for the council to consider commissioning an independent study to prove the the economic impact in the future do we want to make the $750,000 contingent upon this study believe Mr councilman be would have to amend his motion is well the way I understood it that the that money that would be spent for the study would be for promotion that'd be looking at promotion not for construction so I would have no problem adding to this motion that
we would commission an economic impact study in addition to what we're going to do to the $750,000 appropriation recommendation right and add the economic call economic impact stud I have no problem with that having both those accept that your motion is amended okay do you amend second yes so the second is also amended Mr nich Mr chair even even if in you know our estimation
in a vote that the $750,000 does not align with the statute I I believe that it's the very least that we can do to support the construction of the memorial by commissioning uh a study to recognize the economic impact for future use I don't see that as a waste whatsoever thank you comments um yes I just wanted to see if we could get a legal from the County attorneys as to if the uh BCC is asking for what the local is advising them to do what would you use for
this I mean how how do you take into account what the um the state's office state attorney said I'm not certain I understand the question um sorry my question is um we have a document that doesn't really say that this is a uh use of bed tax dollars I mean it basically it doesn't um
it says it's not as it's currently meaning Miss metta's letter yes okay so in your opinion if to the BCC would you recommend that they fund it or not based on I have not been asked to make a recommendation I can say that it's within the board's discretion if and I would recommend if they are intending to make a legislative finding that this expenditure promotes tourism that they should definitely obtain some sort of study an independent study to determine the economic impact
to support that now the reason I had previously recommended getting an attorney general's opinion was precisely because this particular price project did not appear to fit squarely within any one of the subsections and there is no Authority that is directly on point so and you mean the con when you say this project you're talking about the construction piece of it necessarily promotion and advertising well the project what the money would be used for is essentially construction
it's to build the concrete pad that's what the foundation has told us most recently that this allocation would be used for so it's I mean in my mind that's a construction project okay thank you any other question Council one just before she leaves you might as well stay However have a seat next to Steph however spending the money for the economic development or Economic Review would be acceptable in your view on this that's uh something that the TDC can recommend and
mean it's a authorized use of the txk to do the stud it's an authorized use um so uh but it is as you noted uh it's only required under sub 5 A6 if you're talking about public facilities uh but it's certainly something a tool that's been used in the past for various projects and allocations so thank you other comments hearing none we will I will call the vote if you would please do a roll
call vote Ashley hoffberger yes James Reeves no Shirley cronley yes David Bayer yes matish Patel yes Charles Bayer yes Jennifer Bayer yes Brad mullinex yes Jason Nicholson yes great uh motion passes 8 to one thank you all right any other uh discussion about chappie James Memorial
Plaza before we move on so Stefan you have your marching orders to go ahead and or whomever your office whomever to engage the study thank you all right uh next item on the agenda is Pensacola base Center uh I've asked Mr caps to come give us an update on the the updates that are happening at the base Center welcome yes thank you uh good afternoon council members uh Michael caps general
manager for ASM Global at Pensacola Baye Center uh and welcome to the new members so uh today I'm just here to give you uh there's a lot of things been talked about with the Bas Center we've had many conversations back long years um so I'm not going to go all the way Deep dive into that there will be some more conversations coming forward I believe um commissioner ker has put it up for the the March 6th meeting uh we're having some additional meetings with other uh stakeholders vested in parties you will see the ice flers lease come up uh in front of the board of County
Commissioners this Thursday uh to extend that to continue the ice flers operations um if you'll see in the backup for that agenda item there does give you some data metrics that shows you how well ice Flyers are doing I won't dive into that too much um but they are averaging this season over 5,500 tickets sold um so they have steadily increased over the 5year term that they are currently under uh which has also had a direct impact on our or the venue's bottom line as an incremental growth 5 years ago we were making roughly 10,000 per game now we're closer to 50 so that's a big impact as
far as net event income for the the events that come in for the uh capital projects that we have the previous 10 million uh allocation that you're gracious to to provide um those are in process um we have done the upgrades to the uh restrooms lock rooms for the the backstage area for the visiting team home team uh the training room for the ice Flyers uh that updates it brings it from the 1980s I mean when we pulled up the floor there was some pink tile that I don't think it's seen the light
of day in almost 40 years so uh starting to update it and make it look better um we'll we'll complete that by the end of this summer um we do have uh bids out for the arena life lighting uh the arena sound system the retractable seating is already gone out it will be installed um by the end of April um due to some we're trying to get that and before this season started but with manufacturing and travel delays and and and so forth we didn't get it in by the time the season start retractable
