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good afternoon and welcome to the scambi county tourist Development Council special meeting today is March 13th it is 300 p.m. uh Danielle was this meeting properly advertised yes through a press release to the public and media all right whoa um will you please call the role Ashley hoffberger present James Rees Shirley cronley David bear here matish Patel here Charles
Bayer here Jennifer Brer here Brad mullinex here and Jason Nicholson here great we have a quorum so this meeting is now called to order thank you all for being here uh first item on the agenda is public forum um we have one person from the audience who has signed up to speak Ray Palmer I guess because I didn't list him on the agenda he wants to come speak to us give us an update about the SBC am I on the agenda no sir oh good thank you Ray Palmer 4323 white leaf Court Pensacola
um I just very quickly you know love to give a little good news every now and then I think y'all all are very aware of what we've just gone through finishing Monday night at the at the bay center is sunbell Conference basketball so I'm just going to run across a few little facts and and figures and stuff that that's happened in this past week um one of the U things we'll start with is some of the community activities that took place impacted um we had an education day that had 600 plus high schoolers uh from Escambia County come in um and then each of the universities uh bring their
admissions Department in and they do a a uh a u i don't know what you call it uh an opportunity for the high schoolers to meet um each of the universities ad missions departments and they get a discount actually if they were interested in that school and then they stay in play and watch one of the women's basketball games that's pretty cool we had a youth day uh where we had U eight Area Youth basketball teams go out at halftime and play on the championship Court um
we had a military night um we had our Fan Fest uh despite the threat of weather we had uh we gave out about 700 basketballs and t-shirts uh to the Youth of the community um 700 basketballs bouncing around the arena you can only imagine how much fun that was and what that could have been like um and then another little interesting story is on Monday night post the game um two of our restaurants that we're aware of one in the north Bubba 33 and Sidelines on the beach both
were reached out to by groups and asked if they would stay open late um and and and both of them did to accommodate um the fans as well as the catering from the teams that they did it's just great economic impact news um and I uh lastly I will report that um while these numbers are not official because you'll tell because they're not accurate I mean they're not they're accurate but they're not official um for our women we had over 10,000 attendees um which is the highest ever in
Pensacola and the most since 2013 and for the men's um brackets we had over two 20,000 uh the highest ever in Pensacola also and the most since 2009 and to that I give the uh thank you to visit Pensacola because they are the marketing arm of this event and just wanted y'all to get you know a good news on what your Investments can can do for our community thank you I'll answer any questions
but I don't know that there are any thank you Ray any questions from any anyone no well great job Ry uh and I see Tom are you here to speak public form well go ahead and yes please just fill out the form when you're done thank you introduce yourself please all right uh thank you I was rushing to get here uh Tom Jardine 1112 V DeLuna and I've come to these meetings a lot in the past uh I I kind of gave up on it because you guys I keep saying you guys have failed the citizens in in several
different metrics one uh the last three meetings I went to three consecutive meetings you guys only had four members listen to Citizens uh you've been manipulating the public forum back and forth uh these meetings only uh performed at 3m. to begin with uh the meeting dates change all the time uh I want to say that Mr Reed who I just ran into at the end of the last meeting he specifically said that he'd like to manipulate the meetings in such a way to avoid public input that's outrageous
and I didn't hear one member rebuke Mr Reeves um that is the Smoking Gun telling me that the citizens are not getting represented from our tourist uh industry um we make $23.5 million in bed taxes and you guys are trying to funnel it all to your advertising agencies like visit Pensacola meanwhile the citizens are being run over by tourism uh we don't have uh enough money to pay for the sand replenishment project on pens Beach you guys are essentially giving that project zero
money I know you're going to tell me that you're giving it 500 Grand a year but that was only after your Commissioners misappropriated a FEMA Grant from penso Beach of $ 3.35 five million that was in 2021 where that Grant was misappropriated and in response you guys started giving $500,000 a year to Beast replenishment so right now you guys are negative2 million on beach replenishment on pcola Beach and it's obvious that you guys are trying to manipulate things in such a way that
you're underfunding the citizens so that you can overfund tourism advertising um we can't pay for the the same replenishment our our uh Civic Center our base Center has languished for years now um we don't have enough money to pay for the bobes bridge we keep getting more and more people over that bobes bridge every year and we don't have a nickel to pay for that bridge I don't think the to bars Bridge has any money I know you I know that money doesn't come from the TDC but
what I'm saying is that tourism is not paying uh you know for itself every citizen who comes over that bridge to the penscola beach is putting one more burden on our infrastructure and on our uh on our environment and you guys aren't putting any money into our environment um and you're not putting any money into our infrastructure I think you know every time every extra tourist that we get I look at as a negative thing because I think the citizens are being ripped off by our tourism
industry so every additional citizen is just one more burden that the citizens are having to pay for and you guys are responsible for the for the tourism industry and um our County Commissioners have failed the citizens you guys are supposed to be go the governing body uh I don't think one member on the TC has been representing the citizens as example Mr Reeves said that he wants to manipulate public forum in such a way to avoid citizen input and not one of you members rebuked Reeves uh Mr Reeves and and Mr Patel both let their uh uh appointments expire last year and they
kept coming to meetings and voting anyway Mr re's appointment had expired for six months uh but he kept coming to meetings kept voting I don't think you guys had a quorum last February or last April at your meetings you only had had four active members on that council at both your February and your April meetings uh that's enough I just you guys are just every metric I think the SC is being run over by our tourism industry thank you thank you Tom Mr Reeves did you want to
respond all right that concludes our public forum uh section of the agenda next item is uh County issued email addresses uh a couple of years ago um we were discussing emails and we were getting a uh presentation from the county attorney about um public record retention and sunshine you know getting our annual uh training if you will uh on on Florida Sunshine public
records and so I asked County uh if they would issue all of the citizen members a county te DC issued email address so that we did not have to use personal email addresses to retain all those emails um and they said yes and I received one um I don't know if I guess Tish I think you were on the board then you may not have been uh in shely uh where I don't know if Jim was either but um I think I'm the only one that's using it and we have now two more members but
you guys aren't using them and and I know there have been some concerns about getting emails retaining emails and so I've asked the county to again issue some email addresses to the citizen the non-elected officials on the TDC so that all the TDC related emails can go through their system be retained by the county in case you accidentally delete something out of your inbox it's still retained by the county as a public record uh and so uh the county is working on that uh right now and um I don't know if John you wanted to come on up
John is the new tell us your your title I think you work in the OM but uh thank you Mr chairman and good afternoon uh board members uh my name is John arar I'm the new County uh Chief Information officer uh have talked with uh the chairman here regarding uh providing uh provisioning email addresses to to non-elected if you are not already a government official you've been appointed uh we don't see any issues with with providing uh this board with email addresses
there are certain uh requirements that we have to have and that is a a signed it use policy and that it use policy um clarify some of the obligations and responsibilities that you have once you have a county email address and so one of the things that we've been working on I've been in the position now for about 3 weeks had talked to m Mr bear prior to that uh we do have a streamlined version I just wanted to give you an example so we've had a use policy for County Employees you don't
fall those who are citizens uh noncount board not non-count employee uh type folks uh we have a nine page document that kind of clarifies but it is only for County Employees what we've been working on is a policy a streamlined policy that is three pages in length and that just identifies just the the specific obligations you have as citizen non elected or noncount employees uh so
I did talk with the county attorney or actually exchanged emails and she is perfectly fine with you signing off on the County employee version we wanted to give you an advisory committee version as opposed to a full one but if you're willing to sign off on the full County employee only those sections that are relevant to your position as a uh TDC member would apply but we have to have that on file before we can uh create those email addresses I I don't have an explanation for uh
the chairman having a uh County email address uh without that document on file but we we do have to collect those so uh what I can do uh I'll work with Danielle we will send you a copy of the policy if you could just review it and sign off on it I'll see if we can't make it electronic signature so you can just sign it once you receive it on your personal email once you do that return it uh we will then generate a county email address for you uh unfortunately there will be a
new policy that again will be approved by the BCC coming up in uh the second meeting in March once the BCC approved proves it we will then send that new one out to you and you'll just have to sign the streamlined version uh it it's really just in terms of your sense of urgency Mr chairman and and board members if you like that policy and you want to have those emails right away we can do that or if you if you would uh want to wait for another 10 or 10 or 12 days once the BCC approves the
