Are you here to call? He just said that. Oh, he did. Hey, keeps me awake. keeps me awake. Cracked me up.
like this. Yes. on stage. That's for sure.
Good afternoon everybody. Uh welcome to the Escambia County Tourist Development Council meeting. Today is October 21st. It is roughly 3:00, maybe a couple minutes after. Uh and first um Philip, was the meeting properly advertised? Mr. Mr. Chairman, this meeting was advertised in the Pensacola News Journal on October the 16th. Great. And would you please call the role? Matish Patel. James Reeves. He's here someplace. He's here somewhere. He's here somewhere. He's got
a stack of stuff up there. Ashley Hoffberger. Shirley Cronley here. David Bear here. Brad Mullenex here. Charles Bayer here. Jennifer Breer here. Jason Nicholson here. Of quorum. Great. Thank you so much. We do have a quorum. So, we will officially call the meeting to order. Uh at this time, we will take uh do public forum. Is there anyone from the general public uh here today that would wish to speak to anything tourism related? Seeing no one rush to the podium,
uh we'll move on. Uh next first item of business on the agenda is review and approval of prior TDC meeting minutes. Uh we have distributed uh to each of us the August 19th, 2025 meeting minutes and the September 9th, 2025 special meeting minutes. Uh are there any additions or changes that uh we need to make? I move the approval of the minutes. We have a motion to approve and we have a second. Is there any other debate or discussion? Uh, please show those adopted.
All right. Next item is the status of funds available. Uh, Jeremy, come on down. Welcome. Good afternoon, council members. My name is Jeremy Paglegan. I am a senior budget analyst with the Escami County Budget Office and I'm uh here today to present the status of the TDT funds through September 2025. As always, I believe the clerk's office has already provided you with a detailed breakdown of the expenditures. Um before I begin, um please note that these figures reflect
the most up-to-date information available as of period 13, um which is is still open and final adjustments have not been completed yet. So with that being said, uh as of the end of September 2025, FY25 collections including interest total 23,444,131. [Music] This compares to 23,579,551 in collections through September 2024. This reflects a decrease of approximately $135,420
year-over-year. Excluding interest FY25 collections are 22 22,114,042 compared with $22,14,490 through September 2024 reflecting an increase of $99,552 or 0.45%. Interest earnings are1,330,89 through September 2025, compared with 1,565,61
in 2024, indicating a decrease of $234,972 or 15%. To give you a clearer picture, the total collections for FY25 through September represent 114.36% of the annual TDT revenue budget, which is set at $20.5 million. On the expense side, total expenditure total expenditures through September 2025 amount to approximately $18.6
million and $7.2 million encumbered. Finally, the current TDT cash balance stands at $34.18 million through September 2025. Thank you. Thank you, Jeremy. Any questions or comments? I would just like to uh make note of although it was marginally better, it was once again another record year of collections uh for Skimi County. So, great work that everybody here is doing. So, thank you.
All right. Uh, next item on the agenda is on the agenda is visit Pensacola marketing update. I spoke after I published the agenda. Uh, Darren asked if he could wait until uh, December to present. He's working on closing out his, uh, last year and doing a annual report. So, uh, unless anybody has any questions for him that he doesn't he's not prepared to answer today, uh, we'll move on to the Bay Center improvement updates. Michael Caps, welcome.
Thank you, council, for the opportunity to come in and give you an update on the Bay Center. Uh we just had opening night for hockey uh and launched uh a little bit of stress relief uh for all of our staff, working diligently over the past 3 months uh to replace the entire arena floor. That was 22,000 square feet of concrete 8 inches down uh with pipes and the ice plant. Uh cutting a hole in the building, taking the old one out, putting the new one in. Uh we're still closing that out with the new ammonia plant, working with the fire department, county facilities to make sure uh it's
hazmat safe. We've met with the fire department for the county because they are the hazmat team that responds uh but also the city that's right next door to us. Uh so we're working with that on the safety measures. Our uh ice programs have kicked off. Uh the figure skaters have had uh a good uh uh return. They've had a lot of new skaters. Uh it's a good problem that they've had to have because they have different levels of quality of skaters, meaning they have um more advanced uh more developed skaters. So, it's hard to put that type of skater out on the
ice with a smaller skater that's, you know, a more of a novice just learning how to get on and and stand up. Um but our youth program is going strong. Our adults are going strong as well. We started opening night with uh almost 5,000 in the building. Uh competing with the fair. Uh that's been one of the best nights in in my tenure that I've been in the building. Uh there's a lot of excitement with the brand new light show. Uh we had a couple quirks. We did have uh the lights go dark. Uh while we were playing at one point, um we did have the the lighting expert that installed it
on site, so it was only a split second. Um, but the part of the full commissioning of the light and the sound system is that they are going to be here through three complete events. So, uh, we've got plenty of time to work that out and and really refine it and develop it. Part of the lighting system is that we get to program it. So, if you got to see any of the video clips that have been out with with the flyers, uh we're going to launch a whole campaign with uh the Bay Center team on social media to show you everything we've done from the locker rooms to uh the bunker club suite that we're trying to to redevelop our our new offerings for the VIP room
for room A during hockey games, the lighting, the sound, the NHL quality uh rink system. Uh it is actually the same kind of rink that goes into NHL buildings. Um the ice floor has been running a lot colder. It's been some of the best ice uh that we've had reported from uh from the players and even Greg Harris. We did actually get the chance to get him to be the first on the ice. Uh and he came off and he said it was outstanding. Uh it did happen to be on his 45th birthday as well. So it was a good good little uh token of appreciation for the effort that he's done for bringing hockey