seating that is the 372 seats that are right first three rows so your Prime seats uh your better seats that we can sell um they don't make parts for those anymore so it was time to replace them some additional things that we're looking at is uh repaving restriping the parking lots uh replacing the fence around the exterior uh of the 9th Avenue lot take care of that isore and dress it up a little bit and then have some more functionality with some security as far as actually having gates at the front of the building because currently anybody can drive up at any
point and drive around um so we're trying to uh add that safety feature there uh beyond that uh we are we did do some concession stand upgrades uh so we took two of our stands that were not branded we branded one to uh puy Pizza uh and we did the other one to uh blu's barbecue so we now do our own barbecue where we were doing Hotpot cost per good cost of goods was much higher now we've brought that price point down pass that on to the customer so our volume hasn't or excuse
me our our Revenue hasn't grown incrementally but our prices have dropped so you can imagine we were selling pretzels and hot dogs and hamb numbers those cost of goods were much higher than what a pizza is right now we're for a hockey game we're selling 200 250 pizzas a game whereas we weren't doing that but it's a much more affordable option a diverse option for our families that are coming in enjoying the type of events that we have um beyond that we uh are going to be closed down this July August September uh we'll still be doing meeting room functions and also our food
and beverage does the food and beverage for the Sanger theater so our kitchen will be supporting that over there um but July August September we'll be tearing up the concrete floor replacing it with a new ice plant new ice floor new ice rink um so everything's going to be brand new um we are also replacing the entire inventory of the uh rental skates so our figure skates and our hockey skates will be completely uh renovated to where the inventory is swapped out and added more so we can increase our capacity CU as you've heard from the ice programs they are they do have
a demand and they are coming in more and more so we want to try to provide that option um we can't really afford the ice sheet a second secondary ice sheet right now at this point but at least that's what we can do during the interim um we have that currently is about 6 million of that 10 million the remaining 4 million uh was to be allocated through the next two years uh but those are projects that we're going to wait to put out as we get through these because we don't want to spend money until we need to because if there's something else that comes up maybe we need to
reallocate that towards the bigger plan of the renovations um where those prices are getting more and more or further consideration is to not only renovate the the venue but add some conference space Event Center something to that effect down there so we're trying to be smart and strategic with the funding that you have allocated for us so far um with that I'm here to answer any questions thank you for the update questions comments Mr Reeves how much are you going to spend the 10 million this is 10 million from your this is 10 million from I believe the reserves
that came from the TDC that was allocated last year last summer came from the and that's all that's it right now yes sir now we are having conversations to with the bigger scope that we we came with previously in November with the sports facility combination and so forth we've gone back to the drawing board with everybody involved and um we're having additional meetings getting additional input from pensc Sports visit Pensacola um have you abandoned the bond I don't want to put Stefan on the spot but I can't exactly really speak to that um since I
don't bond it but we are still looking to pursue that it's just how that what the bonding capacity is and then how that bond is divided between the base Center and other projects and again getting that Vision put together to be able to be presented and talked about and at least have the conversation here with the County Commissioners have to say we take that back work that together and then we bring it back and we would come up with a presentation of what type of facility Renovations what type of return on investment you would get from an operational plan and we' bring
that to get approval from here a recommendation to then take back to to the county for a decision thank you yes sir that is topic of our next Cal meeting as well so there'll be additional discussions on that in the March count meeting thank you councilman thank you Mr chairman Mr caps thank you um so after hearing the the two ladies that spoke about the ice um and you're going be the main arena is going to be closed down for three months is that right July August September is that what you said yes sir okay but after that time do you think that the improvements
will be made will assist with what their needs are or is it just a scheduling issue I mean is that it's a scheduling issue okay so and not only are are the ice programs not an ice uh the hockey team left yesterday to be on the road okay you know so I'm sorry they left last Wednesday to be on the road while pensacon was here next week they'll be on the the road on Monday because we've got Sun Bel basketball in the whole week got and so when those go back to back we do strategically schedule to where we try not to have pensacon back toback with some belt it happened uh last year uh
we were looking at running into that next year but we've made some adjustments with pensacon they've moved their dates so we're getting stuff spread out a little bit more but like when we get into April we have two tier leading competitions um we typically have Disney on Ice and we have playoffs and then we also have white TI Rock and we typically have MMA fighting events they're all competing for those Fridays and Saturdays and additional days it take to turn the building over we lose that ice all right okay thank you yes sir and to be clear that July August September that's
