Money, politics and protocols.
All three are at the heart of a controversial request for tourism dollars to fund a community celebration of Monroe County’s 200th anniversary. (The county was officially incorporated July 2, 1823.)
County Commissioner Craig Cates is championing the county’s request for $150,000 of tourism revenue for a free concert, historical presentation and drone fireworks show at Truman Waterfront on March 25, 2023.
But tourism officials tasked with evaluating funding applications and allocating tourism revenues — collected from tourists to market the Florida Keys as a destination — twice denied the county’s request. So Cates went above the tourism agency and instead asked the county commission on Oct. 19 to approve the $150,000 allocation of tourism revenues for the 200th celebration. The commission was unanimous in its approval.
“We want our residents to have an event they can enjoy (in March) without melting, and for the drone show, we need the sun to be down,” said Kimberly Matthews, the county executive who drafted the application and presented it at the commission meeting.
The timing of the bicentennial celebration and its intended audience posed significant funding problems for the tourism officials, as the March 25 event date occurs during the height of the tourism “season,” when the Keys are not struggling to attract visitors. Such events are not a priority, and evaluators must give those applications a score of 0 in the timing category.
“Events are scored based on when in the calendar year they are held. Shoulder and off-season events receive higher scoring. Additional scoring points are also given for mid-week events,” states the application for event funding.
Additional factors in the scoring of an application include the number of “heads in beds,” or overnight visitors an event will draw, as well as the event’s marketing and business plan.
An application must receive a score of 17 or higher to be considered for funding. Only three of the seven Key West committee members who evaluated the county’s bicentennial application at an Oct. 12 meeting gave the event the minimum required score. The committee ultimately declined to fund the county’s event.
The target audience for the bicentennial event posed another concern for tourism officials, who questioned whether the celebration is for the local community, or a tourist-focused event that will draw visitors.
“Events are scored based on ability to attract out-of-county visitors to the district in which funding is applied,” the grant application states.
Finally, the county’s failure to meet the initial July application deadline for event funding frustrated tourism directors — and Cates, who initially asked officials to forgive the missed deadline and allocate the money anyway.
Instead of violating its grant funding protocols, the Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC) opted to conduct an unprecedented second round of event funding applications, giving the county a second chance to submit its application in October, which it did.
Following the Key West District Advisory Committee’s denial on Oct. 12, the countywide TDC board also denied the county’s funding request at its Oct. 18 meeting.
The denials further frustrated Cates, who told the Keys Weekly he attributed the denials to tourism officials’ “attitude.”
He pointed out that the county commission, on which he sits, has the final say to approve or deny tourism funding allocations.
“I don’t understand why a county advisory board would deny a county application, when we have the final say,” Cates said, adding that the TDC collected more than $70 million in bed tax revenue in the past year. “The Key West District Advisory Committee had more than $870,000 in event funding left over that it didn’t allocate, so it’s not as if we’d be taking money away from another event.”
The Keys Weekly asked Cates why he wouldn’t consider changing the date of the bicentennial celebration to one that would increase its score and thus its eligibility for funding. The legislature officially created Monroe County as the sixth county in the Florida territory on July 2, 2023, but “It’s too hot then for an outdoor event,” Cates said.
The county’s funding application for $150,000 describes the bicentennial event as “a one-day … celebration of the 200th anniversary of Monroe County. It will … include an opening musical artist followed by comments from various county commissioners and dignitaries. The main event will be a narrated visual presentation of the 200-year history of Monroe County and the Florida Keys, interspersed with a musical performance. The evening will end with a drone show.”
The application lists musician Nick Norman as the opening act and Howard Livingston as the headliner.
“Additionally, we will commission challenge coins with the 200th anniversary logo. Each commissioner and the county administrator will receive 100 coins … to give out in the months leading up to the concert to further promote the event,” the county’s application states.
How tourism funding works
The TDC exists to bring visitors to the Florida Keys through advertising, marketing and funding for events and construction projects that enhance the destination for visitors.
Funding for such activities is paid by tourists and collected by hotels — a 4-cent tax is levied on every dollar spent on overnight lodging. A portion of the 4 cents is used to market and advertise the Keys as a whole, while another portion is earmarked for events and projects occurring within the five individual regions in which the tax is collected.
Members of the TDC’s five District Advisory Committees (DACs) in each region of the Keys evaluate annual funding applications for special events and construction projects in that district. The money available to each DAC depends on the amount of bed tax revenue collected in that district.