back into its heyday. U because I know we have had some downturn with hockey in the past. Um it has rebound and done well. We've got $5 weekend coming up this weekend uh on Saturday night. So it's all all seats are $5. Then we roll into um the Day of the Dead uh on November 1st. They're kind of doing a Mexican themed Hispanic Day of the Dead uh jersey. Uh then we have small dog racing uh and uh another night now on the Blue Angel weekend if they do fly on that weekend. Um it
was origally scheduled not to be on Blue Angel weekend, but you know how that goes. Uh and then the Wednesday night before uh Thanksgiving, we'll have another $5 night. Again, trying to get more people out uh in the beginning of the season where it's usually hockey people show up towards the end of the season when you get your roster back and and get into playoff mode. Uh concert wise, we've got a lot of Christian shows that are out there right now. Uh we just had Crowder that played off. White Tai played off with us and did did okay. Um they got I think they got impacted by some of their their shows being compacted together close on each other, but their Christmas show will
come back in uh December. Uh we've got Skillet and Jeremy Camp in November. And then we have uh the Pensacola Invitational Basketball Tournament that we are producing from the Bay Center and ASM Global. Now it's Legends Global. Uh it's hard for me to say that. We keep changing names, but we are Legends Global. And uh we're working with a company that is actually producing the um Texas A&M and um Florida State game in Tampa. Uh they go around and do a lot of these types of tournaments, but it'll be uh Southern Miss. We're trying to make sure we keep a Sunb Belt school as part of
this non-conference tournament. Um University of Tennessee Martin, University of North Florida, and University of Prairie View&M. Those will be the four teams. It's a round robin tournament. Uh two games uh on each day, Saturday and Sunday. November 21st and 22nd. That is to be an annual event. Um, and we just recently had conversations with the Sunb Belt uh about bringing in additional teams uh either front end the book end or back uh where we've had App State's been interested, Troy's been interested, South's been interested bringing in other teams like New Mexico State,
Miami of Ohio, Virginia Tech, and those types of teams to get in and get more basketball season in the the shoulder season in November. that helps us launch into, you know, promoting Sunb Belt and making that grow and and become even better. Uh I know Ray's in the audience and I'll let him speak more on on the Sunb Belt side of things as well, but uh we just had a call today. Uh we're getting ready to launch the the ticket book sales for that uh for the court side. Uh the campaigns are running strong and and ready to continue that relationship. This will be year one of that new
five-year agreement. Um, aside from that with the the renovations and updates on the the base center, uh, we have put in some new fencing. We're getting ready to redo the the back side of it. Uh, where the ninth it goes, excuse me, the 9inth Avenue lot. Um, we have, um, updated, like I mentioned, the lighting and the sound. Uh, we did hit pause on the parking lots, um, because of the considerations of what we're doing with the renovations that are coming forward. U depending on how that goes, we may still need to do some work there just from a life safety standpoint.
Um, but it's always better to pause and not spend than spend and have to redo it. Um, so we're doing that same thing with our bathroom floors, uh, our concourses, uh, some of the merch stands, some of those things were in the 10 million plan. Those are in the bigger renovation plan as well. So instead of spending it now, redoing it and just we'll just do it once instead of twice. Um we have uh received the first draft of the CSL report which is consumer sports and leisure that uh Legends Global uh commissioned on behalf of the county to determine um the the concept of
the new event center for a convention center sports center flex space. Um that report has come back. It's about 174 pages. We're kind of diving through it uh making sure that we dot our eyes and cross our tees before we bring it before uh you guys and the public. Um in addition to that uh populace the architect that did the previous work and cost estimates they have been working with what that study produced to give you some conceptual designs and some potential costs of what that would look like going forward. And we've approached it from a master plan standpoint of
not just okay, we put a event center in the back parking lot and that's it. You know, it did return uh about a 55,000 square foot uh convention center uh but it's a total of 93,000 ft total and the footprint. Uh it did also return that there was some demand for a practice rink uh with a seating of about 1,000 to500 um that would house a training facility, a restaurant, uh a recreational facility. So it can do actual recreational ice. It's not just a practice rink. Um but again,
not the bells and whistles that you'd see in a larger market uh in the north that can, you know, generate that type of demand. Um, in addition, we did include a hotel on the property. Uh, because some of the um the the information that came back to support the event center means that to truly support it, you need a continuous environment from hotel to convention center. And that hotel needs to be at least a 200key full service hotel. if you're going to attract these types of conventions that I think Visit can come in and and bring in and they've shown that they've gotten a demand for
um in addition to the the sports teams that come in. We don't want hockey players staying in a hotel walking outside in their gear trying to come to the rink and go between two sheets between the the base center and the the practice rink as as that comes to fruition. So that is all in the plans. Uh it's again conceptually um to show you what can happen. Um and then it's it's been driven to provide you options to take a look at and um the data and the facts of of what the market says
uh with all these interviews and studies that we've done with all the convention groups, the uh concert groups, the sports groups and so forth. So, uh, anticipate, uh, to get some additional cost estimates this week and meet with our team, Legends Global, next week, uh, to be able then to refine that final report and take the draft name off of it and be able to turn that in and then go from there on taking guidance and direction on how to present that. And with that, I'm here for any questions. Great. Thank you, Michael. Any uh any questions from anyone?
