Tourist Development Council meeting on 08/20/2025 - Aug 20, 2025

everybody. How's everybody doing on this nice Wednesday morning? All right. Why don't we go around the room, start with some introductions. Clyde, you want to leave us off? Do some introductions. Clyde Smith, Bill Maher Beach Resort, Treasure Island. Good morning. Trish Rodriguez, the Trump Export Tourist in the Clearwater Perry. Good morning. Captain Dylan Hubbard, Hubbard's Marina. Good morning. Copley Gerdes, City Council, City of St. Petersburg. Good morning. Amanda Coffey, Managing Assistant, County Attorney. Ryan Scott, Pinellas County Commission. Ryan Loak, Visit St. Pete, Clearwater. Russ Kimball, Sheraton, St. Key, Clearwater Beach. Dave Eggers, Pinellas County Commission. Bruce Rector, Mayor of the City of Clearwater. Katie Gannon, Mayor of the City of Oldsmar. Doreen Moore, Travel Resort Services, TRS Vacation Rentals throughout the beaches. Good morning. Welcome, everybody. Thank you for joining us this morning. So I feel like it's been a long time since I've seen this group, because it has been. We didn't have a meeting in July, and then in June I was traveling. So I want to thank Russ for handling the meeting in June, and since we've last been together, I had the opportunity to join Brian and his team in Chicago for IPW. That was a really great show. I was super impressed with the staff. They did a great job. Brian and your team just did wonderful. They had appointments lined up for the entire, what, four days of the show. Got an opportunity to sit on many of those appointments myself. Very, very productive, and also had a chance to visit with Jason in the media room. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to do that or not, but all of these great news stories that you see about our destination don't just happen. They work them. And Jason knows how to work that crowd and work that room very, very effectively. So it was a very, very productive show and great opportunity to join the team with that. So, you know, since then there's been a little bit of a tourism slump, as I'm sure that you've all have been feeling. And my business has been feeling that a little bit as well, even looking out into next year, one of our tour operators that we've worked with for many, many years, under the brand name of Globus and Cosmos, they've got two over-the-road tour series that either end in Florida or are completely within the state of Florida. And they've decided to hit the pause button on those for 2026. So anyway, it's a topic for future discussion to see what we can do to help turn that situation around. And, you know, in terms of just updates on baseball, there's been discussions ongoing with the Phillies and there'll probably be something to bring forward to this group here, I would think, in the next couple of months. And as far as the Rays are concerned, you know, nothing really to report there. You see the news reports just like we all do. You know, there's obviously a sale going on and a lot of talk about that they would rather be in Hillsborough rather than Pinellas County. At the end of the day, we'll see where all that shakes out. There's a lot of headwinds, I think, for that to occur over there. And I've not had any discussions with any of the new owners. I'm not aware that anybody on our side has had. I don't know if Copley's got anything to add in that regard. But so just kind of in wait and see mode on that. So with that, we will move on to our first action item, which is approval of the June 25th minutes. Do I have a motion to approve? Okay. Motion by Copley. Second. Second. Second by Dillon. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Passed unanimously. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to public comment. Do we have any members of the public that would like to speak? Don't all rush. All right. So we'll move on to public comment, uh, to presentations. All right. Beach Nurseman. Good morning, Kelly. Sorry, literally while I was sitting there, the contractor was sending out an email and I was taking notes so that I could have the absolute latest and greatest. So, uh, Kelly Hammer-Levy, public works director for the county. And I'm here to talk about the, uh, long awaited, uh, beach nourishment project that we're getting ready to kick off. And just a little overview of our, of our program. I mean, the county has 35 miles of white sandy beaches. 12 of those miles are regularly restored, um, typically through our partnership with the Army Corps, but this go around it as being wholly done by Pinellas County. Um, the storm damage reduction benefits from this project are in excess of $10 billion. And, uh, if you ever see this question on Jeopardy, you will know the answer. Uh, the federal authorization that was, uh, Congress authorized this project in 1966 and the very first project in Florida was Treasure Island. So remember that. Um, as I mentioned, this was, uh, a partnership with the Corps and the, the benefit to that, as you can see in the pie charts, uh, you know, 65% of the costs were federal. And then we typically would split the remainder of the cost, uh, with the state of Florida through their beach grant program. Um, without that funding, uh, the county is, is funding about, or the tourist development taxes are funding about 89% of that. And then we have 11% in grants. Um, we are continuing to work with the Army Corps. We're not done. We haven't closed that book and there's a lot of efforts going on there and we will continue to work towards the policy changes that would be necessary to ensure that our project is Corps compliant in the future. Um, the board of county commissioners authorized a one-time emergency nourishment project for Sankey, Treasure Island, and Upham. You'll recall that Pasegra was completed, uh, last year, um, just right before Helene. Uh, so that, that beach, uh, is, is done, but due to the exorbitant cost, um, of this project that, you know, continuing to do this on our own is just not sustainable. So we really need the Corps. We really need our partner back. And that's why we were going to continue those efforts. Again, the tourist development tax is funding the majority of this project and the other grant, the state grants, we've received almost 10.4 million for Sankey. Um, that was actually from damages from Idalia, um, Department of Emergency Management funding. And then we have a little over, uh, 3.8 million from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for Treasure Island and Upham. Um, the heartburn, we're missing out on $103 million in federal emergency funds, um, because of the easement issue. Um, it's still in the bank. Um, it's still assigned to our beaches, but we have to be compliant to use it. Kelly. Yes. Is that FEMA funds or U.S. Army Corps? Um, Army Corps. Yeah. So what we've been asking the community for is a temporary construction easement, and this only applies in Sankey. Uh, we do not need any easements in Upham Beach, Sunset Beach, um, or Sunshine for this project to go forward. Um, there's no public access and use in these easements. It's essentially to construct a beach and an optional dune if the property owner wants, wants the dune. Uh, we have two different easements. The project is designed with gaps right now. Um, which I'll explain in a little bit. Um, it is a temporary construction easement that goes to the end of 2029. Um, we've got a lot of questions as to, well, why can't it just be a year? Well, our permits, our state permits require us to do monitoring, beach tilling, a lot of different things that we have to do to ensure that the, the project was constructed correctly and that it's maintained to its design and that those monitoring requirements go out to that timeframe. So we really, we had to keep that time timeline in, in place where we, where residents did not provide easements. They will still be impacted by pipelines that'll cross in front of their property west of the erosion control line. Um, right now the plan is to fill, um, from the erosion control line to the gulf west. Um, so they may end up having a dip, um, on the private part of their property. So that beach will be lower than the beach that we're constructing. Um, the, there will still be an active construction zone. It'll be closed off for periods of time, short periods of time with the orange construction fencing. Um, and then of course, you know, without easements, you know, we, we can't have future projects and that's our, our biggest hurdle. So where are we missing? We're still, um, missing 48 in Indian rocks, 47 in Indian shores, and 30 in, uh, Reddington shores. Those are our three communities with the largest gaps. We have, um, done every Hail Mary that we can think of to reach folks, to talk with them, to see what the impasse is. Um, some of them are, uh, understandably we can't get past it. There, there are some legal issues going out on the beach. Um, there are parcel property owners that clear their short-term rentals and we can't, the, the folks do not respond even to certified first class mail and they've signed for it. We know they've signed for it, but they're not responding. Um, so, and some have just flat out told us, no, they, they're not, they're never going to provide an easement, not a temporary one, not a permanent one. They're just not. Obviously this is a concern because missing easements create, creates a weak point. It's like a chain and anywhere there's a break in the chain, that area is weaker. Um, so it's not ideal, but we're going to make the, we're going to fill as much of this project template as we can. So another, some of the concern that we've had is, is that the, the sand washover event from Helene, um, that everybody's like, well, I don't want that sand that close to me anymore. You know, it was all over my property. Um, and so what we've been talking to folks about is the Adalia emergency dune. Uh, we, if you remember, we trucked in sand. Um, we were not, we were not allowed to dredge. We were not allowed to place sand below the mean high waterline. Everything had to be landward of the mean high waterline. And really what we were trying to do is create a wave break, um, to protect the upland property owners. Obviously three storms, um, right after Adalia didn't help and, and created a challenge. What we're doing here is essentially the same thing that we've done for decades is we are constructing the army course project. It's a full nourishment. It includes the wide beach, um, that pushes the wave action much further away. So the dune is, um, you know, closer to what it was like in 2018. If folks are, if they can, if they've been here to that extent and they can remember, yeah, 2018, the beach was really wide and the dune was, was small in comparison. Um, but because we didn't have the beach burn, because we didn't have that wide beach, um, you know, the dune looked tremendously large. So starting at San Key, um, again, this segment is nine miles long. It starts up in Clearwater around, um, the Crescent Beach Club, um, and goes to North, a portion of North Reddington Beach, excluding Bel Air Shore. And if you're looking at the picture, the, the light tan color, that is dry sand. And then the brown color is wet sand. So we do fill below the mean high waterline. It's part of the design. Um, it creates a kind of a under, underwater wave break. Um, and that's, that's, again, we are basically building the Army Corps project. So it is exactly what was out there before. This is one of the largest, if not the largest project ever constructed on San Key with over 2 million cubic yards of sand being placed on this beach. It'll be done in six months. It's required to be done in six months. Our Army, our emergency permit from the Corps expires March 6th. And again, as I mentioned, we're still missing 125 temporary construction easements. Um, so this is kind of, uh, the profile of, of the San Key project. Um, you know, if, if folks are still considering an easement, we're still accepting them. We will accept them as long as we can. Um, the dune will be three feet above the beach profile. Um, it's lower than what was constructed after Adalia. And we will plant those areas. Your access point, if historically there were dunes there, your access point will be in the same area. Um, very gentle slope, um, to just walk up and over. It's, it's not, not the big Adalia dune that folks saw before. And so some before and afters, I think these are the, the hit home. Um, it's like, you know, you visually have to see it. So September 2024 after Helene, um, and then 2018 right after the nourishment. And that's the 2025 project. This is what it will look like when we're done. Um, this is an example on, on San Key, what it would look like if, um, if the folks didn't provide an easement, that beach profile is going to be constructed to an elevation of 5.3 feet. That doesn't mean 5.3 feet above the ground. It's an elevation of, so it's a surveyed in elevation of 5.3 feet. Um, if the area behind that in, on your private property is lower than that, um, then you're going to have like a gully and yes, water will accumulate back there. Um, but this is, this is, you know, what we've been communicating to folks is we don't want this to happen. Um, you don't need to have a dune if you don't want it. Just let us fill to the fill template like has been historically done, but, um, unfortunately we're just, we weren't able to get there. So there will be areas that may look like this. On Treasure Island, uh, this project is 1.6 miles and includes Sunshine Beach at the north end and Sunset Beach at the south end. We're looking at about 400,000 cubic yards of sand. And again, this one is going to take about six months to complete. Again, with the light sand being the, the, uh, sand above the mean high water and then that darker tan color, brown color being below the mean high water line. And then this is, uh, an example of Sunshine Beach, um, after Helene and then again after the 2018 nourishment. And so these results will be similar. So you see how nice and wide and high that beach is. Looking at Sunset Beach, um, the north and south half of the nourishment, same, same concept. So you've got the dry beach and then you've got the wet beach, um, kind of what is exposed going from low tide where the rack line is basically where you see seaweed, um, and then below the water line. And again, this is an example at Sunset Beach at 82nd Avenue. And, um, after Helene, uh, there were some king piles exposed that we didn't even know existed. Um, and the wood was still in place, which was even more interesting that it hadn't rotted away. Um, and then there's 2018 after the nourishment. And so again, that profile will look, look the same. Treasure Island Dune, um, is going to be five feet above the beach profile. It's a little larger. Again, we want to give Treasure Island, especially Sunset Beach, a little bit more protection. Um, it is, it's our most erosive beach, um, typically requires, um, nourishment somewhere between four and six years because of its highly erosive nature. So we're putting a little bit more sand out there to give them a little bit, um, more protection. And the same thing that we will plant it out like we did before, um, with the access points. And then Upham, this is our shortest segment, uh, just, uh, almost 1930 feet long, 66,000 cubic feet of sand. It's probably going to take less than a month to complete. Um, and again, the same general, the dry sand versus the wet sand. And again, Pasegro was completed before Helene. Hey, Kelly. Yes. On that last slide there, just curious, there's that kind of notch or cut out there in the wet sand area. There's any particular reason for that? It's, uh, there's a borrow like area there. It's deep. And we have the, um, the rock groins, uh, you can see one of them right there. And actually the next picture shows it better. Um, so the 2024 after Helene pictures, they're just kind of inset on the left. Um, and then in 2018, before we nourished, um, with the groins and then after, so we bury them, then we fully bury them. Again, this is, um, if you remember Upham before we had the groins out there, um, this beach required nourishment every three years. We installed temporary groins. Um, they were like geotubes, uh, for a period of time, had to monitor them for almost 20 years, uh, to determine whether they would work and not cause any harm to a downstream beach, which they, they did work. Um, we had five temporary groins out there. Um, we installed four permanent groins after, after studying them for such an extended period of time. And they have done a great job. And now the nourishment cycle on this beach matches pretty much the rest of the, of the beaches up there, which is around six years. So the contractor who was awarded this project is Weeks Marine. Um, they are a very large, um, dredging company. They do beach renourishment all over the state of Florida. They have nourished our beaches in the past. So they're familiar with our, our area. This is not new for them. Um, they're bringing in a lot of equipment. I'm not going to go through it. It's huge. When you see it out there, it looks like a floating little city. Um, but essentially, um, for, uh, for the Sankey portion, and I'll go over this, they, they have, the sand is actually coming from Egmont Shoal, which is down off of, um, the, the channel, the ports of Tampa Bay's channel, the federal channel there. And, um, we have to dredge that sand and bring it all the way up 30 something miles to Sankey. So it's a long haul. Um, the subcontractor is Gator Dredging. They actually did Paso Grill Beach. So we're going to be doing both, both North and South at the same time. It's the only way to meet the schedule. So Weeks Marine will be, um, handling Sankey. Gator Dredging will be handling the South beaches. And then a portion of, of Sunset, uh, Weeks will come in and polish it off. And that's what this is. So these are our, our sand sources. Um, you can see over there in the bottom right corner here. Um, that is the Egmont Shoal Borrow Area. It's actually owned by the Port of Tampa. And we have an agreement to take that sand. Um, and then we have, um, the Paso Grill, um, Shoal and the dredge area, which we used for Paso Grill Beach. And then we have Blind Pass and we have John's Pash Borrow Areas in the, in the main channel. Um, so what's going to happen is Gator Dredging is going to start here in Blinds Pass and they're going to put sand on Upham Beach. And then when they're done filling that beach segment, they'll come up and they'll start filling Sunset Beach. Then they will move up to John's Pass and they will start dredging here. They will fill Sunshine and they will take the remaining of the sand and they will fill, um, the, uh, Sunset Beach. There is not enough sand in either John's Pass or Blind Pass or combined to fill Treasure Island. So we need more sand. So Weeks will come in at the end and finish that off. All right. So on this schedule, um, this is a 24 seven operation. All right. So, uh, there is no day off. Um, I have there starting on sand key to be determined and the to be determined is August 22nd. We will start bringing the dredge pipe on shore, um, at 197th Avenue, which is around Tiki Gardens. Um, land equipment will actually be brought in from Tiki. And then, um, starting tomorrow, water assets will be showing up at sand key park. So if you're out on the water, you may see some very large equipment starting to, um, they're going to be there on the, on the side where one of the maintenance areas is. Um, and then land, land based equipment that'll be used for beach filling will also be mobilizing to sand key park. So you may see be some, seeing some large trailers, very large equipment coming in and that's what it's for. Um, this has been very challenging to get a schedule, especially for sand key. Uh, there are 404 nests, um, between sand key and Treasure Island, most of them being on sand key and there's still 130 that are active. And, um, we keep hoping