new policy um we can send it out at that time it it's really the pleasure of the TDC at this point whatever you'd like to do I'm I'm happy to do okay thank you and I guess that's up to the individual members if they want to wait then they won't sign it and they'll just wait till the new one correct I just I just want to help try to make this a lot easier on the on the members of retaining the email address uh the emails and correspondent so thank you I appreciate you being here today any questions or comments from anyone okay thank you have a good meeting right thank you John
all right uh next item is the uh Navy days uh proposed Navy days funding um come on down um Todd and Sir Mr chairman good afternoon members of the committee my name is Dan mccort longtime member of the community and a retired Naval officer I know you already know Todd as the president of our Chamber of Commerce heard to talk today about the upcoming Navy Days event I will bring up a couple of points first is I'm the current president of that organization uh I relieved Mr Tom canella who
I think you guys all know he was poached by the mayor to uh do good things for the for the city however we are in a position uh as I go back in time both Tim and I went Tim was the commanding officer of the Naval Air Station and I was the president of the local Navy League realized that Pensacola did not have an event that recognized our military in the ways we think we should we envisioned the equivalent of a mini Fleet Week in fact we pursued that but unfortunately that Navy
has specific rules on what can be deemed a fleet week so we couldn't use that term therefore the term Navy days came out in case you all wonder where that happened to come from the point is we really wanted to gather and recognize those members of our all of our military so even though it says Navy days it will be for all the services that are here local in Pensacola the intent is to have essentially a week's work of activities we start with a event uh gallery night in April that will be Navy days themed we'll roll into the week in May which is our particular week which we'll
recognize with uh an a couple of events we'll start with a Gayla uh at the Museum a naval AV ation that'll be a formal black Thai event we also will have leading up to that an opportunity for a golf tournament that'll be a Friday before then on the Saturday itself we'll have something downtown it's going to start at Plaza DeLuna go up to Veterans Park that will be a run that'll take place so a significant participation in a run following the run there will be a parade
this will involve Danny Zimmer and all the parade the parade crowd and the crews that are local to Pensacola these will all be a way to provide an opportunity to recognize our military people the parade will go from Veterans Park and bring it back down to the plaza D Luna surrounding Plaza Duna we we have requested and right now look to have several of our Maritime ships locally so right now we've had a commitment from the coast guard for five uh Cutters to be down here at Plaza DeLuna for that period of time we've also requested a couple of navy ships
that's a significant draw for people to come down following all that the parade will end we'll have recognition by the city of our two commanding officers both up at whing field and NES Pensacola and culminate with the incorporation of Youth so during the parade we'll have requested and already have the support of the local school board to provide uh barching bands uh junior Reserve officer training cor uh Cadets out there it'll be a very very familyfriendly very public
very fun event uh with a family fund Fest that will culminate all this which is essentially like a big picnic and opportunity for kids in an exposure down at Plaza DeLuna so bottom line all that this is an opportunity to involve the community we are going to expect a lot of out of town participation we tried this last year you may be aware of the fact we tried last year it was our first event sadly we had a well-known well publicized in advanced weather event that precluded us executing the event as we had hoped so our success
last year in spite of that still brought in Coast Guard ships that Brew several thousand people to visit those we still had a pretty successful run uh and in that run at least 20% of those people came from out of state so we're bringing in a lot of people we did develop room nights last year even though we had a significant challenge with regard to hosting and executing as a function of weather so where we are then this year is we are that much better at getting things ready we've got things lined up of course we can't change the weather but we're hoping for that and if we do so
we're projecting something on the order of about 20,000 people last year in spite of the fact we had bad weather we had 6,700 people like I said we generated some room nights which is what the tourism dollars were all about so this is going to be the community recognized in the military it's going to generate interest it's going to bring people in from out of out of County out of state and bring in folks to Pensacola to appreciate our military so in a nutshell that's what we plan to do uh Todd anything that you want to add to all that other than that we are asking for $100,000
of support uh we have a budget that's just over $250,000 we've got sponsorship lined up to support and bring in the rest I think we've done all we can we believe it's going to be a fun good event both for the community and for the military and I know we're going to bring in tourists from a lot of places that are going to come back time and again our plan is for this to become a no kidding like a Fleet Week annual event that will live on in Pensacola for many years to come I'm happy at this point to answer questions great thank you so much appreciate it any questions or
comments uh Mr chairman uh fortunately I participated in the planning of the event uh last year and uh as a result unfortunately I'm going to have to recuse myself from this topic I'm sorry you participated in the planning last year and yeah I I was on the the the Planning Group last year for last year's event and uh I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to to to vote on this year's event I'm going to refuse myself from this topic okay Tish uh I do
got some questions um so out of the participants that you had I read that you had 12% of them were out of county is that correct roughly in terms of participation we looked about 25% were from out of County out of state and of the runners that was about 20% but of overall participation and again our numbers last year are about 6,700 people in spite of all the bad weather so about a quarter of them came from distant where they were staying someplace locally the hotel that's so sorry you're
right so 12% actually stayed in hotels is what you're saying out of the 1,700 that came so if I did my math right that's 204 people and that's how you got the 100 room nights that came from our um report from the organization that did the survey so how that number played out it did I think I've mentioned this to some folks at visit Pensacola but I really think the folks that do these numbers somebody needs to sit down and go over the metrics with them um the math isn't right on it I don't
want to go into details with it but um down in St germain's or visit Pensacola whoever puts this together in the reports I think just because it's in the report doesn't mean it's right um but from a hotel standpoint I think um I don't support this event I think uh there's a lot of a lot of folks that are highly respected in Pensacola that are a part of it and just because they're a part of it we gave them such high dollars I wasn't here for the meeting um
that's the one meeting I missed I know you guys came in asking for 50 and somehow you ended up getting double that you didn't use all of it thank god um but I I don't I don't know how this event gets any better to improve from 100 room nights and if you get 100,000 or 50,000 that's a that's a lot of room nights that should be produced for that type of money um and I think you've got a you've got to you've got to show it you've got to prove it um and if it was my own money I wouldn't
give you any of it I know we're spending bed tax dollars so you know people give it to you how they feel but I don't think that this event was a success I I know we can blame it on the weather but I think even if the weather was perfect if if you double the room nights or triple the room nights you're still only at 300 room nights it's just not a good return on investment for the tax dollars that are that are spent thank you chair uh one more Mr bear councilman bear and I'll good to
you thank you Mr chairman and um I wanted to thank Mr schaer and Mr Palmer for their review and their comments I wasn't aware you know I've done one of these because the organization I work for on my regular job I have to do one of these requests for for um support it's not from TDC money it's um from the county from I think ours comes from Some solid waste fees or something but so I know it's a lot of work to to put the information in here and I also value what goes in here and I'm trying to figure out how you go from a 100 to 500 room nights after having an event that was
I mean affected by weather um but was probably could have been more successful but but where do you I mean you say 20,000 that's a 300% increase then you're saying a 500% increase in room nights I don't necessarily think that just because you had bad weather that people didn't stay that extra night in the room they may I don't think everyone just left um probably when they found out maybe they couldn't cancel their room reservation anyway so 100 may be what we would have gotten anyway um so what what are you basing the 500 on at this point well first of all in this case the
the weather event was forecast significantly in advance uh as a lot of these things are so we end up with people that that just didn't even make a reservation so wasn't they arrived and left early they just didn't come because this was a well forecast thought out this is going to be a bad event so we know that had a significant impact on our participation sorry would you compare that to like the weather that's coming up this week CU I know like if I had a trip scheduled and I lived in New Orleans and I was coming to Pensacola this week I would be canceling that would you say that was a similar event exactly I mean we live here in Pensacola we people these days people have good
access to weather reports and if they Envision it's going to make for a B for a not fun time they're not going to come so yes I would have to say that is true now does that mean we're liable for that again absolutely we live in Pensacola it's going to be in May generally that's a good time but it can be another bad weather period I really do believe one this will be a hit I uh I hope Mr you will come and join us even if you don't support us because it'll it'll be fun and represent the military but we really do believe with the progress we made from the last event in terms of exposure and advanced notice that we're going to get a much better
participation for this one certainly On The Run side because that's already uh that that generates that's its own energy a run event brings a lot of people in Allah the Maguire run just last week run events bring in a lot of people really think the Run alone is going to bring in a bunch of stuff but uh obviously it's a forecast there's no guarantee for any of this so be honest with you that's the way the stuff's done as you will know okay so you really don't have a justification as to why you say 500 room nights other than the the that's based on the the initial response we had from people last year that ended up not coming because of a of a U-turn because of weather so