Sounds exciting. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate the update. All right. Um, next item is discussion of setting a threshold for funding. Uh, Commissioner, you have the floor. Yes. Thank you. Um, so as we went through earlier this year and we were looking at the proposed programs and the different events that everybody wanted funding for, so many of them were so good and there's not really a threshold on ROI. So I feel
like we're putting it out there and we don't really give them what we expect. So I didn't know if there was an appetite for the board and I think you were the one that mentioned we have to refill the coffers. So we need to make sure that they're bringing money in. So, do we want to look at setting a threshold on what we expect for an ROI on projects or events? Questions, comments? You're just lobbing it out there. I'm just throwing it out there. I think that there's real merit to giving a clearer view to the public
and I think that we heard it this year a lot with us not being as clear. And so we're asking for transparency on that. So maybe we should be offering it on this. So um I appreciate you bringing this idea forward personally. And I think it would also help. I think it would also help the people that are asking for dollars to better understand what we're looking for so that they're not coming up and wanting dollars that they don't qualify for.
I think it's a great idea. I think it's worth uh putting it on there and then discussing it and just I think we should have some sort of parameters that we can give to um folks coming so that they know what's expected and um it just gives them more clarity um and I think it's it's better. I think sometimes we upset folks and I don't think we want to we want to see events. We want to drive tourism. Um, but I think if we have a a clear goal of what this board expects
um then I think that's um gives the folks asking for funds a little more clarity. Do we feel like a good um number to look at would be how much we paying per room night to get people here or do you guys have different ideas on that? Uh I I think there there'll probably be different measures of success. You know, oftentimes uh my fellow hotel years and I and RV operators talk about refilling the coffers with tourism development tax that being a leading indicator of the success
of the tourism industry. But we've also, you know, discussed on this board that if there is a significant community impact that refills other revenue coffers, that being sales tax or whatever, then maybe that's success as well. I would also uh want to think that we would bring in um the the the the county commission and the citizens of Escambia County uh to help define what that looks like for the county. You know, obviously we're identified I believe as the experts in the tourism industry to represent Escambia County. But uh we would I don't think we'd be doing our
job if we didn't ask for their opinion. I think that there are we have to first start with the definition of what success looks like to set up metrics against that. That makes sense. How pinpoint this probably is for um finance. How able are we to pinpoint revenue from taxes? I mean I know we can do property tax. I know but sales tax is harder to clarify to a region I believe is
it just comes in for the county it comes in Stephan I'm sorry are you talking about the tourist development tax where it's well just know because we're talking about potentially not he he he added in sales tax there and I've been trying to and that's so much more difficult to Sure so good afternoon council members so typically what we see um with our uh tourism partners, they'll pay for a professional study to be done to do that. That's not something that finance
can figure out. We we don't that's not what what I do or my staff does. But there are certainly um companies or other entities that do those things for us. Um but that's my answer to that. But for instance, I give I'm g I'm gonna give council a couple of examples to where the commissioner was going with her her comments as far as establishing a threshold just just to kind of throw a couple things out. So let's say uh council invests $200,000 um in an event or an
activity or or some tourism related item. So let's say if that generates 5,000 room nights. Okay. So for for each dollar of that um we basically got you know 40 let's say 40 uh folks stayed stayed during that. So for a dollar you got 40. Okay. So let's say if it was a 200,000 again that same $200,000 and let's say economic output was $5 million. So for each dollar spent that was a
$25 return on investment for that dollar. So just kind of presenting it that way. So um if if council wishes to to go this route that um it would basically be something where hey as long as you fit between here and here it should be pretty easy for council to approve that ask. So um showing that from that perspective. So using either or or you could even set it for both. Oh