every morning that more of them have hatched. And, uh, unfortunately the little, little buggers aren't, aren't doing us a favor. So we've, we've, uh, been denied multiple times to start. So, so I, I didn't want to promise until I was absolutely sure because I've promised and then had to pull it back and then promised and had to pull it back and it was getting a little frustrating. So, but in two days, they're going to start the sand, bringing the pipe online, um, in Indian shores. So good news there. Um, on the south end, uh, Gator will start, um, on Upham Beach after Labor Day. So we're going to skip the holiday. They'll be starting on the 15th. Um, and again, as I mentioned, the sand source there is Blind Pass and they'll start on Upham and then move to South Sunset. And then from October, it's, again, this is tentative. So starting around the mid-October timeframe, they will move up to Johns Pass and start Sunshine, um, Sunshine Beach. So those two, um, you know, Upham, like I said, barely a month. And then Sunshine and Sunset is, is basically two months, um, with the polish off at the very end. Um, we will have the schedule posted at Pinellas.gov slash sign for sand. Um, and I'm going to reach it until I can't sign for sand at Pinellas.gov is the email. If you want to reconsider an easement, if you're listening to this meeting, um, please do that. Once the contractor has gotten to your segment, they've laid out the area, they've surveyed it in, it's too late. So, um, that's going to be my greatest fear is that we get somewhere and somebody comes out and says, wait, wait, wait, me. I, I, unfortunately it'll, it'll probably be too late at that point. And that is my update. Great presentation, Kelly. Thank you. Questions? Go ahead. On Treasure Island, um, Kelly, when they're going from Johns Pass to Sunset, will that mean the pipe is all the way along Treasure Island Beach? Um, no, they will, we're not allowed to do that. So they'll be out and they'll come back, come back in. So we have, um, what's called pipeline corridors. And these are the same pipeline corridors that were used for the Army Corps project. Um, we didn't move, um, any of those because the permitting to, to, for new pipeline corridors is very extensive and we didn't have the time for that. Okay. Thank you. Uh, so, uh, one question I had is the, the diagrams, the dry sand placement obviously makes sense. Just put the sand up there, but the wet sand placement, how is that done? Um, it's, it's see if I got, I think there's a picture there that kind of shows it. So what you're going to see out there is they create like a big, um, diked, um, settlement area. You're going to see these massive pipes and that picture doesn't do it justice. Um, I was going to say it's, uh, when I stand next to it, it's about up to here, but I don't think that helps you all either. So it's either at least 60 inch pipes, if not bigger. Um, so they, they, they bring in what's it called, it's a sand and water slurry. So they have to mix the sand with water otherwise. And when they're pumping it on shore, they pump it into one of these areas and then there's earth moving equipment. You can kind of see it over there in the, in the lower left of the picture. And it moves the sand around while the water decants off and the decant water goes back into the Gulf. Um, then they take that sand and they start typically towards the, um, the dune area or the erosion control line. If we don't have an easement and they start filling and they go all the way out. And then when they get towards the water, it's going to start to slope out and go under. And that's, that's what you're going to see. Um, and the reason why is, you know, that's where, you know, where waves break and we want, that's what, that's what we call the sacrificial beach. That's what we want to happen. We want the dry beach to, to stay as long as we can. So we put essentially more sand out there. It's to be sacrificed for the greater project. Okay. So what I, what I was, uh, so essentially you, you take from the dry land and you push out to the wetland. It's not like they're pumping the slurry into that wet area. No. Okay. We only, that decreases turbidity. Yeah. As a matter of fact, we have an extent, we have extensive turbidity monitoring requirements. Beautiful. We have extensive sea turtle monitoring requirements. Um, if we get any new nests, we have to relocate them. We have, um, Bruno is our, is our, um, is our relocator for the whole project. He, uh, thank him very much, um, for, uh, taking that on. And, uh, we also have to do extensive seabird, uh, monitoring, uh, for any of the sea, seabirds that are, are nesting out there as well. So it's, we have a lot. Do they use turbidity fences or is it just monitoring? And if turbidity gets too high, the project has to shut down. They have turbidity booms out there. If the turbid water gets beyond the boom, then yeah, they have to shut down. Thank you. Uh, Dylan, thank you for those questions. That was great. Um, so you, you mentioned that, um, on up on beach, we did the long-term work with the, um, temporary groins and then we put in permanent ones and it said it worked. It made it last longer. Have we done that in other areas? I mean, I know we've had this discussion before, but, um, they don't work everywhere or is it just certain spots? Yeah, they, they don't work everywhere. Um, they're, they're most effective at highly erosional beaches where longshore transport is not compromised. Um, that's, so the widest beach that we're going to build is up in Clearwater, Bel Air Beach, right? That northern segment will be, I think, close to 200 feet wide when we're done constructing it. And then the beach starts to get a little narrower as we get down to North Reddington Beach. And the reason for that is because we've got that sacrificial sand and it moves. The waves come in, takes out some of the sand, takes it south, pushes it in. And so each beach down the line benefits from the beach north of it, longshore transport. Well, on the, um, on up, on this beach, on up them, there's a, there's a jetty there, a groin, and that, that is preventing the longshore transport from occurring. So because of that, we are actually, we actually have, there's that, we actually have to nourish up them because otherwise it would just disappear because it's, it's not getting that longshore transport. And on Sand Key land, uh, longshore transport is critical, uh, to the beach's performance and to this design's performance. So, um, you know, we've had it looked at multiple times and no one recommends, you know, structures on Sand Key. It's, it's, uh, it would really interfere, um, with the performance