At its Thursday meeting, the Escambia County Commission tackled how to give a local nonprofit $1 million to complete the proposed General Daniel “Chappie” James monument at Wayside Park. Thanks to creative wordsmithing and the county clerk’s blessing, they came up with the funds.
- The crux of the debate was whether Tourist Development Tax (TDT) funds could legally be used for the project. The Tourist Development Council (TDC) had previously recommended $750,000 in funding, but questions arose about whether a “plaza” qualified under state statutes governing tourist development taxes.
TDC DILEMMA
TDC Chairman David Bear clarified that the original $750,000 TDT funding recommendation was conditional on getting an Attorney General opinion confirming eligibility. He said, “Under the statute related to tourist development tax, it enumerates what the tax may be used for construction and promotion, and they enumerate different items in the statute on what may be the tax may be used for construction. It does not say a plaza. It specifically says convention centers, sports stadiums, sports arenas and atriums, aquariums and museums. And this plaza does not fit within any one of those categories.”
Bear said he has donated personally to the project and bristled at any insinuation that he is against the project.
- “I think General Chappie James is a war hero that needs to be celebrated. I, too, think this is a wonderful project. I have personally donated to this project,” Bear said. “I just don’t believe tourist development tax dollars may be spent under the statute for this type of project.”
He added, “I don’t want to conflate two things, whether we’re voting against this wonderful war hero because we don’t want to fund this project. Those are two separate items.”
PLAZA OR OPEN-AIR MUSEUM
Two commissioners tried to reframe the project.
Commission Chairman Mike Kohler said, “I agree that the word ‘plaza’ is wrong, but I also agree that in legal terms, lawyers technically use words that have to be argued in front of judges because it benefits their pocketbook.”
Commissioner Steve Stroberger chimed in. “It’s not a plaza. Let’s not call it a ‘plaza.’ We can call it anything we want to. The local governing body decides. I don’t believe we need an opinion from the attorney general so we can decide that.”
Deputy County Attorney Kristin Hual said the commissioners needed to make a legislative finding that the project promotes tourism to allocate TDC funds. “We would need documentation of public ownership, which would mean the city must be the applicant and the recipient of the funding. We would need an independent economic analysis to support a finding that this, in fact, does promote tourism as it’s defined in the statute.”
Commissioner Lumon May offered to fund the project using funds other than TDC dollars.
“If we can’t get this off base for TDC dollars, I’m willing to commit $150,000 of my discretionary out of my LOST to move this forward… This is important to me. (General Chappie James) deserves to be recognized. His family does not deserve for us to continue to have an Outlying Field Eight-type discussion year after year.”
PAM GIVES THUMPS UP
County Clerk Pam Childers said she would write the check using TDC funds. At the TDC meeting on Tuesday, she refused to comment on the issue but offered her views to the commissioners yesterday.
“This is going to be so simplified, but when I first looked at this, I immediately thought this is an open-air museum. That was what? Over a year ago. How long have we been talking about this?”
She continued, “It is the legislative finding that you need to make. This is tourism, to get off ground zero. There does have to be ownership through the city. There does have to be the feasibility study. I do not believe you have to go back to the attorney general. I believe that this board can handle it. I believe you understand the terminology, and I believe you need to check a couple of boxes. That sounds very simple, but that’s where I stand.”
The commissioners voted unanimously to give the Gen. Daniel “Chappie” James Jr. Memorial Foundation $750,000 in TDC funds, $100,000 from the county’s general fund, and $25,000 from Kohler’s discretionary fund.
The check is contingent upon the city of Pensacola taking ownership of the monument and an economic analysis by the University of West Florida Haas Center to show the project promotes tourism.
Chairman Kohler mentioned that the foundation needed to raise more private donations since over 90% of the funding has come from government sources. “I’ve been frank with the foundation that they need to raise more money.”
However, Kohler’s motion did not tie the county’s funding to a specific dollar amount the foundation needed to raise.
As the term “museum” is used in state law is Plaza de Luna also a museum? Doubt it. How about John Sunday, Jr. Plaza? Nope. State laws that no one to include “Assistant County Attorney” Kristen Hual seem to have ever read do distinguish “monuments” like the one proposed here from “museums” and distinguishes multiple types of museums. I have reviewed the related AG Opinions none of which are exactly on point. Given Pam Childers new pronouncement that she will here turn a blind eye and let the BCC do as it wants, an excellent question for the TDC to now ask the new Attorney General is if the proposed General Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. Memorial Plaza is also a “museum,” as that term is used in state law for the purpose of spending tourism development revenues? There’s no evidence at all to include in past PNJ reporting that this is or has been described as a museum or that the “primary” purpose of this project is tourism development. (And, we do already have one Chappie James Museum.) State law does require the TDC to report the proposed BCC action to the Department of Revenue and it should, “Expenditures which the council [TDC] believes to be unauthorized shall [mandatory] be reported to the county governing body [BCC] and the Department of Revenue.” If the BCC proceeds may Governor DeSantis remove commissioners for misfeasance? The solution? The BCC should suck it up and fund the project using General Fund and/or LOST revenues. Its really that easy.
The biggest shame of all of this is that if Chris Dosev weren’t involved, that statue would already be standing. As it should be.
Boy, do the pot stirrers have the right candidate in him for their bread and circus games of whipping the quintessential Angry Man into a lather and pointing him towards the TDC and its Chair. I wonder if Dosev has ever even glimpsed how badly he is being made a pawn in a poisonous game of sabatoge that has nothing–NOTHING–to do with the merits of the project, and more important the man.
The other committee members need to kick him to the sidelines and prepare for the possibility that (a) the impact analysis doesn’t come back with sufficient results; (b) the City Council does *not*, in fact, vote to take on the property; and/or (c) it turns out that words actually do matter when it comes to the rule of law, and there is no such thing as an “open air museum.” Clearly, knowledge of the “nature center” debacle is just one more piece of important County history that eludes Stroberger.
This project needs to come to fruition. The City already gave a bunch of money, so if Dosev would stop lying publicly about the 1.3M being “private” donations, that would help. If a Plan B is necessary, Commissioner May already said he would give 150k of his discretionary, and Kohler upped the ante with 250. That gap could be closed pretty quickly with commissioner discretionary funds, throw in some Park or LOST cost centers–it’s *not* that much money, in government terms. People need to pull the heads away from having their ears yanked and stop being fooled that this is a conversation on how to extract the money from TDT when it’s problematic at best. If Dosev wouldn’t have been such an easy target to spin up to wage war for TDT, the costs wouldn’t have shot up again while the question was–rightfully–submitted to the AG.
People keep falling prey too easily to the bad actors after nothing more than dividing this community. Deep breath, everybody. A first rate–as is fitting–memorial plaza doesn’t have to be dishonored with a semantic word salad in order to get funded, if somebody smarter, and for God’s sakes more honest and less self-interested, took the baton to get this across the finish line.