it's a postulated number but yes I believe that's a fairly accurate number in terms of what this draw is capable of bringing okay I'll let other people and then I'll make some debate thank you Mr Reeves who asked visit Pensacola and Pensacola Sports to review this request will you speak into your microphone sir I heard you and I'll answer your question uh so at the February County at one
of the February County Commission meetings they were addressing uh different events I think they were discussing the wine on the water event uh and it had come directly to us and the some of the County Commissioners had requested that the dmos review any request before they came to us uh for funding request and just gave their opinion and so so what did they say so I forwarded that to them and the emails from them were in the packet um I can I mean shouldn't we listen to
number sure would you like to ask would you like me to ask them to speak Ry and Darren would you please come up and just for clarification on that from the board of county commissioner standpoint our goal is to start pushing all of the ask for events back to the dmos that way when they come to you it's a little bit more consistent so we're a going to ask that they open up grant funding throughout the year and not just once a year so it can be more consistent welcome so the question is I guess uh Mr Reeves was wanting to know your opinion after reviewing
the request for funding I just okay um I did not bring a copy of of my comments um what I said in in it was I covered um you know the original application and what it said in there and that yes they did have to deal with a significant weather event that uh I know the event itself had to watch it for up to a week leading up to it and had to make that call as
far as cancelling um I think Saturday as early as as Thursday and had to send that out um I know that uh because of that uh events were impacted um my commentary on it was um that as far as room Knight generation and and and the forecast for 500 room nights for year two um that I couldn't justify the ask of $100,000 and said that um as far as funding um I believe my comment
was uh up to the 500,000 or $50,000 that was actually requested originally in year one um but that was increased by a council member that is no longer on the council last year ready so this request to we were quite frankly caught a little off guard not knowing that it was coming to us for review um and it came over on like a Friday afternoon said we need you feedback pretty quickly and I knew I was headed out of town so I gave it a fairly GL good glance and
and review and of course I look at Grants all all the time and have for for decades and so I looked at the numbers and what the report showed and what the ask was of course we were here last year when they asked for 50 and and one of the board of County I mean the TDC members said oh no let's give it a hundred well they didn't even ask for a hundred and so you know a 100 room nights and I and I didn't put it through our grant committee um a normal process Jim I just looked at what normal things that we do invest in and what those returns are
and this didn't measure up with something big but we don't always just look at room nights there's value to the community there's economic value in in marketing and and exposure to our community none of that was provided to us so I questioned if the because the TDC had permitted this uh um allocation is that what the TDC looks for are they giving value to whatever the market marketing value was that wasn't provided to us and that's a whole another thing on top of just
room nights and economic impact so I don't know what that value was or whether that's what the TDC was trying to buy uh by providing a $100,000 so I just gave a a quick response saying I'm not really sure what y'all's measurements and you want us it would not get this kind of number under our process and our procedure and our grant program I don't feel like it would um but that's that's all we you know it was kind of a quick hey give us your thoughts real quick so would you say that you're probably if you were going to recommend anything you're recommending
$5,000 because of the room nights without taking any consideration to the fact that we are Navy town I don't know if that's a trick question or not um the fact that it's a Navy town we are a Navy town is a fact that is in disput able and I believe that this event has possibilities but we take events we get we have people come in and request funds for us all the time with
dreams and visions and we make them perform quite frankly we would give them we wouldn't probably give them $10,000 um on based on our schedule and time of year and all the things that we look at um and the numbers that they're projecting and quite frankly most of ours are put on a sliding scale you tell me you're going to get $500 then you're going to get x amount of dollars if you get your 500 500 room nights if you're going to get your if you do your 500
if you don't it's a sliding scale down on the dollars that are given to you that's the way Pensacola Sports grant program is structured and um and is in place um and so uh we're we're just kind of a different animal we're not probably as expensive and if there was value or if there was specific marketing dollars that were tied to that they would have to show us where they where an organization spent that marketing dollar and then we would reimburse against that is that a
better answer I like the clawback for the money depends on what side you're on I'm not on any no I said you said is it a better answer and I said it depends on what side you're on well I I would say this when when I originally responded I said I'm uncomfortable doing so because there are no guide rails right there's there's nothing from the TDC or the board of County Commissioners um that says we value room nights or we value Media or multiple uh multiple days uh or the quality of
the marketing plan um who's involved cuz when we do our grant program our our maximum is $50,000 and it is based on the time of year and is it multiple days and the room night projection and the community involvement and securing hotel room blocks uh and uh you know what percentage of the budget is and where the other revenues coming from and are there sponsors and we look at all those things about the quality of an application and the potential for an event to grow year over-ear we don't we don't have that currently set up but as I said in my email we would love to put
that down because like Ray said I mean when you're doing grant applications the emotion really shouldn't be in there it really shouldn't be who's asking it you know it's about the quality of the event and what that event will will produce and the potential for it to evolve and grow over time any other comments questions I I had a question too you can go first Council I have a couple yes yes I think that um I'm curious about why Professional Services going from 7,400
to 20,000 why contractual Services going from 177,000 to 25,000 some things like that that I don't know um event expenses going up 40,000 um and other expenses I don't know what the other expenses are so I I've got some concerns over that if this um I taking it to a full 100,000 more for cost this year than last year um th those concern me if you want to address any of
those so we'll start on the expense side as was already mentioned we didn't have expenses last year because most of the events were canceled and so those expenses other than the marketing part the expenses themselves didn't materialize so the number this year reflects those happening all the events not just two so that's that's what that number is I I did fail to mention earlier that a lot of the draw for this because it's a recognition piece for the military General
Florida and particularly Northwest Florida is a huge bed of retired and very involved military people we know for a fact having received lots of feedback that if we hold an event such as this and why do we project people will come because we have so many people in the Panhandle area that are going to want to come and watch a military flavored event and recognition piece with which they very closely identify so we leverage a lot of our speculation on
the population and their disposition to want to participate in something like this yeah okay so on these like on the cost for last year I see rentals and leases you didn't pay last year and this year that's 15,000 and I get some of these things changing um but it shows that you had 60,000 for event expenses last year 40,000 this year those are the things that you're saying didn't come to fruition so for example in expenses last year we marketing
was the sunk cost that that was paid no matter what so all the marketing effort that went into it U and and some of the the vendor supplies those those things were pre- purchased so yeah those costs held but a lot of things were able to cancel and they didn't end up being an expense all right that's it for right this moment okay thank you commissioner I had two questions um what events were canceled last year I know the family fund day was on my schedule and we didn't go because it stormed but what other events were essentially everything was canceled last
year other than we we did three events last well two events really we did the Run Runners will run in the rain although a lot of them canceled uh and we had the Gayla the black Tha event at the Museum and then we we had the recognition piece that had to be moved from Maritime Park indoors with a small group there uh and that's really all we were able to do last year okay and then I know that the majority of the people who come to Pensacola Drive in um especially to come and visit
for the beach how are you guys Target marketing those military families that are in a driving distance to get them down here for this event so uh fact I have our marketing experts sitting here with me but uh largely this is going to be through various media uh social print video radio uh the marketing there'll be a a a substantial marketing campaign to reach out to all those people we've already have as I said Word of Mouth from last year so there are people waiting for to hear about it for this year that will plan to come that were going to come last year that will in fact come
this year so the marketing will be a it's a blitz campaign that'll go out okay wonderful do you have additional details on the marketing sure y thank you thank you very much Council uh I'm Brent from Cat Country 987 I know most of you um and I know that we came together at Senator Bron's request in in July of 2023 to ultimately kind of start this Pensacola Navy days committee and the idea was as Dan said how do we honor our community tie that together and make sure that Washington knows that we appreciate the military in our community and so we spent about a year coming together to