I like both. If we could extend the math on that just a little bit, $200,000 in TDT collections, accommodations providers have to generate $4 million in accommodation sales to generate $200,000 in tourism development tax. So that same 5,000 room nights, if we were going to measure success, would it replace $200,000 in funding, you know, event funding? Sure. And would the impact of that particular theoretical event be more or less than $4 million? correct to your point to at least
realize a onetoone replacement on the allocation. Correct. But however, if it were to generate $4 million in accommodations revenue and $16 million in um retail sales that that threw off X dollars in sales tax, one could deduce that that could be a good event. I would certainly think so. So that's why I say we, you know, have different measures of success. Where does it what's the impact to the community? Well, correct. Um, and that's that's for council to deliberate. Uh, typically, you know, maybe some events maybe you do get that dollar for dollar,
maybe you get better than the dollar for dollar and other events you may not, right? So, but that is conversely where setting the threshold. This is the minimum that that council would accept for funding one of these type of items. So, um, anything better than that, that's good. So, I think it opens up a big discussion. you know, and it really comes down to financial analysis for me and community of impact. I would agree. So, you mentioned getting input from the community on how
to measure this and I absolutely agree. What do you think the best way to get the community their opinion on that would be? I don't know. We do have public meetings. We do have public forum too as well. Okay. So question, how how do you measure the $ one and a half million dollar impact on the uh that we gave to through visit Pensacola for American Magic to put the logo on their sale that was seen around the world. Uh as a result, we have seen Foiling Week come here
to Pensacola because they recognize what we've done in the bay. A participant in foiling week last year is now coming here to do a program in November outside of the foiling week. uh you know their proposed or hoped to planned um thing. There's a manufacturer who came last year during uh foiling week who is signed anou with Florida West and PEEDC to consider moving their operation here to manufacture foiling uh boats and and other vehicles uh I don't know what
you call them but uh so how do you measure that? I mean that that $1.5 million that was on a sale for advertising because that's what the statute says to promote and advertise uh for tourism development uh doesn't say putting heads and beds anywhere in the stat in the statute. Clearly uh that's an important variable in in the math because we don't have money to invest in these programs if we're not putting heads and beds. But there's no requirement in the statute. There's no requirement in the county's um tourism plan that they they've adopted into ordinance. Uh but but
those are impactful. Uh you know, those things are huge. Uh we I don't know what the fireworks I I don't think we've ever seen a visitor interface survey with a you know, with a return on room nights for any of the the fireworks, but we can't say it doesn't create an economic impact in our community. uh so how do you measure that? Uh so I don't know how we while I agree we need to give the applicants an expectation uh when they're applying and sort of direction on what we're
expecting but tourism development means so much in so many different things. I'm not sure how we make a list. we can say these types of things and the like maybe uh but no requirement for $300 per you know per room night uh or whatever that threshold uh that we're talking about because I I just don't know how you how you can do that especially when the I think what we're trying to do by doing that is is take this broad um statute that allows us the flexibility to invest in different
types of programs to attract a diverse type of audience uh and tourists to come to Escambia County. That might be a startup event that has the potential to grow and maybe the first year, the first three years may not have the type of return that a 10-year event has. Uh but we don't want to cut it out because it doesn't make that first year doesn't make that threshold. Uh when it could be this huge event that grows over time. And so I just I I say all that out of caution of
how however we have this dialogue wherever it goes. We need to I think we need we need to really consider that because uh you know at our last meeting was the special meeting to discuss the the sale of Pensacola and obviously this board voted against it. Um but the international travel uh visit Florida's data and other industry um entities organizations that do data analysis say that the international travel traveler stays longer spends more money than any other type of
travel. And so while they did not put a certain number of heads in beds that would have been, you know, on par with some of the other programs that we've recently funded, they have potential. You know, when they're bringing in Sale Pensacola is bringing in international teams. They do this thing around the world. Uh it's as a result sort of of the the the momentum from the American Magic investment that we made. Those are the types of things I think we need to all evaluate.