non- ice season so we typically go October to April thank you any other questions or comments great thank you Michael appreciate it Stefan just because we have quite a few new council members um so the 10 million that that was allocated for these base Center improvements came from the board's restricted fifth Cent so it did not come from the other four pennies so I did want to make that distinction uh for the new members of council yeah yeah so the fifth Cent was
uh has started getting collected a few years ago the first year the County Commission uh approved allocating it to the unified budget uh to help come out of the covid from all the shutdowns ETC and then from that point on after that first year it has been reserved uh to grow and it has been the source to fund that $10 million project for public facility correct well said uh chairman and uh Mr caps is correct there's uh over the next two years there's 4 million of that remaining
that will be uh transferred to the base Center fund to complete those improvements that were approved right thank you all right all right next on the agenda is uh outside agencies uh I have every one of them listed we're not getting updates from every single one of them uh it was because we received the uh annual reports if anyone had any questions I wanted them all to be here uh visit Pensa would like to give a presentation uh so Darren if you would please come on down
all right well good afternoon everyone I thank you for the opportunity to provide this annual report also want to congratulate our newest members of the council Mr Mullenix and Nicholson as well as commissioner hoffberger uh prior to this provided three documents I should have received one is is the visitor tracking study and economic impact report you would have also re received our annual report for visit Pensacola for our last fiscal year 24 and also a another report we did uh we were just celebrated our 10-year
anniversary as an organization and so we did a 10-year growth report from 2014 to 2023 uh today I just like to highlight some of those slides for everyone and uh let's get going so visit Pensacola commission's research study every year our agency is down in St Germain and throughout the year they are collecting in-person surveys throughout the county they conducted 4,786
interviews and they do those at the airport the the beach downtown at out at the Museum and and throughout the events that are held in the county so one of the the big things that's important that we're always trying to do is we want to bring more people into the county so uh in the last fiscal year pensol attracted 2.5 million visitors an increase of 2.3% over the previous year and just to put that into perspective visit Florida recently did a press release for their
fiscal year where visitation to the state was up 1.6% so we're doing better than the state average and when we We compare to some of our peer destinations in Northwest Florida um we're doing better than a number of of our peers as a result we generated almost 2.5 million room nights and paid accommodation an increase of 3.5% over last year and those lodging expenditures generated a record collection in tourism development tax of over $22 million up 2% over last last
year visitors to Pensacola uh when we talk about Pensacola we really talking about the entire County including Pensacola Pensacola Beach and perito ke uh 1.3 billion dollar in direct spending up just 0.4% but that results in a total economic impact of over two billion visitors to Pensacola uh the area in 2024 contributed almost $65 million in local
taxes for the County visitors support jobs uh over 18,700 jobs in the county uh breaks down to one job for every 137 visitors and visitors to Pensacola area through their spending and the taxes that they generate basically save residents $513 per household uh in the last year also want to share some slides from our annual report that we presented at our our last board meeting and when we talk about our objectives I wanted to show this slide again about the increase
in tourism development tax over the years um back in 19 2019 to 2020 2020 fiscal year our tax collections actually dipped below $10 million and now we've Set uh our best year at $22 million so you can see the differences uh we had some significant growth in 21 and 22 um but we thought at some point you know how is that possible that we have such growth because of all that pent up
travel demand that we would eventually that wave would have to crash and in 2023 we did see uh a small decline of 1% um and then since then we're back up 2% so uh that crash never really happen for us our marketing effort I just want to talk about is a layered approach we take all the different channels and and um marketing techniques and we layer them on top of each other and so some of our objectives I want to share you know we talk about social media as important as
that is that's an area that I think our team our staff has done exceptionally well you we talk about goals of a 20 20% increase in followers we had a 29% increase in followers talk about how much content we produced 463 pieces of partner related content was produced in the last fiscal year another objective is in our public relations also very proud of the communications team that we have at visit Pensacola certainly one of our strengths talk about increasing our media
coverage by 10% and we increased it by 188% % um 42% increase in articles produced and we looked at Host press trips I I can't emphasize enough how important it is and the and the the change that happens when we bring someone into scambia County and the experience our downtown and they go out to the the beaches and they see our attractions you can tell somebody uh but it's a lot easier if they just taste a bushwhacker to understand you know what that really is so uh it's important for