make this work and ultimately last year the rain out was not anyone's favorite way to spend uh that particular weekend but uh we did engage using the TDC dollars from last year and 37,41 15 was paid media but showcase who took care of the media for us received $59,950 in kind so we had had about $100,000 worth of media that went into this the P most of the paid media was out of market and we have several Drive markets that we frequently use with visit Pensacola that would make sense for
us New Orleans for example Jacksonville I mean if you're in a Navy town somewhere on the Gulf Coast you probably got the opportunity to find out we were going to do this and if you're in a Navy town somewhere on the Gulf Coast most likely you pass through Pensacola at some point in your Naval career so this is an event that makes sense and I would encourage I mean I don't think any of us on the committee came here with the idea that we were going to in some way make money from it personally I think the goal obviously is to turn this into the community event that it can be and I know when we sat around in that initial meeting the idea was what does this look like in
five years the first year we got to have it the second year we really got to have it because the first year was not what everybody hoped it would be but can it be the essential Fleet Week in five years and given the history of what we have in our community I think that it certainly can I certainly believe in it our our station has committed to almost $30,000 of basically free advertising to this event I know we is equally as committed to being able to provide that what your dollars will provide to us ultimately is the ability to Market this out of town I'm not
going to go personally reach out to someone in New Orleans to come here we was isn't going to go reach out to somebody in New Orleans to to come here we are going to be the absolute best media representatives of this event within our own community and we're looking forward to the parade and the run and all the fun stuff that's going to happen the Gaya was we considered it a sellout at about 2 70 people last year realizing we can go up to 500 people this year and that's going on sale next week so we have a lot of drive for that the Run had 400 people register for it not going to
lie I've never done a run before I know we were a little concerned about four weeks out from the Run suddenly we went from 90 people to 400 people registered by the time the event happened so and a great partnership with the Uso the runway 5K helped us out immensely with their group of Runners so I have no reason to believe that won't pay for itself or the Gaya won't pay for itself um moving it to uh uh Plaza Al Luna this year makes a lot of sense for us if we have a plaza Al Luna surrounded by Coast Guard Cutters which Dan has reached out for and we are in the process of
making that happen can you imagine what that's like as people come into Plaza Al Luna if you remember what the tall ship's imprint looked like we will have a fantastic backdrop for this again I go what happens this year sets the tone and hopefully the Fantastic video and pictures will be able to show to getting to what Fleet Week for Pensacola looks like in 5 years and your dollars will help us make sure that we are reaching out of market for those people to know we are having this and obviously this is an investment in what happens year in and year out I I Jason and and Mr
Patel I I concur I can't figure out why we would not have more room nights other than to say at the point that we get to a week out and have a massive thunderstorm happening that looks like this weekend and we start canceling events cuz it got real I mean the parade wasn't going to roll with floats they just or not going to happen but what can that look like as we go into what I hope will be a beautiful weekend this year and how do we set that pace for what is happening in year number five man what a great place to celebrate the Navy and all of our Armed Forces
here in Pensacola and that's ultimately what this is and I can certainly break down more notes for you if you have questions about it but I'm telling you we I think we did it we did the best job we could using uh showcase as the example for how to utilize the TDC funds for media and out Market advertising and I I hope that this year we will have a gazillion room nights and more importantly some fantastic events to talk about for year number three four and how we set up year number five thank you thank you Brent Darren I have a question about showcase so when they Market
on social media and they say hey come to penscola for Navy days and somebody clicks on the ad and then they're like oh yeah cool I'm going to book on penscola beach do they track those metrics so the the turnover from who saw it to who actually booked that's right okay are they available for this event from last year should be yep so they did a wrap report um which I believe was submitted with the application from what I remember so both you had the rap report from showcase as well as the study done by DS in St Germain and Tish we can follow up on on your comments and and talk about
that go through the numbers happy to do it I think it was a separate email yeah I think all that came as a separate email after the fact after we okay up uploaded all the stuff for the agenda so you should have gotten a separate email but it's not included in the printed packet today but short answer is yes thanks what I'm trying to unpack in my head is the budget on marketing promotion
is going down 10% 9% but yet the um estimates or the desired gain is pretty high so so I'm trying to connect those dots and how the promotion is going down but the estimates are going up i' defer to the you guys can you 66,000 you showed $66,000 last year for marketing promotion this year your budgeted
60,000 oh okay yeah I think that uh you know we did have some of the startup costs in terms of events that were not utilized because of the weather so the FunFest the parade things like that so um you know putting a little more more money there while uh pulling back a little bit on the marketing but still being pretty close well there's one other thing to that too we created a lot of the video from that previous years we create a lot of the video from this year's event
like for instance for the Run we don't have to recreate any of that we have the video for this so there's not going to be the additional cost to creating some of that so some of that part goes down councilman bear thank Mr chairman so I'm just interested what you have partnering organizations here like visit Pensacola area Chambers which I'm sure I mean Todd he works for a chamber skim School District s what what are these Partners doing with you or for you in this what does that mean to be a partner organization so I'll address for example the school system they as partnering
for this event are the ones who are seeing to it that we have marching bands Junior ROTC units uh we involve some of their staff their parents their faculty all that okay so it is a as I said a wholesome family Centric event so therefore it's got a lot of children involved so therefore the school system okay and they can showcase all of them so these organizations aren't providing staff or funding right no no no okay um and it's curious to me that you're income was 183 for this current year and your expenses were like 161 so you had money left over the end of the year and
what happened with that money uh it frankly stolen the bank um we didn't spend it therefore it was our seed money to start this year okay so that is still there it's not gone so is that included in the amount that you're saying showing for income for this current year or that it was yeah it was okay because you're also showing for this current what you're requesting now you're requesting 216 or I guess your total expense are 216 and your income is 250 so that leaves you with 34 at the end I'm just not sure why we're why you're ending up with so much money is that just for next year
is that so why why would you do that well again we look at the overall promotion costs and uh startup costs we still again we didn't have a full flavored first event so we still have as Brent just me mentioned some stuff was an investment made we don't have to reinvest some stuff we didn't get to do so we still have those startup costs and that's that's what that's about okay but but your income you're showing for this coming year is 250 and your expenses are 216 so you want
us to give you money so you'll have extra left over at the end pretty much or you're not going to take it from TDC Mone it'll be from other s some other sour from other sources right okay no as was as was mentioned your dollars are going to go into a promotion and they will all be spent on promotion so it our plan uh being good stewards of our own business is to try to have something left over to turn over for the next time as as was mentioned this is a long-term plan we want to have this thing go out for many years in the future so every event every organization of which all of you
are a part I'm sure those organizations have to have something in the bank before they start the next year so this is going to be our perpetuating fund to allow us to keep things moving okay and you've already said that we can't have a real Fleet week here is that what you said just you can't use that term okay so does imply ships the Fleet Week would imply ships typically or it's a it's a term that the department of the Navy uses in a what we call a large Fleet concentration Center of which we are not right and it involves a place where there's lots of ships which we do not
have so we just can't use that term it will look and smell and feel just like a fleet week but it just can't use that term that's all without the like a like a copyright thing okay you know and I'll just say I mean I think we this community has a strong love of the Navy and I think that a lot of people will come out for this I just don't see this as being a huge draw for people outside of our community I mean um we don't have a fleet you know we have the Blue Angels a lot of people come for the Blue Angels and so I think that's a great event when we have blue angels shows but I
I just I don't see the 500 room kns materializing for this particular event and you know I just I as a fairly new member I just feel like we need to be cautious with how we spend the TDC money um we've got another item that we talked about last meeting I felt like was fell in this kind of the same category um as far as Pro military I'm Pro military I'm an army guy um there's lots of non- Navy people here too that would probably love to have some celebration of just military or veterans or something like that so I'm not offended by the fact it's just Navy days I think it's great that
we have something to celebrate what we currently have but I I also think that that you know there's comparison to the Maguire's run you can't compare your run to the Maguire's run I mean until you've been around for decades you know and it's just a totally different thing and you know runs do grw draw a crowd and you probably get a lot of people from the Navy base to come out to your run and Uso was mentioned as well I don't see them list as a partner in here but they probably were technically a partner are you talking about the base The Uso oh correct they were yeah Uso um so I just I'm