Uh but on another note like in the same vein that the the number of dollars per head we put into uh that we are that we put into this formula is based on the self-reporting audience size. So the the the presenter of the event is giving their visitor interface survey company that's doing those that data collection a number. uh and we are putting all of the faith in that presenter
that that number is true. Some people have booked rooms and they have that specific number based on room nights. Uh but others say, "Well, 20% of my visitors or my participants were tourists and I'm going to throw out a number. 100,000 people came to my event." You know, somebody else says, "Well, 60% of my participants were visitors. Uh, but I only had 50, you know, thousand people come. Well, what's the math? So, if 100,000 people didn't come, it was really closer to 50,000 or 40,000,
then that's not a real number. And I don't want to set a threshold based on somebody throwing a number out in the out in the air either. I think that's not fair to everyone else participating. I I absolutely agree with that. And um I think you highlighted a really good point. There's a difference between advertising and then investing in events and I think we have to separate those. Is there not a reporting requirement from a third party for the people we give money to? Stefan and if there's not should there be for year two like maybe not for year one but for year two. Do
we want to require them to have a third party report? There there is not a requirement. Now um we we do get afteraction reports. We do get an annual report, but uh again, not all these are professionally done. Um it's it's it could be based on like uh cards passed out at an event or during a thing. And then they tally all that information up and ultimately that's some of those things are used. Maybe they're they're talking to Visit Pensacola. Hey, how many people were staying in hotels this week, the week that we had uh this event? Certainly,
if it was a new event, they can look back at the prior year. Hey, was it booked? Well, well, we did a great job this year. A lot more were booked versus last year. Um, but not everybody uh spends their their own their capital to to get a professional study done. That is no. Is that how much do Darren, do you know how much the studies run? Like if it's a say it's an event we give $200,000 to and they're expecting to bring in 5,000 people, I would say typically you're going to see somewhere between maybe 3,500 and $10,000. It's it's it it could be anywhere in
there depending. That's a really good number. 3500 5 to 8,000. Just depends on the complexity of the event. Okay. Maybe we need to start giving an extra five or $10,000 to each one and letting them know if you're going to apply for year two, we expect to see this. That way we can get the economic impact as well because that's a really good point. So, but the point I was trying to make is there's the visitor interface survey. So the third party whether it's the WF host center or downs and dermain or whoever whoever does the they're doing a visitor interface and they're
coming up with formulas and then from the event promoter whoever put on the event whether it's Fufufest or it's Marty Gro or it's Sale Pensacola they have an audience size that they give that entity that third party and say apply this number to your formulas to calculate the economic impact. So if I say a 100,000 people came to my event and there's in the visitor interface data comes back and says well there were 20 20% of those interviewed were from out of town 80% were
locals and of those those that 20% they spent x number of dollars on accommodations x number of dollars on fuel meals and entertainment whatever those other variables are in their calculation. They just apply that $100,000 100,000 people to that uh to their formulas and it spits out room nights. It spits out dollars spent on uh on the uh accommodations and meals and entertainment
etc. and and then an overall economic impact. So if it's not a ticketed event, we have no way of actually tracking that. Correct. So it's if bad data comes in, you get bad data out. That makes sense. And there's a lot of the events that are outdoor events that are not ticketed events. And some of them even like Fufu Fest has a whole number of events. Some are ticketed, some are not. Uh Marty Gro there, nobody's it's not a ticketed parade. We don't know how many people are in the in the parade participating. How many come to the parade as observers? You know,
uh we don't know how many people went to Sale Pensacola. Um we don't know. I I think um Cadillac has tickets so he's his event's fenced off so we know exactly how many people came to that event but uh otherwise it is bad data in bad data out that makes and I don't know how we I don't know how we can get good data uh without just trust right that's really good information
okay I took a half a page of notes um and And I just wanted this on everyone's radar. So if you guys get home and have a glass of wine and have a really good idea, maybe we can or beer. Maybe we can I saw wine, too. Brainstorm that again coming up. So thank you. Very good input. I appreciate it. Thank you. Sure. Is there any other action or conversation you want to have about Okay. I can't talk to you guys outside of this. I know. I don't know. Well, while we're talking about it, I didn't know if anybody Charles Oh, please. Thank you, Mr. chairman. Um, and I'm with Jason on this. You
know, all we do is recommend. We don't appropriate any funding in here and the county commission has clearly shown that it doesn't always agree with us. And so, I think this needs to start with the county commission, you know, and they need to be the ones to ask the public what they think. Um, it's not really our job. Um, you know, Ashley, I think it's a good idea. I think it's very, very difficult to do. Um, but ultimately I would like to know what the county commission really wants us to do because we look at the records. We look at the lack of financial records that are
here and we make decisions based on what we think is the right thing to do, what might be legal, illegal, uh, and the county commission goes its own way. So, I think any threshold, we need to get some input from the county commission on what they're really looking to fund. Thank you. So, it is our duty to make recommendations to the county commission for tourism development and whether that is policy or procedures or just funding recommendations. I think that is our responsibility. Um, certainly we want their input. Um, and I'm happy to appoint a committee.
uh Commissioner Hoffberger, if you'd like to to chair that committee uh and put other members of this council and maybe some members from the industry uh on there as well. So, we will committee outside of this group uh maybe made up of some of this group, but other folks like maybe well I guess I can't put another commissioner on there but um maybe some visit Pensacola, Pensacola Sports or ACE or you know some of the other entities
that receive funding uh on that committee to have this discussion. I would love that and then to present that back to this group. I would be happy to have that up. Okay. Um, we can if you'd like or I can just appoint as the chair. Okay. Okay. So, let Yeah, let me uh if you'll chair it and then I'll appoint the members. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Any other comments or sort of if we're talking about $4 million for for 200,000 it that
would replenish and we're saying it's broader than just the bed. That could be a good threshold to start with that for each dollar we spent that should be a multiplier of 20. So for a dollar spent there should be $20 spent in the community one way or the other. And that would go to the four million in an in an easier way. And that would at least start giving people an idea of what they're looking. And I do think just for I think that there should be an intention to eventually wean people off. I think that in our rules is not a bad idea that if these these entities,
you know, they're beginning to make money off things and they're doing it for that in a lot of ways. And so I do think that there should potentially be a wean down or an escalation in that 20 times per dollar to something higher if they want to continue to to get money. Just a thought going forward. That's a great topic for the committee. Y thank you. Yeah. Any other comments? When you appoint if you could put a bed tax collector on. Absolutely. I will. Thank you.