of that beach and, and we, the ROI wasn't there. Um, but this one still was to, we had to demonstrate that there would be no adverse impact to any of the beaches south or north of Upham before they would even allow us to put those in. The only other place that we put them here locally is on North Beach up in Honeymoon Island. And we oversaw that project for DEP, um, uh, when, when those were installed, we acted as their kind of contracted project management team. Mr. Chairman. Yeah. I appreciate your report, Kelly. Uh, just, uh, if you, if you could help me clarify for my citizens, my taxpayers, because they see news stories, 125 million to renourish the beaches. And they think you're going to go all the way up to, uh, Cardwell and you're not, uh, when we, um, when we say clear water, we say Sand Key because that's part of the Sand Key segment, which was, is, you know, a broader area, but, uh, just, just to, to set the expectations for my, my folks in Clearwater have been asking me questions when we're going to come repair the dunes in front of my, um, my home on, on North Beach. Um, the Sand Key segment for this really is a small part of Clearwater and Sand Key. It's, it's, uh, when you say Crescent Beach Club, which most folks in this room don't know which building that is. Most folks in my city don't even affect the folks on Sand Key. Probably don't know which one that is. Across from the Columbia. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, well, it's seven. I love it. It's seven properties south of the Sheridan Sand Key. So it's, it's, uh, it's really a small part of Clearwater that, uh, that's being affected by, impacted by this renourishment. Yeah. The, um, there's a, you know, I talk about longshore transport moving north to south, but there's a, the reason why, um, the area behind the Hilton there and behind the park is so wide is because in that direction, the circulation changes and the sand travels to the north. Um, so it's, it's coastal management's complex. Um, so understanding that is, is, uh, in the highly erosional part is, is Dan's Island. They happen to be right in that zone of change of north to south and south to north. And so they, they have a lot of sand loss there. Thank you. Now on the, the complexities of, uh, coastal management and longshore transport, John's pass, uh, as a, uh, system, uh, obviously we've talked in the past about, uh, some of the, uh, transport into the pass, but recently, uh, due to damages on the south jetty of John's pass, that tip has been damaged. So it's shortened that south jetty, which seemingly has helped the longshore transport make it, uh, in my uneducated opinion to Treasure Island, but also, yeah, but also it, it, uh, it looks like it. Thank you. I'm, I'm glad I'm not crazy. Uh, but it's also increased the ebb jet in John's pass. We've seen a stronger outbound flow to the water and kind of restored what was damaged with that lengthening of that south jetty. Has there been any conversations about restoring it? Cause I'm hoping it won't be. Um, we, we have done an engineering, um, we had some structural engineers come out and look at it and they're developing a report on recommended actions. So, um, I thank you very much for that feedback. I will take that back as well, but yeah, after, um, after these storms, um, there's been a lot of damage to all the structures, um, at those inlets. And so we're, we're, we have to take a look at all of them and see what we need to do to get those repaired. Um, but that's very good feedback and I will make sure that, you know, if they haven't looked at that, they do. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, I'll just back up what captain Hubbard is saying. I don't go out that pass as often as he does, but, uh, I go out, out it often enough to know that you certainly see the tide change on the shortened pass there and the sand move because, uh, you probably don't do it in your boats because they're bigger than mine, but, um, you wouldn't be able to pass close off of that pier. Now you can because the sand is gone and it's moved to the beach and the beach is wider just off the pass. So I would totally agree with what he's saying. And I think even from a non-trained eye, uh, you can see that, that it's helped, um, down from John's past. So I just, I just wanted to echo it and I really appreciate you bringing that up. Thanks chair. This is, I'm, I'm looking at Dylan because it, there may be a correlation and may not where it are. Is there any impact of what they're doing for the dredging? Where is the dredging in John's? Where does that stand? I know that permits and all of the things that have been pending for so long can, is that something that you're working together or? So the dredging in John's past, uh, there's obviously two projects going on. So what, uh, Ms. Hammer's talking about is completely separate. What, what, uh, is going on inside the pass is, uh, along the county and, um, it's hard to say it, I guess, along the North jetty of John's past to the private property, uh, that sand accretion or buildup inside the pass. Uh, that money was allocated in September of 2022. The permit was applied for in July of 24 and, uh, they're still working through the permit process. It's, it, it's literally a less than a two week project, but we're going on almost three years of waiting for, uh, approvals. Just give the county the sand. Yeah, I would, I would, there's plenty of sand there to take. Yeah. We'd love to give it to somebody. It's a shame that the, that the entities, you know, that they can't coordinate that. It is, it is. And, uh, that the county obviously does a very good job at what they do. And, and this, the idea was, oh, we'll give it to the city because it can drive the bus a little quicker and be a little bit more nimble, but obviously that has not proven to be true. Thank you. Unfortunately. So Dylan, this, um, this project doesn't help your situation at all. No, unfortunately it does not because army core project construction is what they're, they're using to base this project on and army core historically has never gone within a certain distance from, uh, hard structures and the sand accretion there is right up underneath the bridge, right up against the sea walls. So army core construction would never allow for it. So this project would be difficult to work that sand into the project as a borrow area, because that, as she mentioned before, the, the pipeline corridors, uh, are already permitted and you can't redo them. And that has never been a corridor, but I'm sure she could speak more literate to it. Yeah. The, I mean the, how we were able to, to Dylan's point, army core permitting is