Sarasota News Leader

07/11/2014

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than it needs for debt service on a bond it took out to cover renovations of the facility as well as to pay for stadium maintenance. That board action on July 9 is expected to provide an extra $274,991 for the 2015 fiscal year and at least $443,004 in the 2019 fiscal year, according to projections by the county's Office of Financial Management. Earlier this year, when the commissioners dis- cussed a proposal to shift promotional money away from Visit Sarasota County, the matter drew opposition from community leaders involved in the hospitality industry. However, during the June 19 meeting of the county's Tourist Development Council (TDC), which Patterson chairs, Virginia Haley, president of Visit Sarasota County, told the members her board reluctantly would sup- port a shift of 7.5 percent of the promotional money from one penny of the five-cent TDT. Haley reiterated that point to the County Commission on July 9. Thanks to projections that the TDT revenue will continue to climb, she said, "We should recover [the lost money] easily, and it would give us the ammunition to support what- ever those new [tourist attraction] assets would be." The commission had voted to advertise for the July 9 public hearing a shift of up to 17.5 percent of that single penny's revenue to the tourist attraction fund, but several board Opponents of a shift in county Tourist Development Tax revenue from promotional efforts to a capital investment fund cited the need for extra funds to market new hotels that will be opening in Sarasota, such as the Aloft under construction on Palm Avenue. Photo by Norman Schimmel Sarasota News Leader July 11, 2014 Page 38

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