us to bring travel writers and media into the community to experience it firsthand so they can go out and write about es scambia County in the Pensacola area so again really proud of the number of trips that we're able to host and uh it's it's definitely direct correlation to the amount of Interest we receive from folks who have the ability to provide that kind of media coverage our website visit pensacola.com we are certainly proud of this is our primary
information distribution tool over 3.8 million website users an increase of 34% over last year what's really important is that this is where we promote our partners all our tourism related Partners in the county 866 th000 listings were accessed over the last year up 29% over last year and this is uh certainly important for visitors but we also are very proud of how our residents are taking advantage of it and when we've been rated by the readers of in in
weekly as the top website for the last six years certainly attribute to the work that the team is doing just a little recap on some of our our sales and services overview so in addition to the advertising and the public relations and the marketing work we do we can't do it without working with our local tours and partners so we have 370 paid members and we had over 2,000 assists where we're working with our partners throughout the year we had 42,000 people come through the visitor information centers and when it comes to sales
we generated 136 leads this last fiscal year we're $33 million but what's more importantly is this is a a process that builds upon itself we've been out selling uh since 2020 trying to bring events back into the Pensacola area so we booked 112 leads for $11 million just wanted to spend a little time on our our campaigns our overarching campaign is the way to beach this is what we uh use in all of our tactics whether it's digital social
connected TV broadcast print promotions radio and outdoor um the trackable results not everything we do is trackable but the trackable results generate over 265,000 room nights 34,000 FL and 164,000 travelers that we track from being exposed to this uh campaign we do a number of campaigns so some of our our uh other subset but larger campaigns we do a social inclusion generated more than 25,000 room nights but it's a a return of a 30 times return in our investment
direct flights is really important that we support the airport and what it does we want to hold not only on the direct flights we have but see those grow trackable results more than 60 3,000 flights 55% of those Travelers are coming from Dallas New York City and Washington DC we also through our meetings and incentives conferences um have 177,000 users driven to the website uh and from that 3600 Travelers coming to the area um for that market segment one thing I would like to
share sometimes we have unique things that happen in our community and and we get those questions of what kind of impact that has so most recently we had whoops one more slide sorry I'm out of I'm out of sync um what's been important for us too is looking at how we can attract the winter visitors so we had two campaigns for that uh one is a campaign that runs November through January and that generated more than 4,000 visitors but we then added an early birds where were
really targeting them earlier in the year August through October and that generated even more room nights and flights as a result let me get back to that special event of course we had uh a great snow experience here in January and while it was weird it was also very beautiful and just on the social media from that we gained 4,000 followers had 8.7 million impressions um just incredible uh turnout for people who are interested to see what was happening in the Pensacola area because
they were hearing it on the news our website visits were up 21% and we had 8.1 million views of that video to the left just of a a somewhat Frozen Pensacola Beach but it also created a lot of oh there I guess there it is now it's running there we go so that video had 8.1 million views but we also had quite a bit of media coverage 5,500 articles uh 1,385 were unique and then they
get in syndication and they get sent out but uh an ad value of of something we could never attain of 78 billion based on that worldwide coverage of our our snow event here in uh Northwest Florida and just as we look forward to what's next um we're we're entering into the event season so we just had pensacon who had a successful weekend Marty gr is next weekend uh as well as foiling week
Pensacola and these are events that uh we have an involvement through our staff we're surveying um a number of these events as well through downs and St Germaine and then finally followed by the sunbell conference basketball championship where we'll have 28 basketball teams plus the bands and the spirit teams and the fans and family and alumni um and that starts March 5th through the 11th and that's just through the first week of March so it's going to be a busy next three
weeks I'd be happy to answer any questions thank you Darren any questions comments council members i h i have one just kind of a technical question when we're talking about web conversions Daren uh what step do you qualify a conversion actually there's a number of actions that qualify as a con conversion so if someone come in comes in and like requests a newsletter that would be considered a conversion if they click into the second page of the website that can be a conversion so we have
we have a list there's a number of things that can be a conversion so they're they're asking for a response essentially or seeking additional information that's right okay thank you okay thank you yes sir councilman so none of the tdt was used to buy those Bushwackers for people right that's absolutely right we do not use any tdt money to buy Bushwackers that's right thank you all right well thank you Darren appreciate that for the update um uh Laura I didn't know if you
