It didn't take long to figure out two things at Tuesday afternoon's meeting of the Board of County Commissioners. The first is that Commissioner Bradley's apparently over his mad. The second, and far more important, realization is that the predicted penny-pinching process has officially begun.
The short-straw on the agenda was Eve Szymanski of the Tourist Development Council. She was the first person to step up to the podium, lean into the microphone and ask for money. I don't want to say it was an unpleasant experience, but if she files for permanent disability because of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder later this week, we'll know why.
I'm not a big supporter of the Tourist Development Council for several reasons, but as far as Tourist Development ideas go, Eve brought a decent one to the BCC. She wanted some tourism experts from the University of Florida to come put on a workshop, and she had almost enough money in the TDC to cover it - the cost of the workshop, that is.
Phase II of the UF plan was collection of data in useful form and a report that could provide a guideline for the county's tourism efforts. Phase II cost another $35,000 or so and, of course, since the TDC didn't have quite enough money for the workshop, obviously the County Commission (which means us taxpayers) would be expected to pick up that larger tab in full.
Three of the five members of the County Commission did decide that a report to help guide the county's tourism efforts just isn't that high a priority right now, and turned down the request. Poor Eve stood there, next to her invited tourism expert from Gainesville. Folks aren't used to gettin' told "No" when they ask for money. She even had to be told the vote had been taken and the issue closed before she left the podium.
Since the BCC was officially in penny-pinching mode, I was surprised that one obvious question was left unasked. The TDC almost had enough money to fund the UF workshop because it had asked for and received $10K from the County Commission for specific advertising. After some negotiations, apparently, the TDC got a bigger ad and it cost only $4K. Here's the question:
If the BCC granted funds for advertising, why is the TDC even holding the unused funds?
Maybe I'm wrong about this. But if you ask me to buy you a Coke and I hand you a $20 bill, I expect my change back, not for you to keep it until you get hungry for pizza sometime in the future.
Michael S. Mann
michaelsmann@comcast.net [1]