9/23/1991 - Laserfiche WebLink

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to the County Commission for approval and asked if that Council is ducking its job. Commissioner wheeler said the Council is not ducking its job and explained the Tourist Bureau was created three years ago to promote tourism and to screen tourist activities to provide coordination. Commissioner Scurlock asked if we should disband that group now. Commissioner wheeler said no and explained that somehow in the process things evolved to where we ended up dealing with the Tourist Bureau and with the Chamber of Commerce as one entity, and with the Arts Council as one entity. Then some of the individual groups under the Chamber have come in individually and some groups under the Arts Council have come in individually instead of making requests, as they properly should, under the umbrella of the Chamber or Arts. Then Indian River County Tourist Development Council was making decisions when they did not have the collective expertise to deal with these individual groups. Commissioner Scurlock thought that would not be a broad-based group if you just have a bunch of technical professional people. Commissioner Wheeler stressed the difficulty in trying to follow an agenda and making detailed decisions without the benefit of a workshop to work out those details. Chairman Bird offered the following procedure: The Tourist Development Council would be given the total amount of dollars that is generated from this taxation. The various agencies and groups would be categorized into, for example, arts, tourism, and would make their requests through these subcategories. Commissioner Eggert felt they may not choose that route, and Mr. Bireley agreed that has been the problem. Commissioner Eggert felt the reason Commissioner wheeler asked the Chamber of Commerce to suggest how an overall committee would work is because an -agency outside the county government has the ability to sit down and talk things over in a way that you really cannot do when you are in open public hearing. They then would bring these requests to the Council for open public hearing with reasons either for denial or approval and all this would have been shaken out by the groups working together. Commissioner Scurlock said the public process means you shake it out in public. Assistant County Attorney Collins advised that if the Chamber of Commerce is making a recommendation on how to spend public money, they are in the sunshine. He further advised that there is another use for the tourist tax revenues: In counties of less than 7 BOOKS": r.uL 8 d t: