UPDATE ON DEVELOPMENTS SINCE LAST NEWSFLASH.

The following is a summary of what has taken place from the November 18th workshop to present.

1.  The BOCC Workshop was held 11/18/05.  All of the commissioners were present with the exception of Commissioner Traylor, who had a previous commitment he was unable to change.  The attendance was good, and the workshop lasted about three hours.  Many people expressed their opinions on the issue and asked questions.  Phil Flood from FDEP, Michael Dombrowski from MRD (the coastal engineer for the project) and Howard Lovette from FDOT were in attendance to handle questions on their areas of expertise.    In light of the workshop and the extensive material covered, the SJPBAC's actual meeting that followed was very brief.

2.  The 11/22/05 commission meeting lasted three hours and was attended by about 80 people from the public. Approximately 40 people spoke, more or less equally divided on the issue.  Commissioner Barnes did not attend due to sudden illness.  When a motion to advertise the MSTUs was made, the four attending commissioners split in a vote of 2 to 2, which prevented further consideration of enacting any MSTU ordinances, either gulf side or bayside.  At the conclusion of the vote, Commissioner Traylor asked that a special meeting be called so that Commissioner Barnes could vote on the issue of advertising the MSTUs.

3.  On Monday the 28th, Chairman Peters called a special commission meeting for Tuesday the 29th at 3:00 p.m.  A few other matters were discussed prior to the beach restoration. 

Susan Wright, who stated she had resigned from the beach advisory committee due to concerns about potentially violating the Sunshine Law rules, made a presentation to the BOCC on a new three-tiered plan. 

This new plan created a third MSTU category of gulf-front properties.  To recap, the plan presented is a gulf-front property MSTU as the highest contributor to the project, a gulf-side property MSTU at a somewhat lesser rate (her examples used 75% of the gulf-front rate) and a final MSTU for bayside properties, which would be at the lowest rate (her examples used 25% of the gulf-front rate). 

The examples presented to the commission included the projected interest on the bond as well and allowed everybody to get an idea of the impact to them personally under the two scenarios she developed.  Finally, Ms. Wright explained her calculations indicated the millage rates would be the highest in year one of the bond.  This is due to increased property values, as well as more properties coming online to pay a share of the MSTU as more lots are developed.

There were several people who rose to speak on the subject.  Many of them made suggestions for ways to reduce the amount of money that would need to come from the MSTUs by bringing online other revenue streams such as a portion of DOC stamp fees or professional license charges for realtors, for example. 

The MSTUs must be in place by the end of 2005 if they can be used as any portion of the funding for the beach restoration project in 2007.  A good deal of the discussion was to create the "empty buckets" of the MSTU and then work on making the amounts needed from those buckets as small as possible, once again focusing on many of the alternative funding sources mentioned, all of which would be dedicated to beach restoration:  An increase of 1 cent on the bed tax (under consideration by the TDC currently), impact fees, DOC stamp and/or recording fees, professional licensing fees as examples.

A motion was made for the three MSTUs to be advertised.  After discussion by the commission, that motion passed by a 4-1 vote.  The readings of the MSTUs will be occurring at the commission meeting on December 13th.

Additionally, several of the people who spoke at one or more of the meetings on the 18th, 22nd, and 29th were added to the SJPBAC committee by the commissioners.  The newest members of the committee are:  Tom Graney, Marsha Henry, Steve Newman, Ron Westmark, Roland Wilson, and Edward Wood.

Two articles and two letters to the editor appear in this week's edition of The Star.  See the "Latest News" tab on the website.

The next scheduled meeting of the SJPBAC will be today, December 9th at 1:00 EST at the BOCC meeting room.  Anyone interested in learning more about the status of the beach restoration project and the working being done is encouraged to attend.  For those of you unable to be present, a brief summary will be posted on the website tomorrow or Sunday under "Latest News."

Finally, the commission will be voting on the enactment of the MSTU ordinances on Tuesday, December 13th at 6:00p.m. EST. 

The content provided herein is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Gulf County Tourist Development Council or Gulf County, Florida.