not for the weak of part. Um, it takes years, um, on a good day. And we kind of threw a hail Mary after Helene when the army core opened up their emergency permitting portal. And, um, these are not the types of projects that are typically done in an emergency. We're talking about streams where the bank is eroded and we need to go in there and fix it. That's the type of thing or a pipe replacement, a culvert replacement, a small bridge, something like that. That's what they're used to seeing. Um, so when we submitted this project, the, we got a phone call almost immediately, like, because they're required to issue emergency permits within 48 hours and there was no way they could do that. But they understood, they said, we agree with you. This is an emergency. We want to work with you. So if you'll work with us, give us more time. We'll, we'll help you get over the finish line. And we had a permit in hand within four months. That doesn't happen to Dylan's point. It doesn't. Um, and part, the other part of it is, yes, we applied under an emergency provision, but we were also not deviating from the army course project. No deviations. If we try, if we deviated, they were like, then you're going into the normal permitting process and we're going to be here for a long time. So we stuck with what the core had done in the past. And because of that, we were able to move forward a lot quicker. So Dylan, when that project does finally get, where's that sand going to go? Any idea on that? That sand, the, uh, project design was to move that sand accretion back onto Madeira beach. Madeira beach has never historically, to my knowledge, received renourishment in the army corps previous plans because it's never needed it, um, because of those, um, hard structures along the groins along Madeira beach. But the south end of Madeira beach received a lot of erosion from Helene and really a dahlia had started and multiple storms. So the sand accretion is going to be pumped, uh, via pipe, uh, to a slurry area at the south end of Madeira beach. And then once dried, uh, moved to replace the dunes along the south end of Madeira beach is my understanding. That that's what we back multiple years ago, uh, we talked about, and I did talk to DEP about that because there's no erosion control line set on Madeira beach. It's not, it can't be nourished. Um, but DEP did say that for a project like this, they could allow for a one-time placement of the sand back into that dune area. So I don't know what they felt, what the final plan ended up being, but that was the discussion. I, I am not clear either. Unfortunately, I've been kind of locked out of it, but hopefully it comes soon. Any other questions? Uh, question Kelly. Um, great presentation. Uh, thank you. Uh, and that is, uh, uh, Sand Key Park will be used as a staging area for equipment and trailers and stuff like that. Our experience from, uh, uh, uh, when we had the last hurricane, they probably, they used it for sand storage and all that. They closed the park down completely for a period of time. Will they just be using a certain part of the park and keep the park open? Yeah, the park will be fully open. Thank you. I appreciate that. Second thing is, uh, Mr. Chairman, and I don't know what the answer is I'm just throwing it out as an interest for industry that collects this tax. We're putting up $126 million and the wisdom of the board of County commission oversaw to use this money for that, which is the right thing. But it's a one time right now with a core. Is this where we should be saying more about the use of resort tax money as being used to preserve all the beaches of, of Pinellas County, or we shouldn't be saying it right down there in this time in order to try and move forward on easements and everything. I don't know what the answer is, but this could be an opportunity to say, this is where tax resort tax money is being used, uh, for everybody. And it's not just the tourist. It's not just the hotel. It's everything in between two almost. I don't know what the answer, but that could be something we gotta keep on our list. Uh, that's good. That's a good point. Cause it, it does, I mean, nursing the beaches benefits, benefits everybody. I mean, it's not only protects our economy, it protects property and, you know, locals go to the beach. We have to have a beach. All the rest of it. And local, uh, municipalities along the beaches are not paying for it either. The resort tax money that's collected within their, uh, town is what's paying for it. Right. Thank you, Kelly. Great presentation. All right. Uh, so now we will move on to destination metrics. Morning, Eddie. Good morning and good to see everyone. I've missed you guys and looking forward to presenting some of this data. Okay. Uh, so to start out, uh, the TDT collections in June of 2025 was just shy of seven and a half million dollars. Uh, this was a little bit irregular from the previous, uh, few fiscal years for June. Uh, ultimately it was down about, uh, 12.22%. Um, digging into that a little bit further, as we look at the local option report, um, we can kind of see the usual pattern that we've been seeing for a lot of this, uh, fiscal year so far, where, uh, the majority of, uh, the shortfall is coming from kind of the vacation rentals and some of our, uh, lower areas of, of Pinellas County and St. Pete Beach and a little bit of the, uh, Madera and Treasure Island areas as well. Uh, we've actually seen, um, some increases elsewhere in Pinellas County in particular in St. Pete and Clearwater. Um, and notably, you know, as we sort of think about what's going on in these areas, I think that there is, you know, you can attribute some of this to, um, some new hotel openings, um, some great new restaurants, some renovations in these different areas. And that is, you know, kind of shifting some of the, um, profile of these areas and, and increasing the, the demand year over year. Whereas, um, and, uh, the vacation rental side, we are still down double digits in terms of supply as well as in St. Pete Beach. We are, um, not quite there yet, even though, you know, most of our hotel supply in Pinellas County is back up. St. Pete Beach is, is still down quite a bit. And overall, we, we are down still about, uh, 1200 rooms compared to, uh, the previous year. And that's countywide, not just in Pinellas or not just in St. Pete Beach. Um, so as we look at the, uh, fiscal year, kind of at a glance where we are and where we're pacing, uh, we are, uh, about 74.3 million in gross collections year to date. Uh, this is about 5%, um, below last year. And you can kind of see on the screen graph. The yellow line is, uh, the 2025 gross collections. The