NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE ISSUE? - Gaylan's Corner! - Opinions, comments and Notes from the field - by Gaylan King - BED TAX/CONFERENCE CENTER HISTORY OF EVENTS - The Freedom Committee's goal is to repeal county ordinance 89-23 that has spawned the Tourist Development Counsel (TDC) and bed tax (increase), and is also designed to fund the proposed conference center.  The TDC was created with this ordinance and therefore, by law, will be disbanded with OR 89-23's repeal. In order to do this, a referendum must come to a vote before the people. There are four major areas on this website that are designed to do four things: 1. Present the FACTS supporting our case that the Conference Center will be a financial burden to the taxpayers of Okaloosa County. 2. Provide a HISTORY of the entire Bed Tax increase/Conference Center and give an historical scope to the issue. 3. To present OUR POINT OF VIEW as an opponent of the Bed Tax Increase/Conference Center and it's supporters. 4. To provide a FORUM in which others can share their point of view.

Catching Up - October 3 1999, I apologize to our faithful readers for so little output over this past few weeks.  Not only have I been really ill, but also the administration chores for our petition effort have become large and time-consuming. The source of my illness has been found and is easily corrected through medicine, so that episode should be finished.

Our petition drive is not finished, though, and I urge all of you who haven't yet sent in your signed and witnessed petition, to do so ASAP so that we might get on with the next phase of the program.  Hopefully, many of you saw the petition in today's NWFDN. We spent a lot of money to put it in front of everyone; the agreement was for it to be in the State and Local section.  How a political petition got placed in the Lifestyles section I don't know, but I guarantee you that I will, and soon.  Look for that to be re-run Tuesday or Wednesday if I have anything to say about it. Had they called and said that the S and L section was full, we'd have put it off a few days.

If you have friends who've been trying to get hold of a petition, call them and tell them about today's printing of it. Be sure and tell them where to look; when I'm busy, I pass that section by.

Bear with us; we're getting there.

Cheers!
Gaylan

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Postscript To Yesterday - I phoned the NWFDN early Monday morning about the placement of our expensive half page presentation of The Freedom Committee's petition against the Conference Center and the TDC. I'm pleased to report that the classified editor phoned me back very quickly to say that they'd publish it again tomorrow (Tuesday) on page B4 of the State and Local section. I applaud their fairness in this matter.

So, those of you who are outside of the TDC Taxing District, the 13 precincts eligible to vote in our referendum, please contact your friends in those precincts and ask them to fill out a witnessed petition and mail it to us, ASAP. A number of you have phoned express your anger at being ineligible to vote in the referendum on this important issue. We can do nothing about this fact right now but will try mightily to change it in the future.

When we win the referendum, the TDC will be dissolved. I would think the BOCC would be anxious to get the issue on a county wide ballot next year, an election year, and would sweeten the pot by allowing the changes we've suggested. Meeting a referendum every 3 years would make any future TDC much more responsive to non-tourism skewed public input. We also have rights in this county, our home. The example has been set, by other states, to return as much as 25% of any proposed bed tax to the County. This money would be spent only for the very infrastructure expenditures caused by large numbers of tourists and to replenish or add to the very resources that tourists deplete, i.e. roads, bridges, sewer and water, etc.

Please make a prompt reply with the signed and properly witnessed petition. Spread the word among your friends and neighbors.

We appreciate your wonderful support!

Cheers!
Gaylan

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