All right. Uh, thank you. Uh, thanks, Commissioner, for bringing that to our attention. All right. Uh, next item is other business. Uh, I put on the agenda Pensacola sports. Um, and I'd like Ray Palmer to please come on up here. Oh, you're pretty close. Ray has some stuff he'd like to talk about related to Pensacola sports, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to publicly thank him for all the work that he's done at Pensacola Sports. He's announced his retirement, I believe, at the end of this calendar year. No, no. Okay, y'all got me. You're not done with me. I'm
not done with y'all. Good. Good. No. September, my my current contract ends September 30. And what basically we've done is just um determine that uh it's time for me to step aside and let's bring some new young blood in here. And so we will begin a search um probably first of the year and however long that takes. I mean I owe everything to them. And so however long they need me in whatever capacity they need me through September 30th, that would be my end of my full-time commitment
to them. Okay. Well, I just want to thank you for all the work that you've done to grow the sports tourism in our community. Uh you had huge shoes to follow. Yes, I did. Uh but in all seriousness, uh you've done a great job. I know when I was on the other side of this deis, uh working for ACE, uh I enjoyed working with you. It was you were very collaborative to help grow the tourism community. Uh, and I want to thank you uh, on behalf of my role at ACE uh, my previous role
at ACE and and as the chairman of TDC, thank you for the work you continue to do for our community. Been my pleasure. And now you have a few I don't know if anybody else has anything nice or rude to say to him, but I'm opening it up for both. Easy now. Easy now. Yeah. Um, okay then. Good. Let's get to business. Um uh first commissioner I would I would offer a couple of thoughts on your going there's a there are 86 counties or 68 counties or whatever there are and there are a lot of TDC's
they're all facing what you face and early on in my career I was told copy the best and make up the rest and I there is plenty of information out there on how other TDC's are doing that reporting. Uh I know in our our my uh Pensacola sports condition or case Tish knows extremely well uh because he sits on our grant committee is um you know we have a scoring matrix that uh that we pay about $4,000 a year and we can run all the economic impact reports that you want and
they talk about they're specific to sports whether it's youth or adult or you know girls or boys or or all amateur professional all those factors are in there. It talks about bed tax. It talks about sales tax. It talks about gas tax. All locally designed for Escambia County, Florida. We pay for that every year. And we can run as many reports as we want out of that. We also in our grant program is we have a matrix that if you ask and you say you're going to bring 5,000 room nights and you get awarded a a an a grant award for us, but you also have a great marketing plan and you're in
the right time of the season. You get different points for all of those things, but you don't get your money till the end. You have to prove you did what you said. And we have clawbacks. If you don't do what you're supposed to do, we get money back from you. Now, if you do more, probably not likely you're going to get any more, but next year we encourage you to to to ask for more. So, there's a lot of matrixes out there. Um David, to your point, you talk about the value of, you know, we you approve the Sunb Belt Conference. That was a media buy. That's not the more traditional that
Pensacola Sports is used to. It's what Visit does every day. So, professionally, it's not normally what we do. That's a different look. It has a different value. The the uh the state statutes actually tie us to economic development statutes within the state that allow us to have NDAs. I can go negotiate business behind closed doors uh in sports tourism tied to the state statutes knowing the value of things of the value of a sale of being on that sale. So this tourism
industry allows us to do a lot of those things. So I think what you're where you're headed is a is a great idea to at least give our applicants know what they're going to expect. They know if they apply for this much, this is the amount of dollars that they can. And then there's a a wow factor, if you will, that the committee has the authority to say, "This has so much potential. Let's take a little risk on it." And we can do that. Uh uh we re we wrote our rules to allow us to do that. I'm
sorry that I did not need to take over that, but but um so uh I look forward to seeing what happens there. Quick quickly. Um, I'll give you a quick report on sports tourism business. It is hot. It is hot out there. And last week of September, I was in Annapolis, Maryland, uh, getting educated, uh, in in my industry, uh, because you can't stop learning and, uh, had a great education sess session. Three days in Annapolis. What a cool t city as well. Navy town uh, water community. Um,
and and lots of great education. Um uh uh then last week I was in Columbus, Ohio for a week and the sports sports tourism industry. I had some of the best um uh appointments I've ever had of people that want to come to Pensacola and want to come to Escambia County. It's like when can we come? What can we do? So the sports tourism industry is as healthy as it can possibly be. Uh some common themes were you know one's how is that baseball complex coming? And I'll touch base
on that real quick. I'll give you an update. And the other is, as I said, they all want to come to Pensacola and Escambia County. They know who we are. They know what we do. And they know what a spectacular place it is that we live and they want to come play here. Um, for a complex update, I talked to Michael Rhodess today, uh, because I I I know y'all have in I mean, we've invested $25 million out there in that complex. Um, they have I want to make sure I get this right. uh they have selected um and they are in the negotiation of the first phase of contracting the design engineering.