blue line is last year's, so that's 2024. Um, you can see that mostly we've, we've kind of been going back and forth, at least for the first, uh, part of the year. Um, and then the blue line there, or maybe a teal line is the average of the past few years. So, you know, generally we, we remained above that, uh, average for, uh, kind of the first half of this fiscal year. And then, um, kind of as, you know, demand, and we'll get into this a little bit later, but has slowed for really, you know, a lot of Florida. Um, we, we've also seen, you know, our collections get closer to that, you know, average line. And then obviously in June, it did dip a little bit below, uh, what we've seen as the average. This is, um, feeder market data. And we, uh, get it from Amadeus, uh, and through key data. Generally, we look at this mostly for our marketing purposes. Um, it is more directional than it is, um, absolute. So I don't really necessarily encourage you to look at these specific numbers here, but this does really kind of tell us where the change is coming from. And this, um, table right here reflects the calendar year to date. Um, overall, we've seen, you know, some, um, positives in terms of our regional markets. And then some of the major metropolitan areas from a domestic picture, um, where, where you have seen some fewer guests from this, this data source. And I really do want to stress here, this is a look at some of our international markets, which is a, you know, small minority of, of visitation to our area. And this sample in particular is, is very small. So please, you know, don't necessarily think that these metrics are the end all be all, but this does really kind of tell us maybe the overall pattern of some of this international visitation, which we have seen, you know, down, um, pretty much across the board, but we've also seen the length of stay for those that do arrive. Um, they tend to stay a little bit longer. Um, they're getting a little bit more of a value this year relative to last year. And then from a vacation rental side of things, it's a little bit more of a mixed bag where we've actually seen some, um, places where we've had a little bit more visitation, um, staying in those longer stays. And we have seen this pattern towards a little bit of a longer length of stay from our international guests. Um, looking at just the month of June, uh, you know, again, we've kind of seen a similar pattern to the calendar year where we've seen some of our domestic markets, um, shorten a little bit. We also have seen more, uh, travel to our destination from the state of Florida, which is positive news. And overall we, we did see, you know, more check-ins, but a shorter length of stay. So, um, we have, you know, a little bit of mixed data there, but we, you know, overall people are still coming. They're still enthusiastic about coming, but they're trying to, uh, make it work for their budget perhaps. Any quick question. What do you think is driving Mexico so much? Oh, well, new air service. I mean, that, that's, that's the biggest factor. Um, you know, and we've seen, we've seen this elsewhere too, where if we have new air service come here, um, it has really helped our visitation. So that, that's been a big benefit to, to that Mexico market in particular. I'm surprised that Brazil's not on here. Yeah. You know, and again, this, this is a, this is a complicated data source. So this is direct, um, data from our partners. Um, it, it might not necessarily reflect like travel being booked by tour operators, um, or, you know, uh, other forms of travel. And I, I think from an international standpoint, um, some of that South American travel is a bit more complicated than, than necessarily just booking direct and arriving in our destination, which would be more of what would be showing in this data set. Um, so just looking at kind of the hotel performance in our vacation, uh, rental performance at a glance, um, I want to draw attention to really more of the supply demand and revenue side of things here. And, and you can still see that, um, just kind of jumping down to our vacation rentals, we're still down double digits in supply, uh, double digits in demand. You know, things are moving in a positive direction, but it's, it's worth noting that, um, you know, this is a significant part of, um, our TDT collections and we're still in a recovery space for this, uh, area. Um, on the hotel side, um, you know, we are still down a little bit in supply as kind of noted previously. Um, and, you know, as we've said before, the, the demand has been a little bit down this month, but overall from the, um, fiscal year, we have, uh, still had higher demand than last year on the hotel side of things, uh, and a little bit higher revenue. And, uh, this is kind of looking at the state of Florida at a glance. Um, I arranged things at the top. You can see the state of Florida overall. You can kind of see the communities closest to us, Hillsborough, Sarasota, Braddington, Fort Myers, Naples, as kind of grouped into that Southwest Gulf region, Orlando, um, and then the Southeast or maybe Southern Florida as kind of the areas, uh, around, uh, Miami. And overall, what you can tell from this supply is that we were really, the destination hit hardest, um, in the state of Florida by the, by the hurricanes. And, um, as, as we've tried to improve that, it has been something that has been, um, showing up, you know, in, in our data as, as we recover. Um, the other side of things too, is that we have, um, some destinations that have definitely had some new hotel supplies, some, some demand increase. Certainly Fort Myers in Naples recovering from hurricane, uh, Adelia. Now that they have kind of come back on the market, you can see that their supply has really grown. Um, Sarasota has also had some new hotel properties. Sarasota, Braddington has had some new hotel properties open up as well. Um, other things that are kind of reflected Palm Beach County, you know, Florida Keys have also had a little bit of supply growth, uh, from their perspective. Um, and this is not shown here, but, you know, there's, there's other things that have opened up recently, um, such as Epic Universe in Orlando, which I think as we look at more of the demand side of things, um, we, we can see some patterns that correlate to the supply. So, um, overall, you can kind of see the first five months in the state of Florida, um, demand was pretty great statewide. And that's reflected in, in, you know, most of the destinations kind of in this data set. Um, then starting in March, you know, demand started to soften, um, and it wasn't just us, uh, it was, you know, elsewhere. Now we obviously