Florida Keys officials spurned the status quo this week by ending a 30-year relationship during a very public breakup, or at least a trial separation. It happened at the Nov. 19 county commission meeting — and it wasn’t mutual.
The board of county commissioners (BOCC) upheld the Oct. 29 recommendations of the Tourist Development Council (TDC) by voting to terminate its decades-long contracts with website and digital services provider Two Oceans Digital, and with Tinsley Advertising, which for 40 years has planned, designed, produced, edited, placed and scheduled the Keys’ print, broadcast and digital ads and commercials.
The recommendation to rebid those contracts was prompted by audits the county clerk and independent consultant conducted earlier this year to examine the TDC’s contracts with the agencies. Auditors were alarmed by the outdated contract with Two Oceans, which grants the company 100% of advertising revenue from the Florida Keys’ tourism website at fla-keys.com. While the contract made sense 30 years ago, when digital advertising was just getting started, it has led to a situation that is lopsided for the TDC, but quite lucrative for Two Oceans.
The clerk’s audits of the Tinsley contract did not contain any of the same concerns, but TDC president and CEO Kara Franker told the TDC board she is concerned by the fees Tinsley is charging the county.
Both companies initially indicated a willingness to meet with TDC and county officials, potentially rerenegotiate their contracts, and submit bids for their old jobs in response to the two new Requests for Proposals that will be issued.
But on Nov. 20, the evening after the county commission meeting, Franker told the Keys Weekly that renegotiation discussions had started with Tinsley, then broken down.
“They started down that path, then refused to negotiate any further,” Franker said, adding that Two Oceans did want to renegotiate.”
Dorn Martell, co-owner of Tinsley, asked the county commissioners during their Nov. 19 meeting not to cancel Tinsley’s contract, but to go ahead and issue the new RFP. Martell said Tinsley needs to schedule and buy advertising slots a year in advance, and canceling the contract would impede their ability to do that.
Franker pushed back on Martell’s statements, telling county commissioners that ad placement can be scheduled and bought quarterly and in smaller batches and need not be done a year in advance. The commission ultimately voted to terminate both contracts effective March 31 to allow enough time for the TDC staff, board and Franker to issue two new RFPs for digital marketing and website services and advertising services. Bids will be reviewed and ranked by an evaluation committee before the TDC board and then the county commission finalizes the new contracts.
County commissioners, TDC board members and Franker all have encouraged Tinsley and Two Oceans to submit proposals in response to the new RFPs.
Why all the changes?
A series of audits by the county clerk of the TDC, along with its contracts with Two Oceans Digital and Tinsley Advertising revealed that the TDC was significantly overpaying Two Oceans, given the payment structure in which Two Oceans keeps 100% of all advertising revenue generated by fla-keys.com. The audit estimated that Two Oceans is making $600,000 to $1.2 million a year on that advertising, but is providing the TDC with services that likely would cost less than $200,000 a year.
The audit report states that the payment structure in which Two Oceans keeps all ad revenue made more sense for the TDC when the contract was initiated in 1995, when online advertising was nearly non-existent.
Times — and technology — have changed dramatically since 1995. And while the contract for the TDC’s website and digital services has been renewed every three to five years, the compensation terms have never changed. Auditors also revealed that the prior RFPs to which Two Oceans Digital successfully replied were written in a way that was heavily preferential to the incumbent company.
“Due to the severity of the deficiencies in both the procurement process and the resulting contractual arrangement, we recommended that the TDC critically evaluate their arrangement with Two Oceans to determine whether it would be beneficial to either immediately cancel and re-bid this contract or consider other alternative solutions for website and digital services,” the audit states.
In the new RFP to be issued for website and digital services, Franker has asked bidders to, “Describe and provide examples of how the Proposer would handle managing a website advertising program in the community … and … describe and provide examples of how the Proposer would structure a revenue sharing model for website advertising.”
Change is scary
The TDC, with county commission approval, has initiated more changes in the past four months than were previously approved in more than four years, due to the scathing audits that criticized the TDC leadership as well as the county for a lack of oversight.
Franker’s predecessor, Stacey Mitchell, was fired in March as a result of the first audit last year. County commissioners have emphasized for the past several months that their duty is to earn back the public’s trust and fix what’s broken in Monroe County government.
Officials hired Franker, who is also an attorney, after a national search and thus far have given her free rein and a blank check to correct the problems identified by auditors.
When she started in September, Franker was candid in her critique of the TDC, but emphasized how shorthanded Stacey Mitchell was. The TDC for the Palm Beaches has a staff of 55, Franker said in September. Monroe County’s TDC has a staff of 13, and Mitchell was not permitted to hire additional employees.
Franker has added three new executive-level positions — vice presidents of finance/accounting; communications/marketing and administration/legal, who will be a lawyer. Those will be in addition to a new chief financial officer (CFO), which the county commission had approved immediately after the audits.
But not everyone is comfortable with all the changes, especially given the unknowns with a potential new advertising agency with an unproven track record.
“We’ve known John Underwood and the guys at Tinsley forever, but now we could be working with strangers; it just scares me,” one TDC board member and business owner told the Key Weekly on the condition of anonymity to avoid animosity. “I know things have to change. Those contracts were terrible, they were so old. There’s just a lot going on, and it makes me nervous.”
County commissioner Michelle Lincoln at the Nov. 19 BOCC meeting acknowledged the opposing whisper campaign that has begun to target Franker.
“I just want to let you know that you have my complete support,” Lincoln said. “You came down here and you dove headfirst into the deep end, and now you’re finding there’s sharks in that water. I appreciate what you’re doing.”