had anything you wanted to present pensaco Sports don't feel obligated no all right thank you uh and Ace um don't know if you guys have any anything to report not nope all right any other any questions from Council Members about any of the outside agencies any questions for those agencies um uh I just want to say yeah good work thank you for saying that uh good work to everyone uh
those reports are great uh we appreciate all the work you're doing um and if there are no other uh questions for any of the outside agencies um we will move on to closing report uh closing remarks where just like to have members of the council just have any type of closing remarks they wish to have and we'll start with you commissioner thank you Mr chair I'd like to start by saying as a a former Marine um we'll start I honor also uh the general chappie James Memorial Plaza and
I want to see this done uh I Echo major dov's uh sentiment that that the most Honorable in our society are those that are willing to raise their right hand to defend uh our culture and our homeland um unfortunately this is not i s i in my opinion the right Source uh for the funding but I'm certain that this community can rally behind this this initiative and find the right bank for the money thank you y thank you well since you started we'll start on that end Mr MX
do you have any closing remarks no well thank you councilwoman only that that is always very difficult to vote against anything veteran within this because it is such an important part of this um community and once again I also would like to support that I would like to see this come to fruition just through the proper Source thank you councilman bear thank you Mr chairman I agree with my colleague and Mr Nicholson um so I don't have to repeat that but uh I just wanted to say it
would be helpful for me I know we do like half aam of paper every time we uh we print for for this if we had an agenda that was online or that was emailed to us that had all of the components to it it would be helpful so that we could for those of us that don't want to use a all this paper that we can just do it here and it's very difficult to keep track because we get emails with different things in them um and like some of the like the policies and procedures types things I I didn't have one of the things that that you had over there so I'd just like to see a like a package
kind of like what we do for our agendas and Council and I think County does it as well it' be helpful for me thank you we'll have to we'll send you the instructions but they are on the County website under the calendar there's the agenda and then there's another little tab on there that is the packet the backup packet and all the all the this plus other stuff that we didn't print was on there but we'll Danielle the next time we'll send out instructions on where to find that thank you just want to say I appreciate everybody and uh keep working hard to bring events to Pensacola
thank you Shirley go ahead uh I concur I want to say thank you to the agencies um it's obvious that everybody's working hard to make great use of the money so we appreciate it thank you Mr Rees well I just want to thank everybody for the support they gave me tonight um but I do want to say that whether we gave the monument 750 or million personally
I don't have a dog in that fight other than the guy's a hero and when this first came to this board you Mr chairman insisted on attorney general's opinion and to me that was it's just been delayed and fooled around with so I think we ought to either set it or forget it it just keeps coming back and it keeps coming back so whether we did the 750 or whether we did the million or
we did zero which is what we did I just want to see what the County Commission does because you can't have the collection of tourist tourism dollars without having us but if all we're going to do is talk about it and then the commission can do whatever they want to do then to me
me we waste an awful lot of time and in that regard I would like to suggest that you just consider that we put public forum at the end of the meeting rather than make these people who come here regularly wait through that would be one thing and maybe we put the most important things
first I mean you put the agenda together but I I just think that most everybody else has the for at the end of and maybe by the time you get there they've given up and left too you know so uh I just for your consideration but I am anxious to see what happens on Thursday thanks thank you commissioner thank you guys I really do appreciate everyone that took the time to put together the
information that we reviewed um my husband's an army veteran as well so making sure that we honor that part of um the American culture is also very important to me and maybe the hos study will come back with additional information that we'll be able to act on as well so looking forward to being able to review that and just thank you guys for a very collaborative meeting I appreciate everyone's comments and input and it was great to be a part of it for the first time so thank you thank you uh and in closing first let me say we did this great introduction of you at the last meeting but you
weren't here so I apologize I didn't reintroduce you but welcome to the this Council as well we appreciate you your willingness to serve so thank you um yeah and I also uh just a reminder uh next week is foiling week we supported that uh and Tim thank you very much for all the work that you're doing working with Luca uh on that project it's really exciting and we're uh grateful you're you're doing it um thank you to everyone Council staff uh our Council staff everyone who's uh and
all the outside agencies and everyone here today uh all the work that you're doing to help keep this going uh and grow our tourism um welcome again to our new members uh there's four on that end and one on this end mostly all new uh so welcome uh and congratulations Jason on being the new Vice chair and now I'm going to start missing meetings and you get to chair these um but uh with that I will leave it uh I will call this meeting adjourned thank you