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.

The Petitions Are Coming Back To Us By the Hundreds! Thank You! - What next?  We must turn out the vote to win the referendum, which will rid us of both the TDC and the Conference Center. The TDC currently has over $1 Million in reserves which, in it's absence, can be used to cover the expenses of manning the Visitor Center, phone lines and beach cleaning contract for some time under the guidance of our county manager.  We must keep pressure on the Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) so that no more expenditures take place on the Conference Center until this issue is settled.

What then follows will depend upon our will to stay involved with the whole issue of tourism. As many of you know, the TDC crowd is accusing us of trying to wreck the local tourist industry. That's as misleading as it is foolish. If this insane uncontrolled growth and greed isn't stopped, they'll' finally kill the "golden goose", not us; there's some evidence of that effect, already.

A couple of columns back, I wrote about the lack of business in the Destin area over the Labor Day weekend.  I've continued to research that idea and have found nothing to contradict the fact that business was off a significant percentage.   Perhaps the backlash has already begun. Who would have wanted to return to the mess that was Destin, over this summer?  I've never heard so many people say that they'd never return, that we were just another former beauty spot.  Many of them mentioned other famous tourist destinations that they used to patronize and were crowded out by over development.  Destin faces the same bleak future without positive action from "the rest of us!"

My personal wish is to see the whole tourism issue put to a county-wide ballot either next March or during the fall polling times; let the winner take all. If the TDC were resurrected, I would like to see two fundamental changes, both of which will require changes to the governing state statutes. First of all, no statement of goals is properly focused for more than two or three years; there are too many variables. Therefore, in counties where tourism is bumping up against "the rest of us", I believe those with TDCs should meet a referendum every 2-3 years. In that way, no empires are built or maintained, and the TDC can be adjusted to actually do the job which needs doing instead of blindly pursuing outdated goals. Secondly, where the ballot determines the desire for a TDC and Bed Tax, some percentage of those tax revenues must be returned for the very infrastructure depleted by the tourists. We've posted several examples of states using those tax dollars for roads, bridges, sewer and water, parking facilities and so on. This makes a lot of sense.

I'm working on proposing the necessary changes to the Florida Statutes to the next session of the legislature. Being an election year, I doubt it'll be difficult to get the BOCC to put the issue on a ballot, but for the whole county, not just some gerrymandered special district.

So, I thank and congratulate all of you for helping us in our efforts to make a positive difference. These next few months should prove to be quite interesting!

Cheers!
Gaylan

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