not inclined at this point to you know I I want to hear other comments but um I think probably last year it was too much uh I don't know which council member at the time I understand not on Council anymore but they raised it up to 100 or recommended raise up to 100 Council had to vote for that um but I just I feel like this is quite a jump and it's very um you have lots of high hopes for what it could be but I don't think there's the track record to prove that we're going to get to 500 room nights at this point yeah understand we're looking to build that track
record yes Council okay so I'm having the same problems and this is not about the validity of the idea of this I think it's a great idea and all that kind of stuff but I'm stuck on the fact that where is the 23 extra thousand so when I'm looking at the income table there's contributions donations I don't think it's in that category Pro um the pro program income I
don't think it's there unless it is like where is that 23,000 in this income so we had a number of sponsorships um from uh various businesses throughout our community or who sport our military and so that's where that money came from that's not what I'm asking I'm asking the left over 23,000 from last year that's your seed money this year where is it in here where does it show in your proposed budget year income like shouldn't there be another 23,000 added here we can add that
sure okay so that means that this would really be $273,000 of which they're proposing $216,000 to be spent which is still over the even if they'd spent everything that they proposed last year which would have been the 183 so this had it been fully envisioned last year it would have been 183 so they're proposing that goes to 216 but they'd have 273 in the bank for it so I can't R I have
no rationale in my head of why we would go that high and I um I think at best we pull it back to the 50,000 that was originally asked is is what and and then if we did that that'd still leave them accordingly with 223 ,000 which is over the projected 216,000 with the ability to still um raise money I mean so I think that at most we go with that 50,000 and if we don't want to discuss
anymore I'll obviously back off if anyone wants to discuss something but I would make that I I would propose that if everyone's done with having a conversation I second that okay any other any I would agree and I also just pulled up the WAP report the click-through rates were really good but it doesn't show the conversion rates to hotel stays um so the click-through rates are really good I would just make sure to focus that on outside of this area and make sure it's not people like us sitting in he still clicking on it yeah and and I did hear from
showcase on that item that the Google changed something with their um how they track things and so they weren't able to capture that last year but they figured something out for this year gole yes I'm sorry I said oh the Google Bots yes thank you that makes sense and I I would agree with you guys as well are we ready well I was going to make a couple I was just letting everybody else speak um so well thank you and thank you for doing uh the event last year um I was also summoned to the
Senator's office for that initial meeting uh to talk about doing this and the reason why it would be important to our community um and you know when I when I think about events for Pensacola to try to attract tourists uh what is tourism development and how can this event be successful or measured as success you know I I obviously room Knights is a very uh valuable variable in that calculation but obviously as several others have said it's not the exclusive uh variable in that uh we need to
look at what is the economic impact of the event to the area um heads and beds is one measure other uh you know direct indirect expenses are also uh important and when we look at from my perspective when I was evaluating this and we were talking about it last year in my mind I I was trying to imagine what the impact would be if we were to grow a Navy days to attract the attention of
military leadership uh not only retired from the area obviously they all love it here so when they retire they move back here um or stay here when they get out if they're already stationed here uh but what if we get the attention through this event uh by showing leadership in Washington DC that we appreciate the military and its impact on our community economically uh and you know and all other matters um because they affect our education system they affect everything right and so uh
what if we get their attention and they come here and they see the needs in our community through our military bases we we keep reading in the news about having to put Nets above the Blue Angels because the the ceiling is falling on them concrete is falling on them we have to close down hangers at pensol NAS uh because it is they are dilapitated and we're trying to get investment from the Navy to uh build another $250 million hanger uh to house these Jets and others and
so uh in other programs we have out there um we're also looking at obviously what's going on at Corey field and we want to try to get uh an expansion of those programs out there from an economic impact uh perspective how do we get their attention how do we get them to look at Pensacola because they're looking at Arlington they're looking at you know everywhere else Jacksonville but uh they're they're even looking at obviously they spending billions down in Panama City at tendle uh but the Navy has a different perspective and they have to they can't Lobby for themselves uh
and so how do we just get their attention to come here so we as Citizens can talk to them show them we appreciate what they do here in our community and so I think this event uh Navy days was created to try to Showcase Pensacola and Pensacola's uh appreciation for the Navy and the military uh and so for that I was personally invested uh I was interested we sponsored our my family's company sponsored it uh from a TDC perspective I thought it was a great opportunity for us to tell
the message to the area uh whether it's the you know starting out regionally and expanding that over time so we can tell that message louder and louder as we continue to build it I think last year was really uh disappointing that the weather affected it so significantly um acts of God we can't control that you know nobody can and so um you know when I'm I'm looking just to answer your question looking at the the the I call it a p&l because I'm in the private world but you know the
income and the uh expense statement it has at the bottom of last year the $23,000 it doesn't show a balance sheet where it shows what was retained at the end of the year um and so it obviously on here it doesn't show a beginning balance because this is just what is the income a beginning balance is an income it was derived from last year carried over um but but I don't dis disagree with your point you were making um if there's going to be uh a beginning balance with a a piece of um with
the income from obviously uh appropriation from the county of tourist development tax and private income from sponsorships and other program related uh if you're if you're not budgeting to even spend what you're going you plan to raise plus the beginning balance then do you really need the amount that you're requesting the $100,000 I know it'll be spent all in marketing because that's what you guys have said and so I think there needs to be a justification on spending $100,000
on marketing if you plan to to retain 50 plus thousand at the end of the year and not spend it um because you're going to raise it through other private donations um so again we're I I think it's a great event I I appreciate everything the Navy does I can tell you my family uh has benefited significantly from the military when we were in the Wholesale grocery business at some point through consolidation of that industry military commissaries were our our main customers uh and
so um and still today obviously with you know our our beverage business that's a big supporter of it uh but they they support and impact our community as a whole so I want to support this program I just need to be able to justify the investment that the TDC makes the county makes into it um if you're going to retain a bunch of money obviously it makes sense to get some money to hold money or get early sponsorships to start that investment uh but you know I have that same question why are
we retaining money if we're not going to we're going to raise it not spend it why do you need that much and I can address there uh one of our sponsors actually gave late this year they were going through their budget you know like can we go ahead and give you some money for next year in this year's report so there was you know there was a little bit less that was actually you know after the event on hand we've added a little bit since then so uh but I mean you know appreciate
uh your comments and yes uh to your point the getting the attention of folks in Washington DC is very important uh you know our our bases is very important to our community and our economy and these things get noticed uh it it is important so uh that is definitely one of the the uh reasons that Senator brockson brought this to us and U you know we we really believe this can grow and become the event that uh really could be a crown drool of the Gulf Coast in supporting the military thank
you counil woman I am going to um I hope that does and when you come back we'll be more than happy to to recognize that but I am going to make a motion that we reduce this to 50,000 this year second and if sorry but after that long spill I just have to say my mom was Navy my dad was Air Force I'm a total military brat and um it's very much important to this area I get that completely
and that this has nothing to do with it just means we have so many things that we have to fund and that is the only reason for such a an adjustment thank you you you second councilman second all thank you so we have a motion a second further discussion did you have a comment Mr Reeves any other comment any other discussion hearing none will you please call the role James Reeves
yes Ashley hoffberger yes David Bayer yes matish Patel yes Charles Bayer yes Jennifer Bayer yes Brad mullinex yes and Jason said he's not voting I'm abstaining and I I think you will um Miss hu I don't will he's abstaining from the vote because of a conflict do he need to fill out a conflict of interest for him okay if you won't mind getting after the meeting
getting with Kristen thank you great yes thank you for your support and we look forward to seeing you all at Navy days at sh thank you again Mr once again and uh for the committee we hope to to present ourselves in Fr next year with a demonstrated success so please come and join us we look forward to seeing you all out there thanks much we'll see you thank you so much yes sir good afternoon council members so for this particular uh action item uh that you just approved I just want to for Council purposes this will come from your special event Reserve yes
sir great thank you and real quick Todd before you run out uh so I think this is on our agenda tonight because we receive this uh late later than our normal application process because last year when you guys were creating Navy days that was when the current fiscal Year's application request was due and so you guys were just trying to get last year's appropriation uh and didn't have this year so have you guys I don't know when the deadline is for yeah it's
