Tourist Development Council
In his last meeting on the Escambia County Tourist Development Council, David Bear used his time to lay out eight years of conflict over tourist tax spending and payments. The chair talked relationships. Jim Reeves talked lawyers. Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger said nothing.
David Bear closed out his service on the Escambia County Tourist Development Council on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with a prepared statement that ran more than seven minutes. He asked the board to bear with him because he had written it all down. The target was Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers, and the message was blunt: “We need to hold her accountable.”
What Bear Said
The backdrop. Bear said that when he joined the TDC eight years ago, Escambia collected a 4% tourist development tax and was at a competitive disadvantage to neighboring communities collecting 5% or more.
- The county spent every dollar it collected and had no reserves. He said the money was going to expenditures he called unauthorized, including ATVs to monitor turtle nests and the full salary of the Marine Resources Department, without the legislative findings from the county commission that such spending was tourism development.
What the TDC did. The TDC recommended levying the fifth cent, created restricted sub-accounts for emergency marketing, special events and public facilities, and built reserves, including a designated source of funding for a major capital improvement to the Bay Center. He said tourism has grown to all-time highs and has diversified into scuba diving, arts and culture, sports and adventure.
- He credited then-Commissioner Robert Bender for recommending $500,000 a year for beach renourishment and then-Commissioner Jeff Bergosh for pushing public access on Perdido Key, which led to the opening of beach access number four.
“We need to stop allowing the clerk to decide what is and what is not tourism. It is not her role.”
The Timeline of the Dispute, According to Bear
- The affidavit. Bear said that “out of nowhere” the clerk added a sworn affidavit to the Visit Pensacola appropriation agreement without discussing it with the county attorney. It required the TDC chair and vice chair to swear they had reviewed all tourist tax expenditures and that all were authorized by law. He said the clerk’s justification was that no one on the TDC was paying attention.
- The audit request. The TDC asked the clerk to audit the tourist tax program specifically. Bear said she refused, saying the county’s annual audit covered it, an audit he said is aggregated with all other funds.
- The Auditor General. The TDC sent a letter to the county commission and the Florida Department of Revenue listing expenditures it believed were unauthorized, and asked the local legislative delegation to request a state audit. Bear said the Auditor General’s report found those items were unauthorized and recommended updating county ordinances, creating proper documentation of commission findings, and stopping the spending. He said the clerk kept funding the programs without those changes.
- Cease and desist. The TDC sent the clerk a cease and desist letter asking her to stop issuing warrants for those payments and to provide a list of such expenditures going back 10 years. Bear said she came to a TDC meeting and said no.
- The paperwork squeeze. After that, Bear said, the clerk demanded more and more documentation. Reimbursement requests grew from 25 pages to hundreds, communication dried up, and repayment times stretched from about a month to six to 12 months.
The Bullying Allegation
Meetings with Visit Pensacola. Bear said the clerk met with Visit Pensacola and threatened to hold their reimbursements even longer if they discussed the meeting with anyone. He said, “She bullied everyone in those meetings and leveraged her control of the checkbook to get people to bow down to her demands.”
The Northwest Florida Tourism Council. Bear said the clerk refused to reimburse Visit Pensacola’s membership in the council, a delay he said lasted over a year, even though the governor had just given the organization a million dollars.
The Memorial Plaza. He also said the clerk herself recommended funding a Memorial Plaza with tourist tax dollars despite public discussion of Florida Attorney General opinions saying it is an unauthorized expenditure.
His conclusion. “She should be held accountable for all the warrants issued for payments of unauthorized expenditures going back a decade,” Bear said. He described the current system as “an overly bureaucratic system completely out of whack” and said the clerk “was caught in violation of the law and she’s decided to use her position holding the checkbook to punish the industry.”
“As Mr. Reeves once said in a TDC meeting, she is being an obstacle. Don’t let her continue to be an obstacle.”
The commissioner. Bear told the board the issue has come up at every meeting this year with no change, and that “there probably won’t be a change.” He said the TDC had asked the commissioner who sits on the board to talk with the clerk and try to get to the bottom of it.
- He also dismissed the clerk’s meetings with Visit Pensacola, saying they change nothing: “She just continues to bully.”
Chair Jason Nicholson Responds
Nicholson thanked Bear for “carefully crafted words” and said they resonate. His comments focused on the cash-flow damage rather than the clerk’s authority.
- Vendors in arrears. He said he has a buddy who says “fast pay makes fast friends,” and that Visit Pensacola, Pensacola Sports and ACE cannot do their jobs without funding to pass through to the vendors who serve those goals.
- A log jam. Nicholson described a log jam that “continues to consume our advances” and puts vendors in arrears. Vendors who are not paid, he said, stop working for you, or at the very least deprioritize you in favor of those who pay on time. He did not want that to happen to a beach rated number one in the U.S. by Condé Nast.
- The new CEO. Nicholson put his hopes on Tony Lyle, the incoming president and CEO of Visit Pensacola. He said Lyles’s answers in interviews, which included pointed questions about working with municipal finance departments, “resonated closest to what we need in Escambia County.” He said he is not claiming Lyles will be a “silver bullet.”
- Counsel as plan B. If the log jam persists, Nicholson said, the TDC should then seek legal counsel and reach agreement on what documentation the clerk’s office requires to approve a funding request. He said he would entertain a motion to seek counsel’s opinion now, if someone wanted to make one.
Notably, Nicholson framed the problem as a relationship to be repaired and a documentation standard to be defined. He did not endorse Bear’s claims that the clerk is acting improperly or retaliating.
Jim Reeves: “It’s Obvious Nothing’s Going to Happen”
Board member Jim Reeves was the only other member to speak, and he was less patient. “I think we ought to hire our lawyers,” Reeves said. He noted the TDC has no staff of its own and no way to move except through somebody else. “So if we want to do something, then I think we need to hire our own counsel and move forward. It’s obvious nothing’s going to happen.”
- When Nicholson asked whether the TDC should give Lyle a chance to build a relationship with the clerk before going the legal route, Reeves yielded. “I’m okay. I mean, it’s pretty obvious, so I’m okay if that’s the way the chair wants to go.”
“It’s obvious nothing’s going to happen.”
No motion to seek counsel followed. Nicholson thanked Bear for bringing the issue forward, said it is now “on public record,” and moved to item nine, other business.
Hofberger Said Nothing
The silence in the room came from the county commission’s seat at the table. Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger, who replaced Commissioners Robert Bender and Jeff Bergosh on the TDC, did not speak during Bear’s remarks, the chair’s response or Reeves’s comments. Bear specifically praised both Bender and Bergosh for their work on the council. He told the board that members had asked the current commissioner on the board (Hofberger) to talk with the clerk, but nothing changed.
Bear’s claims, in numbers
- 3%: the cap on what the clerk may retain to administer the tax. Bear said she kept more than that for several years.
- 25 pages to hundreds: how reimbursement packets grew, he said.
- One month to 6 to 12 months: how long reimbursements took.
- Over a year: the delay he cited for the Northwest Florida Tourism Council reimbursement.
- 10 years: how far back the TDC asked the clerk to list the expenditures.
What Happens Next
With Bear gone, the TDC has lost its most vocal critic of the clerk. The chair’s plan is to wait and see whether a new Visit Pensacola CEO can do what the council, by Bear’s account, has not been able to do: get the money flowing. If not, Nicholson said, lawyers come next.
