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Volusia County Tourist Development Council
Meeting Minutes
October 12, 2004 - 9:00 a.m.
Ocean Center

Chairman Bruno called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m.

An addition to the minutes of the last meeting was made to include the name change of Adam’s Mark to The Hilton. A motion was made and seconded to accept the minutes. Mr. Bruno then turned the meeting over to Matt Greeson.

Status Report on Expansion
Matt Greeson handed out a memo regarding the update on the Ocean Center Expansion Project. In June the TDC recommended a project scope in financing for the County Council, which was approved. Since the last meeting on July 20th, the Council approved the financing documents that were necessary to authorize the sale of the Tourist Development tax revenue bonds to fund the project. We closed on those bonds August 30th so we have the money for the project. The net proceeds for that were around sixty six million dollars. The interest rate will be 4 ½ to 5 percent.

Project Consultants
For over a year we have had TVS/DJ Design on board and it was reported at the last meeting that we were entering into a Task II contract, which was approved by the County Council on July 8th. This includes the right of way vacation applications, drainage and utility concept options and design of the south parking lot. We are in the final stages of negotiations of Task III with TVS/DJ which is the design of the overall facility and that is scheduled to go to the Council on October 21st. In addition to our contract with our architects and engineers, on July 22nd the County Council approved the pre-construction services contract with O.C.O.R.P. for Owner’s Representative services. We will then have all the consultant’s contracts under way with the exception of one. The Council will consider further in the future a construction phase contract with the Owners Representatives.

QUES: Jim Bazemore: Are these the final plans that will be presented to the County Council on the 21st? ANS: No, these are the contracts with the architects and engineers to design the building. These contracts will not come before this Board, as that is not our practice to bring contracts before an Advisory Board. Mr. Bazemore responded that the Advisory Board should be kept more in contact with what is going on and he feels that they can’t give any suggestions if contracts have already been approved by the County Council before the Board gets to look them over. He requested that everyone should receive this information by mail if necessary. He was told that all this information would be on the Internet by Friday and the Council members do not receive the information until Thursday before the meeting.

II

Project Design & Permitting
We presented right of way vacation applications and site plans to the City of Daytona Beach for approval. Those applications went in to them in August and we have submitted site plans and a permit application for the south parking lot to the St. Johns River Water Management District. This has taken the concept plan that you approved and put it into the format required by the city. The Main Street Redevelopment Board considered that conceptual site plan on August 24th and they approved it but we still will have to go back to them at some future date for the final site plan approval. On September 23rd, we presented to the Planning Commission the right of way vacation application, which they recommended to the City Commission. We should be on the City Commission agenda on October 20th for a first reading of those right of way vacations.
QUES: Is the movement of the utilities around the project OK with the City. ANS: First there is a force main in Oleander that we have discussed with city staff regarding relocation. There is also an 18-inch gravity sewer line that our site plan shows going under the building. Part of Task II is further analysis of that. Depending on cost and feasibility we may be looking into an option to lift it to the force main. This is the same discussion that we had when you approved the site plan in June. We are just building more technical decisions. The way it is appearing before the Daytona City Commission is that the staff will be recommending approval of the right of way vacations contingent upon a utility relocation option that is acceptable with the staff and acceptance of an easement by the City Manager. That easement would go in different directions depending on what plan we agree upon with the City Staff. There is money allocated to utilities relocation so there should not be any problem whichever option in chosen.

We now own an apartment building on Wild Olive by eminent domain. The depositions were held in between the hurricanes and the order take hearing was held before Judge Parsons on September 28th. The hearing for what we will ultimately pay for the building has not yet occurred but the Ocean Center Staff is preparing to bid the demolition within the next few weeks. $720,000 has to be put up for eminent domain. The building will not be down by Octoberfest nor will the parking lot be completed by Bike Week.

ADA
Irene Moses was invited to talk about disability access for the project. She explained that access for the disabled is the responsibility of the architects. A lot of mistakes are made during new construction. She tries to be proactive in looking over plans and designs regarding basic needs. There is something called Universal Design out of the University of North Carolina that has made design work that is for everybody of all ages and abilities and that is what she tries to look out for. It was decided to let Ms. Moses take a look at the design to see if she could pick up anything that the architects might miss regarding disability access.

FINANCIAL REPORT
Donna DePeyster gave out a copy of the financial report. This was for the quarter ending September 30. The report has not been audited, as there will be some adjustments. There is one more month that will be posted as part of September. The ending fund balance is $4,084,361. $2,200,000 was moved from the bond fund to the construction fund and this was secured by an insurance policy.