March 31st and it's uh being worked on right now so we will get that in properly great and then next year it'll just come through our normal appropriation correct thank you thank you all right uh next item on the agenda is uh General chappie James um Foundation Memorial Plaza uh we do have a speaker signed up Mr Tom Jardine come on down okay thank you uh Tom Jardine 1112 V DeLuna again I wasn't planning on coming here so I'm
going to have to leave as soon as I speak I don't want to be rude I'm going to probably run out of here I don't know that I don't know I did the parking app right uh we'll see I'll probably get a ticket um I'm 100% in favor of us using tourist the citizens bed tax money this every penny of this of the bed tax belongs to the citizens um 100% and using uh the bed tax money to fund this this uh General James statue um everybody says that I'm all in everybody says I'm in favor of
of of doing the statue but I don't want to use TDC money I want to use the citizens General funds and I'm tired of using the citizens General funds to pay for tourism uh I don't really understand your funding the way you guys uh your funding decisions um you just as you guys were saying a minute ago in that last conversation you're using the uh the hotel room nights is is factoring too heavy on your funding decisions that is not in the statute um our our objective is not to maximize
the hotels stays are uh every penny that we're of of the bed tax money belongs to the citizens Penny uh the citizens have sacrificed all of our precious Beach real estate if you go to pensac beach all the real estate we gave away to the to the tourist industry uh the citizens have are are paying for all the infrastructure for these tourists uh the citizens are are are sacrificing our environment and Meanwhile we're not uh the citizens are not benefiting from our tourism uh
we can't pay for our bridges to be replaced our Pensacola Bay Center is in bad shape um we're misusing our bed tax money um now this uh the only criteria you guys should be following is is this uh statue going to be uh one of the one of the main purposes be the promotion of Tourism and certainly one of the main purposes of this statue will be tourism um if anybody's been to Mount Rushmore you know I mean you know that is a tourist attraction uh this is a much smaller
scale they only want what 750,000 for beted taxes but um you know we have monuments all over this country that attract tourist our our most uh important tourist uh attractions throughout the country the Washington Monument the Statue of Liberty Mount Rushmore uh so yes this statue will definitely uh bring people into our area um uh we need to differentiate ourselves from our from our competition uh one thing that we have that Panama Cate does not have is we have the very
first first African-American fourstar general of the military he his hometown is Pensacola uh you know this sort of thing enriches this this uh this community and differentiates us from you know our competition um we need to your criteria should be how are you going to maximize the benefit to the citizens of scambia County with our bed tax dollars we shouldn't be worried about how many hotel rooms we're going to get just how the bed tax will maximize the
citizens benefit in the long term that should be our our one criteria thank you thank you Mr Jardine all right so um I have added this item to our agenda uh today to um give an update on uh the County's action uh and um discuss the hos Center uh independent an economic impact
assessment and to uh propose or make a request uh for authorization to send the proposed letter to the board of County Commissioners and the Florida Department of Revenue that has been attached to the uh the packet so uh to start um the an update on the the county action um at the February 20th uh Board of County Commissioners meetings uh they had a lengthy discussion of this item uh
and ultimately the board um voted in favor of funding this project using $750,000 worth of tourist development tax uh and then some I think maybe $100,000 of some other fund $125 or $100,000 of 125,000 of some other funding source maybe local option sales tax or some or general fund I'm not sure uh and uh in doing so they claimed uh the the clerk uh spoke and said that she saw this as
a museum uh and a museum is one of the enumerated construction of a museum using tourist development tax is an enumerated uh eligible item in the statute uh so you may use tourist development tax to fund the construction of a museum uh and so they decided that it was a museum and so because of that they voted in support of funding this uh if I'm mischaracterizing commissioner please
okay all right um and so so they've uh recommended the funding of this uh project so uh contingent on uh receiving a the hos Center uh economic impact assessment and also uh public ownership um by the City of Pensacola obviously the City of Pensacola hasn't taken that issue up yet uh but it's part of the stewardship agreement uh negotiation the county did however uh engage the hos Center to
do the independent study uh in that study I think it was attached to your uh in your packet um it is it's a two-page report that shows the the summary of expenses for the economic impact model uh which was the construction of the project and the direct indirect and induced um findings uh the short-term jobs it created 24 uh and had a total economic output of 3.3 million for the 2.3
million investment um and uh it stated that the um the economic impact from this project uh was all shortterm one year due to the construction uh there was no uh there was no finding in their study that supported uh that this project uh as proposed was supporting tourism uh and so um
obviously if the city council hasn't done hasn't met and discussed the the public ownership piece then uh the motion is still pending on that but uh there is as as we have discussed before at least certainly as I I discussed construction of this project isn't supporting tourism uh it's supporting the construction industry promotion of this item once it's constructed could support tourism uh again I believe this is a great project a worthy cause a worthy man to be
honored uh and I have personally um donated in support of this project but uh I don't believe it's an authorized use of the tourist development tax um the uh there so to thread the needle um in considering to try to fund this project when the county decided it was a museum instead of a plaza a Memorial Plaza as they've contended uh since the very beginning of this project um
they threaded the needle to be able to try to make it eligible uh however it is not a museum uh it's not a museum by definition uh in any definition uh or program there is no program it is a statue uh and if we were to consider that statue a museum then why would we not consider every other statue in our community or across the country a museum and there's a difference between a statue and a museum uh and so I have um I am proposing uh the letter
that I attached and I hopefully you guys have all had time to review um we under the statute we are obligated if we believe there is an unauthorized expenditure of tourist development tax we're obligated to report that to the County Commission and to the Department of Revenue um in the past we have done that uh there were some Marine Resources expenditures and some other uh misscellaneous expenditures using tourist development taxs we reported that um and then
following that the Florida auditor general did the audit on our program and those were some part of their findings uh in their report where some of these the expenses that we put on that in that letter were um had no uh I'm sorry I'm failing for the words right now uh how it was described but essentially there was they were not determined by the board of County Commissioners to be in support of Tourism development vment so uh therefore they were not authorized uh and so
anyway um we've done this before I I am strongly suggesting we send this letter again uh at our last meeting we voted um the majority voted not to fund this project uh we had that open discussion about whether it's eligible for funding or not uh and so this seems to be the next step since the County Commission has approved it um I feel like we have the obligation under the statute to issue that letter to the County Commission and the Department of Revenue so that I will do Clark
to approve the expenditure so well and and that's kind of my take on it I feel like this might be a little premature because our motion was based on the fact that we have proof that it does contribute to tourism that is not what the study came back as so it would be my take and I talked to Allison the county attorney and she agreed that it would have to come back in front of the board and we would have to vote on it again so I would ask that you guys provide the board of County
Commissioners with a copy of this letter in a 60-day remedy and then move forward and reconsider your next meeting that way we can at least Rectify it based on the information that the hoser gave us I I think it still gets to the point of uh the only way to fund uh the only way that the county has has decided to try to move forward with funding this regardless of what the economic impact study comes back and says is to call it a museum and it's not a museum and so if
you don't believe it's a museum then how do we use tourist development tax to construct a plaza when a plaza or a memorial is not a an enumerated authorized use what what does the clerk think it is the clerk said at the count commission meeting that she believed it's an open a museum that she's believed that since she first saw it and um therefore it would be eligible and she would it's a museum yeah and you think it's not a museum I I think there's
definitions of what a museum is and they this project does not meet that criteria there was another in 1998 there was in Orange County in Orlando uh they requested a an attorney General opinion on using tourist development tax to fund another all wars Memorial I I don't know why you go into this much trouble in this case but I found out that the general drank Miller
beer Miller beer okay anyway there and I get where you're coming from I feel like it's if we can't prove that it goes to touris M it's a mood point and I think that's probably an easier thing to justify and for the board to grasp because either it is or it isn't and if it's not absolutely we should not be spending money on it so I think it might be easier to persuade the board that the knights are not there for it to be tourism taxes versus persuading them it's
not a museum if that makes sense because that's that is almost a well my definition of a museum is this my definition is that and then we have the letter from the attorney general saying well maybe it could be if these criteria are met and one of those criteria was the heads and beds so if we can't meet that one I feel like we couldn't move forward anyway so the Attorney General's letter uh which is not an opinion about this specific project was saying talking about the use of tourist development tax for this for this project not for construction but for the promotion
of it so if an economic impact study comes back and says yes this this this uh Memorial can support tourism that doesn't mean it can still be constructed using tourist development tax it means it could be tourist development tax may be used to promote the constructed facility but doesn't mean it can be used to construct and so I think that it's really important that we uh we address the issue that this is not a museum and therefore it's not eligible for tourist development tax to