Um that uh contract should come to the BOCC in December. Um after that is done uh the RFP for the actual uh design and construction of the fields will go out. Uh that will follow immediately after that. and they are still basically on track for an early spring um probably more realistics uh early summer 20207 ribbon cutting. So just want to give you an update on where your money's going.
Michael gave a great report on the the building and there's the outdoors but u lots of fun great things happening in the sports tourism world. Any questions? Thanks Ray. Any anybody have any questions for Ray? It's been an absolute pleasure to do. I'm I'm stepping aside. I'm not hopefully completely going away, but I am stepping aside. And thank you all for your support and of sports tourism and your belief in it and and in us at Pensacola Sports. And um I can't wait to see the new leadership. Thank you, Ray. Um, so that gets us to the end of our agenda, but since we
did not have an update from Visit Pensacola, and I see a couple of folks back there from ACE, and we're about to have Fufu Fest in a couple weeks, do you guys want to come up and say a few remarks? Welcome, Theres. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Theres McKenzie and I am here on behalf of ACE and I'm also currently on the FifuFest committee. So I wanted to take this opportunity to give you a little bit of update on Fifufest. We do kick off next week. The festival
official start date is October 30th and uh we have 10 grant-f funed events that are happening this year. So they are spread out during the entirety of the festival. We end on November 9th. We have uh different organizations that are hosting events range uh ranging from the opera. We have the symphony is hosting an event. We have the night moves music festival coming back for the third year in a row. Uh dashboard confessional and Japanese breakfast are coming to Pensacola and
go are going to be down Maritime Park on that Saturday for night moves festival. And uh I wanted to also let you all know that there will be a kickoff party like a press release on uh October 29th which is the night before the uh festival starts and we're doing that in conjunction with the fence of downtown. It's going to be on Palifox and in Tendencia under the afterburn installation which is going to be the uh aerial arts installation this year that we're going to
have. So would invite you all to come out and join us for that kickoff event. We're going to have the artist uh present Thomas Law. He will be there and uh a lot of um some of the stores in the area are going to stay up later like Rusted Arrow is going to stay up later uh that stay be open later that evening. And uh Jazz for Justice, which is a uh return Fufu Fest grant recipient, they're going to be there and they're going to have some jazz performances. And also Pensacola Little Theater
is doing a mini version of their event this year. So, there's going to be lots of fun happening on October 29th. So, I do suggest that you go and check out our website. It's fufufest.com. It has the whole schedule of events. Uh, in addition to the 10 grantf funed events that we have, we also have what we call friend of fu events, which is open to not just people that received a grant, but also to other local businesses that want to host an event during Fufu Festival. So, I believe we have close to a total of 40 events happening during Fufu Fest this year. So,
please check out the website. Hope to see you all out there. And lastly, uh I do want to thank the council for its continued support of Ace and also Fufu Festival. Thank you. Thank you, Teresa. Any comments or questions? I just left. Yeah. Any questions? Yes. That's awesome. Yeah. Don't go anywhere. Yeah. Any any comments, questions? So, are I I know there was a I I'd gotten a call uh from someone on AC's board about funding timing uh and some concerns over some of those funded events
not getting the funds that they need in time. Have you guys resolved the issue? So, uh not yet, but I believe that it's coming. We have been told that uh money is in the process of being sent to visit Pensacola. So, we're hoping that we can pay our last outstanding grant recipients this Friday, which is not ideal for us. Typically, we have these grantees funded in July every year because the whole purpose of this grant is for these organizations to do host special events that they would not be able to do but for our funding. So, it has put our grantees in a predicament where
they've had to try to track down funds from other sources. So, it has not been ideal, but I'm being told money is on the way and we can pay them this Friday. And and for the record, since he's not on camera, I did see Stephan Hall nodding his head yes and a thumbs up. Yes. Any other That's great news. Any other comments or questions? Thank you so much. I'll look forward to Fufu Festa here. All right. Thank you. Thanks, Ray. You have closing remarks?