III

LEGAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Frank Gummey: Mr. Gummey went through some of the Provisions of Law and Chartering Code. Starting with the Provisions of Code, which parallel Provisions of State Statue on the Tourist Development Council. Under the provision titled General Duties it states “From time to time the Council may make recommendations to the County Council for the effective operation of a special project or the uses of the tax revenue raised by the tax.” The tax revenues shall be expended to pay the debt service on bonds to finance the construction or renovation of the Ocean Center and to pay the planning and design costs incurred prior to the issue of the bonds, next to pay the operation and maintenance cost of the Ocean Center and three to pay any other costs authorized under the Statue. The other issue is the recommendation of the County Council for effective operation of special projects. Because the term “Special Projects” is never defined, we would assume the Ocean Center is a special project as defined under the statue. Therefore, that is the role of the TDA to make recommendations to the County Council from time to time. The other duty is to review expenditures. The TDA shall continuously review all expenditures of revenues from the Tourist Development trust fund and receive at least quarterly a report from the finance department. Expenditures that the Tourist Development Council believes to be unauthorized are to be reported to the County Council and the Florida Department of Revenue. The establishment and adoption of this policy is the responsibility of the Council and the execution of the policy shall be the responsibility of the County Manager. The County Manager shall be the head of the administrative branch of County Government and shall be responsible to the Council for the proper administration of all affairs of the County. The role of this Board seems to be to make recommendations to the County Council from time to time on the Ocean Center project. It is not the implementation of the Ocean Center project under the charters responsibility of the County Manager, who in turn delegates to the Assistant County Manager and the Ocean Center Director and others within the administration. The role of this Board is not to manage the project or to direct the managers of the project.

Jim Bazemore talked about the difficulty of making recommendations if enough information is not received. He was told that he has been receiving quarterly reports and no one has brought up any unauthorized expenditures. Mr. Bazemore agreed that he has received quarterly reports on the construction, bond issue, etc. but has not received any reports on the operational expenses. Some of the board feels some of the funds that have been spent should have been spent in other places and have been deprived the right to make those recommendations to the County Council. Some of the Council wants more sales people out. A hundred million dollars is being invested with only two or three people representing. The Hotel Motel people are spending more money advertising individually and we should combine to make this successful. ANS: We all want this to be successful. We have hired a director to make sure that it is successful. It is his professional ability we are entrusting to make this successful and so I do not think it is our obligation to weigh in on all the decisions that are being made to accomplish this. QUES: What do you see this Board doing? ANS: It is our obligation to have information going out as to the progress of the building and the different types of events that are taking place. I think we need to be aware of how our advertising monies are being used etc. We have a viable role in providing input from the hospitality industry, the accommodations industry and from governmental people. We have a variety of people on the Board and they provide information from the industries that will help the Ocean Center be properly placed in the market and operate in a manner that accommodates the needs.
That is the role of an Advisory Board. It is not an operational responsibility.

III

Big John--In case of efficiency, I know more about this building than probably anyone else and I guarentee that Chad and Rick Hamilton are as efficient as they come. I think the real deal here is marketing. When I was chair of this committee, everyone was called and almost forced to show up and it could not be said there was no communication because it was forced upon them. I can guarentee that Hotel Motel, The CVB and the Ocean Center are all equally responsible in their inability to get along. Any information you want, you can get, as it is public information.

Darlene Yorden—The Urban Land Institute is in Daytona Beach for the Main Street Redevelopment Study. There will be a report coming out as to their observations for the Main Street area. Ques: Is their some type of recommendation we can make regarding vacant lots and other areas where old hotels are being torn down to make sure we have new convention type hotels being built that will accommodate the needs of the Ocean Center Project? ANS: That is really driven by the market, but we are going to be looking at sites that have been demolished and working with the city to work up a plan to bring in more hotels to support the expansion of the Ocean Center. We have talked with builders and developers and they are all very excited about this. They get turned off when there are multiple landowners and a lot of paperwork and red tape, but if you can offer a vacant site they will move on it.

Hotel Closures
There are approximately 25 percent of the beds not available because of the hurricanes. According to our resort tax profile these are the slow months, so as bad as this is, if you had to pick a time for this to happen, this is it. This is short term and should not have that much impact on the bed tax.

There was no more old business.

There was no new business.

The next meeting will be November 9th and everyone will be notified. Matt had a list of the meetings for next year and every member of the Board plus the Hotel Motel Association etc. has received this list. That will be Mr. Gummey’s last TDC meeting.

Meeting was adjourned at 10:50 a.m.

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