pay for the construction of it because I believe once it's constructed it will draw tourist if it's promoted as tourism for tourism development councilman thank you Mr chairman and you know I watched the the county commission's deliberations and it was more of a we don't really care what the TTC thinks we're going to go this way with some conditions um the condition that related to the city's ownership would have to come probably from the mayor first it's not going to come from the council the mayor would have to propose that to us and I know it's not related because it's a
totally different entity but the chappie James Museum had 545 visitors last year generated 175 people who stayed in rooms at a maximum about 350 room nights and if that location which is a great museum is not generating a huge amount of Tourism Revenue I don't know that a statue is going to do that so um and as has been said and and we probably beat this horse too many times um I completely support the chappie James uh Plaza um but this is not the correct source of funding
and I think that this letter um is what we should do as a a council because even if the board hasn't finalized they voted to do it with conditions and I feel like we need to go forward with this and report it to not only the the County Commission but also department for Revenue thank you thank you councilwoman yes thank you um and I'll tell you I also searched the the definitions in the state for Museum and for History Museum you have to have multiple artifacts curated and programming
I mean it is within the statutes and I agree that this does not I have concerns um about Our obligation I mean if we just say no not now we'll do it later have we then bypassed an obligation statutory obligation that we acknowledge that we think this is misuse of funds by definition so I think that we almost have to whether we like it or not for exactly that reason um that would be
one and I do as I said before I think I think that there's a lot of um carts for the horse on this I mean there is a lot there are a lot of unknowns I mean I hate that I'm even going to say this but I'm going to say it because I want it to be heard heard is we're talking about a 30 foot chappie James next to a regularized airplane I mean it is a interesting image that would need a lot of upkeep in a very interesting area right there so I'm not saying I'm I I still believe in
this Plaza but I I believe in a um respectful representation of General James and and I think that you know three years I'm just saying this from this County the city Side three years worth of guaranteed maintenance on this I don't think we understand the maintenance on a 30 foot statue on the water right there and so I think that we have to be very careful going forward and make sure that this is really appropriate so two things there three maybe and I would also say we try to
make the best decision we can with information provided um and it is difficult when you're up here and you have Google and you have everyone's opinion that's on the board and given that I think that when we provided that vote of going with making sure that it had a positive impact on tourism we made the best decision possible that is now coming back to us and knowing that that's going to be back on the agenda gives the TDC the opportunity to again put more information in front of us that we didn't have last time because this is a significant amount more information than was
presented to the board that evening so I would like the other County Commissioners to to see this and be able to discuss that before it is provided and a audit is requested because that does cost the county a significant amount of money and I don't want well why do the board of Tourism costing the county money for an audit when they could have just waited for the next board meeting so I think it would be more physically responsible to give us the information here and then let us decide from there I don't think anybody's calling for an audit number one number two the last audit
the state paid for so the county didn't didn't pay anything for it um it it was just as a result of the letter we didn't get any response from the Department of Revenue or from scambia County as a result of the letter that we sent and so uh that's when we were trying to figure out exactly what's going on and whether these are authorized expenditures uh and make sure that operationally uh tourism was running correctly in the county and so we requested the audit from the Florida auditor general through jayac uh and they provided that and their findings you know one of their findings
was that we sent a letter to the County Commission uh addressing some unauthorized expenditures and they didn't respond and so their that was one of their findings and their recommendation was to respond to the letter for the next time so we're we're not talking about doing another audit because I don't an audit of just this event I me it is the fear the county attorney's fear that this letter will trigger an audit I I don't I think it's unfounded okay can we ask you to join are you talking about Allison or Kristen Kristen's back
there yeah do do you feel like or is it your professional opinion this would trigger an audit honestly no one could predict that potentially I'm sorry I can't hear you Kristen no one can no one can predict that with any certainty potentially but I really couldn't give you an opinion okay thank you I mean just from a a sort of an operational standpoint of
this this this is a letter we're sending to the Department of Revenue which is under I believe that is under the Florida CFO Department uh and to the County Commission the auditor general works for the legislature through under the um joint legislative auditing committee and so these are just jointed items I don't I don't know why that would we've the last time we sent a letter it did not generate an audit we we requested an audit and that's and with uh jointly with our local de
you know legislative delegation and that's what generated the audit I got a I got got a question my question is for the commissioner are you saying to send this back to the board of County Commissioners with this extra information and then if nothing's overturned then to take the steps at David's that would be my request that you allow us to make a much better decision based on the information provided here which we did not have last time okay any other comments I'll just say I think it makes sense if if it if if the commissioner
saying to take this back to the commission and if the commission can look at this and if the county commissioner thinks this is going to change the what they've ruled before then I think it makes sense to go back to the county commissioner now if they if they don't change it then I think we go back to what David is suggesting um just to me I think it makes sense to keep it here yeah I the only thing that I can think of that was not presented uh was the definition of a museum because at our last meeting we discussed that this is not an authorized use of the tourist development tax and when I spoke that at that meeting I spoke about it not
an authorized use one of the members of the foundation uh actually got up and spoke and said that he he didn't care whether or not this supported tourism he just wanted it to be done to take care of our own our military or our local uh and so I think everything that's in this letter other than now you have like the cited you know ordinances and and statutes I think we've discussed all of it well it is it is the definition of the museum because we that that was
yes you can vote for it because it justifies a museum and now we have a different opinion very well documented opinion that no maybe you can't so it is based on the fact that with this information I don't believe and obviously I'm only one of five but I don't believe that the other four would think that it would qualify as a museum based on this information which is something we didn't have at that meeting okay yes sir councilman Mr chairman I'd like to make a motion that uh the TDC authorize you to sign this letter and mail it to the County Commission and to
the Department of Revenue right we have a motion is is there a second wait will you say it into the the microphone please thank you we have a motion will you restate the motion please sir I move that um the TDC authorized the chairman to sign the letter as presented and mail it to the Florida Department of Revenue and the County Commission so so we have a motion from councilman beay a second from councilman barer is there any further discussion or debate yeah I have a question
um rather just a confirmation I guess so the the allocation has not yet been funded is that correct and that's correct the what is the projected timeline to determine ownership from the City of Pensacola Council I'd have to days at least literally could it be quicker in 30 days I I have no idea so um you know my recommendation would be to as uh Madame
commissioner pointed out to give the County Commission an opportunity to reconcile uh the allocation with the statute uh they may in a second consideration find that um it doesn't align with the statute before we bring uh State uh Department into the uh conversation can I speak to this one before a substance yes please councilman I just want to know our statutory obligation I mean if we're are we bypassing Something That We're obligated
to do that's my concern here is once once we made a decision based on the statute and then that is over written do we not then have an obligation even if we don't like it when we byass this obligation are we all at risk because I think we all are obligated to to defer to that in the statute is that something we should ask Kristen yeah sure Kristen can can I clarify theas
a question question are we and I I understand the statute very clearly and we do have an obligation to report to the County Commission in the Department of Revenue do we have an obligation before or after it's funded that's not specified but the TDC can request that expenditures be examined does it become an expenditure before the Lum is funded well in my using the dictionary definition I would consider an expenditure
to be to mean after the funds have been spent but again that's not really articulated in the statute thank you but they have been committed by the county in the vote the motion that Carri uh given the contingencies um you may be the one to ask that question too I don't know where the money is sitting at the moment so at the moment um we really clearly need to determine what what is the appropriate category
for the expenditure so we're we're still really having that conversation so until it is spent there is no expenditure therefore there is nothing to be audited because there's no expenditure so really we're still essentially in a more or less in a decision-making process so part of my reason for stepping up is we do have our TDC policies and procedures and if you'll permit me I will read out of our policy if that will be helpful to count maybe that helps move this one direction or another um en title or section six BCC review of tdt expenditures administrative
