MILT THOMAS

The Tourist Development Council of Indian River County (TDC) approved four non-profit funding requests Tuesday for the 2013-14 fiscal year. The Cultural Council had requested $60,000; the Indian River County Historical Society $12,000; the Treasure Coast Sports Commission $148,700; and Vero Heritage Inc. $12,000. All requests only represent the portion of an organization’s budget that meets TDC requirements.

The Indian River County Chamber of Commerce, which is the county’s designated tourist agency, will have its budget reviewed separately, but Allison McNeal, director of tourism for the chamber, started off the meeting by announcing they would reduce their upcoming budget request by $3,225. Coincidentally, that equaled the projected shortfall in revenues available to the four presenting organizations at this meeting.

TDC funding comes from one percent of the four percent tax levied on guests staying in hotel and motel rooms or any other guest accommodations in Indian River County. It is also known as the bed tax. The TDC determines which non-profit organizations receive funds. The primary requirement is whether use of those funds will result in visitors to Indian River County who then stay in local hotels and motels. In other words, they must result in “heads on beds.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, the above-mentioned four organizations made presentations to back their budget requests and the TDC then voted on who they would approve and for how much of the requested funds.

Jason Brown, budget director for Indian River County, determines the amount of bed tax that will be available for the next fiscal year based on actual results and projections. Each organization’s request is rated on a 100-point scale: ten points for the presentation packet; ten for the presentation itself; 50 points for the impact on tourism; and 30 points for the effective use of tax dollars.

Members of the TDC present at the meeting were County Commissioner Joseph Fletcher (chairman); Don Wright, City of Sebastian; Tracy Carroll, vice mayor of Vero Beach; Jennifer Bates, Holiday Inn Oceanside; Susan Adams, mayor of Fellsmere; Scott DiPietro, Hampton Inn; George O’Malley, interested citizen; and Keith Kite, realtor, who was not present but on speakerphone.

Each organization then made its presentation. For the Cultural Council, Barbara Hoffman, board chairman; county historian Ruth Stanbridge represented the Historical Society; assistant director Rich Nalbandian presented the Treasure Coast Sports Commission request; and executive director Rebecca Rickey finished with the Vero Heritage, Inc. request.

Tracy Carroll did question Hoffman about the fact the Cultural Council only had five board members, yet its bylaws call for 13. Hoffman explained they have been going through a transition period the past 18 months and expect to add three new board members in the next month. Both Don Wright and Susan Adams questioned Sports Commission representative Nalbandian about the need to focus more effort in North County. “We have at least five venues not mentioned in your report,” said Wright.

Nalbandian promised to increase attention to North County and would personally come out to visit those five venues as soon as possible.

As it turned out, since the requests equaled the amount of funding available in the coming year, and the fact tourist tax revenues were up 5.7% in the first six months of this fiscal year and for the 2011-12 fiscal year, they were up 11.5%, the TDC did not need to rate the presentations. All requests mentioned above, which were identical to the current year’s requests, were approved. The only exception was a $2,000 reduction in the Historical Society’s request.

Chairman Flescher commended the hotel representatives on how they have cooperated when one hotel has no vacancies and refers visitors to another hotel that has rooms.

Tracy Carroll reported on attending an All Aboard Florida meeting and registered concerns that the increase in railroad traffic coming through Vero Beach might present problems for two historic structures, the railroad museum and the heritage center. There are currently no plans to offer local train service.

Penny Chandler, president of the Indian River County Chamber of Commerce gave brief comments on results so far of a 17-question survey of fulltime and seasonal residents about the possibility of air service in and out of Vero Beach. “We have received about 300 responses so far and have not yet had an opportunity to analyze the results.”

If you wish to participate in the anonymous survey, go to this link:

http://survey.constantcontact.com/survey/a07e7euj39ahg3x1443/a01dchgs27sfb/greeting