I was only told to make sure I told y'all one thing. And of course, I forgot to tell you the one thing I was told. The $200,000 that y'all allocated for us uh has all been done that's been approved by the BOCC and all that paperwork is cleared. I was supposed to tell y'all that. And of course, I didn't do the one thing I was supposed to do. Story of my life. Thank you. All right. Uh well, that gets us to the end of the agenda. Um the uh we'll go around and and do closing remarks. We'll start with you, Jason. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I'd also just like to
thank the the council for, as I mentioned before, for extending your day and uh using your time, treasure, and talent to influence the tourism economy. That hits me personally, me and my family, and and many of those in our county. It directly impacts our quality of life. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to thank you personally for bringing clarity to the discussion about uh metrics that we might set to um enhance the allocation of the funds. I I personally really appreciate your clarity of thought on that matter. Thank you. Thank you, council. I really have
nothing other than thank you all for being here and uh I think we've got a little while till we see each other again. December. Excellent. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I want to thank everybody for being here and also just wanted to sh I'm I serve on League of Cities uh for the city of Pensacola and I serve on a committee that deals primarily with utilities, natural resources, not really in the purview of this committee, but uh there have been a number of proposals this year
to eliminate property tax or significantly curtail it. Uh the biggest one is eliminate all non-h homestead or all homestead property tax which would have a devastating effect on the city on the county. Um last year there were proposals to convert uh or allow the expenditure of TDT funds for property tax relief and to allow it for things like mass transit. Um, so it could get very interesting if if these uh things continue moving and we end up with a constitutional amendment that
we then have to go as a city and county and anyone who thinks that having government is a good thing in this in the state of Florida other than the state government um is probably going to want to think about that before they say yes, I don't want property tax. But it could, if we do eliminate that, it could really impact us on the TD the TDC because we may end up having to look at other ways to spend the money besides just on tourism related things. It could be mass transit, could be just taken away from us and given the property tax. So, I know we're acting in the
moment here trying to make sure we have things in place and and I'm more than anyone I go through this process every year with my nonprofit having to do uh uh partner allocation funds. So I know um there there needs to be clarity for people on what to expect in the process and you know if there are metrics we can get to I think it is because of the different things we do I think it gets to be a challenge um just and again you know we talk about getting a third party involved you know it's only as good as the data that's given to them so and it's a big expenditure for them
and for ultimately for the taxpayers you know who are paying the tourist development taxes to make sure we have a third party. So, I think there's a lot to talk about. I'm glad the the chairman, Mr. Chairman, that you uh talked about having committee, and I think that'll be helpful um in moving us forward on that. But I think there's definitely an uncertain future for for TDC's and for tourism development tax money at this point. And and hopefully uh we will get through this. And you know, I don't know what's going to replace property tax. I hope it's not TDT. Um but it
could be a challenge this coming year. Thank you. Thank you, Brad. Ray, thank you for all the work. I know you've done a lot and getting momentum in this area for those types of events and uh it's it's very good to see. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Shirley. Um I just want to thank the agencies. Uh you guys have worked really hard this year and it was another we were we uh collected more dollars than we've had in the past. So you're what you're doing is is right and I know it is a challenge to
uh work within the budgets and so forth but thank you. It's very good. Absolutely. Thank you Michael Caps. I am so excited about what's coming down the pipeline for the Bay Center. So um as soon as you can present that, please let us know because I think we're all really thrilled to see that. And I just want to tell the the rest of the committee, thank you so much. I took a whole page of notes and I'm excited to, you know, work with who you appoint on that and um just provide some clarity to people who are applying for the grant. So, thank you for your collaboration and
your opinions and your thoughts and um I'm really looking forward to moving forward with that. So, Mr. Reeves, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to thank Michael Caps. Uh, I appreciate the thorough communication he has with his council. It's u, it's very nice to have that feedback. I thank him. We're going to miss our favorites,
director of the sports association. And I I do want to say, Michael, that I am really glad that you're having a family Christmas program this year. at the Bay Center. You didn't get that, did you? City's having one, too. Tish, just want to say thank you. And Ray, thanks for all the hard work. Um, I know
we still got you till September 30th. Hopefully, whoever comes in, you're able to mentor them and um, it's going to be some big shoes to fill. Um and thank you for and thank you commissioner for making the suggestion. Uh it is kind of scary u Mr. Bear where you said the TDT could be used for property taxes. I know that was a big deal earlier this year. A lot of hotel years visit Pensacola. We all had to kind of get get you know get together write letters to the governor and um speak our voice. That that's a big concern um especially for hotel years um and our families
and our employees and their families. Um it's a big deal for the the entire industry. Um so hopefully that's it's not used um TDT is not used for property taxes. Um I know it sounds great for folks to say hey you have no property taxes but to replace it with TDT funds would be uh would be would be unfair to the tourism industry. Um thank you everybody. Thank you. Um and first I want to say you need to be more specific when you say Mr. Bear because I thought you were talking about me.
And I didn't say that, but I know I knew once he started talking and I knew what the subject was. I knew it wasn't me. Thank you. Um, yeah, I want to thank everybody for being here today, too. I'm glad we had a quick meeting. Um, but thank you, Michael Caps, for uh your update. Um, Rey, we, you know, obviously, we still have you at least through September. Um, but congratulations um on your announcement for retirement. Uh thank you everybody for
being here today. Thank you commissioner for bringing this topic to us. It's a important uh discussion that we need to have. Uh because again I think the folks who come stand before us need to know what we expect. Uh and so you know we can we've set up restricted funds. We've you know uh added the fifth cent. We've invested in beach nourishment. We've done a lot of great things uh that are obviously showing um the results because we continue to every year hit a new
record. Although again it was marginally more this year uh it's still more uh and so thank you everybody for what you do the programs you guys put on and um this this board uh with these robust discussions. So thank you. Uh and with that I will call this meeting adjourned. That's