action if a tdt expenditure is reported by the TDC as potentially unauthorized the BCC shall review the tdcs findings and provide the required documentation of the bcc's determination as to the allowability of such tdt expenditures reflecting that the expenditure is for an authorized use and directly and primarily promotes tourism if not previously reviewed by the TDC potentially unauthorized expenditures will be referred to the TDC prior to the review uh by the board of County
Commissioners in the event of an administrative oversight regarding the tdt expenditure the BCC will administratively take all necessary steps to comply with Section 125.0 104 Florida Statutes in including a determination with appropriate legislative findings that the primary purpose of the tdt expenditure is to carry out specify provisions of state law and the promotion of Tourism so that is in our policy so so two correct um but ultimately two to commissioner hoffberger
um request to the TDC um that would be in line with this in my opinion you know I'm I'm just a finance director so it doesn't matter so but um that would be my input from our policy so is that Mr chairman does that mean that we are acting prematurely then if it has not been expended because it sounds like it has to be expenditure I I don't know I think we can
because the County Commission has has voted in favor of funding this for construction which uh I believe uh is an unauthorized expenditure we can let them spend it and then try to figure out how we're going to claw that money back uh the unauthorized expenditure um issue the letter and then figure out if they can actually claw it back uh or we could try to preemptively uh say hey County we don't believe that the action you took was an authorized uh
to to commit These funds to this project for this purpose the construction of this project is an authorized use and we'd like you to not do that but the the Department of Revenue wouldn't have no interest in until the money was spent is that correct I don't know if the Department of Revenue has any interest in it they didn't respond last time okay and it might be I don't know why in the statute uh we're obligated to report to the Department of Revenue other than the Department of Revenue in the statute to talk about the the taxes are remitted to the Department of uh
Revenue but the County May uh decide to collect locally and administrate the program locally uh and in that case which you designate who which the county has designated the clerk's office to be the recipient you know to administrate the program uh but that might be part of the old piece is still reporting to the Department of Revenue because they otherwise collect the tourist development tax and remit it back to the county they just don't in our case because we've elected to collect it
locally so with that being said can we make a substitute I'd like to make a substitute motion that we send this letter to the board of County Commissioners that the County Commissioners make every effort to get it on the next board agenda and that we revisit this at our next meeting especially knowing that it's not going to be fun before then because the city is not going to take ownership prior to that so are is your your proposed motion substitute motion is to send
it unsigned to the County Commission County Commission unsigned not not executed but just to say hey here's all the stuff that we've been telling you with the definition everything that you provided in here which is great information I appreciate it again better than Google and that's all we had in the moment right um so that we would provide the board of County Commissioners this information and ask them to reconsider espe and to also consider the hos study at the same time
would you ENT so would you entertain a substitute motion councilman bear uh that's that's a hostile motion so no that's not what I proposed I mean I mean but you can with the vote you can you do a substitute motion if you get a vote I mean to take over my motion say that again I couldn't hear you you can do a substitute motion it's not a friendly Amendment but I mean if you get a vote of enough people you can have that Tak place in my motion okay so a motion on take a vote on taking I I'm
not a no no no parliamentarian you have to vote on The Substitute motion okay all right so we have a motion in a second uh is there any discussion on the substitute motion I I just want to say that I agree with this motion simply because I think we ought to give them one last shot before we call a special meeting and involve the state in any manner I don't care you know
if we've got a local problem let's deal with it locally if we can if we can't then report them that's my feeling okay yes t uh and I would I would think to maybe execute it I know you said to send it unsigned I don't I think if we're going to send it to the back to board of County Commissioners that you would sign it as the chair I I would agree with that I would amend my motion absolutely sign it let them know your sius 100% just send it to the board not to the
state so the substitute motion is to send it to the board but not send it to the state and let them Recon consider correct yes sir and that second still stands Mr Reeves your second still stands any further discussion all right then we will call for the vote Danielle will you please call the rooll James Reeves yes Ashley hoffberger yes David Bayer yes matish Patel yes Charles Bayer
yes Jennifer Bayer yes Mullen X yes and Jason Nicholson yes motion passes thank you very much uh that concludes our business items any closing remarks Mr Reeves um I just would like a parliamentary inquiry um can any member of this board call a special meeting um
I believe the chairman can I would I I don't know we'll have to ask the County Attorney Kristen you're you're being summoned once more you don't have to come up yeah it's okay I'm just I me the question was can any member of this board call a special or this Council call a special meeting I would have to go back and look at the ordinance but it's my memory that the chair can call call a special meeting but I would have to check the ordinance okay well when the
chair calls a special meeting does he have the obligation to tell what the special meeting's about uh yes I think when you hold it your your first notice just said tell the secretary whether or not you can be there and it didn't have any uh and I would just think whether it's a special meeting for this purpose or for whatever purpose
just a matter of courtesy you know you ought to give the members two or three dates and I mean it's kind of we're going to have this meeting and we don't care whether you're there or not as long as enough people can form a quorum I I just think it's at least courtesy to some of us have other jobs well uh thank you and I'll take that under consideration I do know that we scheduled it for
uh a different date and because there was a request to change it because of conflicts we changed it so if there is a conflict please please let staff know if you can't meeting if I have a conflict I could call you don't call me [Laughter] call commissioner that's all thank you commissioner I just want to say I want to sit in the seat every time because it's so much more fun than sitting in that seat uh but no and and all serious thank you to the entire board thank you for giving the board of
County Commissioners an opportunity to rectify it and with the end goal of making sure that we're spending the money correctly so I really do appreciate all of you thank you Tish just want to say thank you thank you David for staying on top of it making sure that the use of tdt funds are are spent how they're supposed to be spent and you know according to statute and you know just a little term of calling it a museum doesn't you know especially if it doesn't allow it that thank you for being on top of that thank you councilman bear thank you Mr chairman um and just to reach
out to Mr Reeves there I think it was the county the city council members that had a conflict you know we do meet to we have 3:30 meetings uh twice a month during most months in summer we don't but the first date that was proposed was same date and I don't know how we would have gotten out of there in 30 minutes with the issues we had to discuss so I do appreciate the rescheduling and um you know is interesting and Council it's pretty much and city council is pretty much the same way the president can call meeting I think a group of us could get together but we can't talk so there's no way we could really do that anyway but the the and sometimes we don't even know what the issue
is going to be until later but they give us dates and okay we'll try and be there but um I'm just hopeful that you know the resolution is that the County Commission um can see the error that made in using TDC funds for this particular project for chappie James and um you know I would be fine either way I'm fine with the letter going back to County Commission but I I hope that they will you know look at it and realize that the decision to use TDC funds was not the proper proper use and um
hopefully it doesn't have to come back here for us to do the letter of the Department of Revenue even though they probably won't respond to us but um you know so I hope that happens thank you great thank you councilman Breer thanks I do appreciate everyone's active involvement and um I was confused over some of the complaints earlier I for the life of me Mr Reeves never heard what you said last time that was so offensive so just saying but I do appreciate um I appreciate everyone's active involvement on this board thank you you can't hear him because he won't turn his microphone on
I'll come all the way down there I look everybody will be to my keep leaning like this so I can see y'all and completely blocking them from everything so sorry we need a round table sometimes it does come up combination of lip reading and trying to pick up things but uh want to thank everybody for their work and Mr chairman for your attention to detail and uh everybody body's uh attention to going through the what's reported and going through the data and making sure everything matches up it's good thank you Jason thank you Mr chairman I I wouldn't be uh doing my job as
a member of the tourism industry if I didn't say that uh you know those individuals in Escambia County who work in the tourism industry love tourism and uh and the tourism industry is actually the largest collector of sales tax in the county the despite what the the public speaker said today it's also accommodations providers are the largest collectors of or remitters of ADV valorum tax so the tourism industry is in fact the number one profit producing industry in Escambia County For Better or Worse that's where we are um I'd conclude by saying I I I
wish Navy days uh great weather this has got to be a home run this year and uh I for one want to see the chapie James Memorial standing 30 ft tall at the base of the bridge uh next to an F4 fan that's going to be pretty impressive thank you very much thank you and I just want to thank the council members uh also for being here today um we are missing I was about to say it's not often that we have all of our members today is another one of those days we don't have one of our members uh but thank you um thank you for the Lively discussion um thank you for everyone that's been here and
good luck to Navy days as well thank you that call the meeting a journ so I don't think it was a