were impacted by the storms more so that, um, you know, ultimately impacted the demand in the past few months, perhaps to a greater extent, um, than some of the other destinations. But again, you can kind of see where supply has increased, such as Fort Myers, um, that demand has also increased. Um, you know, Epic Universe having opened up this spring, we have seen demand kind of grow in, uh, Orlando in that area. Um, elsewhere in the state, Florida Keys has had some new flight service, um, coming in. So, you know, that has allowed, um, more people to, uh, go vacation there. So there's some different factors there, which, um, kind of has a mixed picture, but overall in the state of Florida, uh, we have had this kind of softened demand from, um, spring and, and the start of summer. Um, and, you know, we, we looked around and tried to grab some industry insights and, and grabbed, you know, a little bit more of a perspective here. Uh, and, you know, there, there's been a lot of commentary about, um, some hotel softening, uh, domestically, um, some alternative, uh, forms of travel really popping up, um, especially in the summer. And, you know, the cruise industry is one, for example, that's expected to break records this year. Um, you know, people remain eager to travel, but obviously they're becoming budget conscious and there, uh, perhaps is a little bit of a growing gap between some of the luxury travel and some of the budget travel. Um, and, you know, across these, it does kind of correlate, even though we have seen, uh, more, uh, hotel or I'm sorry, uh, more airport travel into our destination. Um, you know, there's been notes where the other forms of travel, such as cruises and, and, um, uh, some of these, you know, camping and things like that could have, uh, you know, passenger screenings up while still hotel demand being quite soft. So just to kind of recap, you know, we do see these as our headwinds, um, you know, the new supply, the new, um, you know, products from Fort Myers and Sarasota kind of growing our regional hotel competition. Uh, obviously Epic Universe in Orlando is, is another factor that might be drawing, uh, people that would otherwise visit us to visit, uh, that location, you know, some different flight routes, some cruise bookings, um, and consumers generally just becoming a little bit more budget conscious in their decision to travel. So some of the things that we have done or are currently doing and, and, you know, the, um, near future has been really leveraging, um, and focusing people on the fact that we have amazing beaches. We will continue to have amazing beaches. Um, and, you know, we're using National Beach Day, for example, uh, with an Allegiant Airlines promotion on all travel, uh, to, uh, PIE. Um, we're also doing a TripAdvisor takeover of that day. So anyone searching for beach content on TripAdvisor will be served, uh, marketing promotion with us as well as an FC Cincinnati activation. Uh, we have been increasing our regional marketing in Orlando and other areas to sort of boost some of those short term window bookings. Uh, we're also focusing on value. So we've been launching, um, new campaigns with, uh, Hopper and TravelZoo, uh, and, uh, focusing on some of those value opportunities that, that we can provide guests to really encourage them to, to make a trip and travel. Um, and then we're also monitoring, you know, we're, we're, we're aware that, um, you know, there's some economic uncertainty and we want to make sure that we're making the right decisions, making the right investments. So that is something that we're certainly paying very close attention to. Any questions or a conversation? Well, thank you, chair. I just, um, Eddie, want to thank you for some of the new slides that you add in there each month that just give us a different perspective and, and kind of keep us how you're reacting to it also. It's very helpful. Thank you. Um, I'd like to say, uh, well done, uh, Eddie. I think this is the best presentation we've had for a while and maybe it's because we're down. It's why we're awake even more so. Uh, but I think you really put in this time and cover the different markets. My one question is, um, you spent time on the, uh, domestic and not the domestic, but the Florida market and what was up and down and reasons and all. Um, did you look into the domestic, the domestic, meaning the U S the Midwest cities and those areas that are down, uh, and we've done some extra promotions in some of the area, but is, is there reasons for that? And then how do we look forward to next winter's business to say, what are we doing or what can we be doing? Or is, is this a trend right now? Or is it because of Epic or whatever? That's the area now that I think we need to be looking at. I think you did well done on it. Thank you. Yeah. Um, was there a question there related to the domestic markets? Domestic, uh, U S market where they're down those different areas coming into here this summer. Yeah. Starting in June. And we look back in there, uh, drilled down like we did in the Florida market area that you presented to us. Yeah. And I do want to kind of clarify, um, you know, we looked in the presentation, um, some of that is, is for the calendar year and obviously we have, um, you know, focused our marketing on a particular time, um, ahead of that. So, you know, it's, there are some areas there where, um, you know, we're adding in data where we didn't necessarily have marketing out three or four months in New York, for instance, in, in January and February, you know, we were focused on our still shining campaign kind of during that area. Um, but you know, what we have kind of seen is, um, some of the larger metropolitan areas seem to be the ones that are, uh, having fewer, uh, year over year visitors. Whereas some of the, um, more mid tier markets, uh, do not have as much of a dynamic change. So that's certainly, for instance, one trend that we're paying attention to, we're not necessarily making a conclusion at this point. Um, we're also looking at places like Texas where we have seen a little bit more visitation, uh, coming into our area and, um, trying to understand, you know, what, how can we come up with the effective message for, uh, people in kind of the Dallas Fort Worth area, for example. Um, so it's a mixture of looking at which markets are, um, still performing really, you know, on par or close to on par with the previous year and also looking at, is there emerging domestic markets that we can, um, focus time and resources into as well? I guess a part of that saying, um, U.S. market would be Allegiant and because they're so widespread is look and see where they are up and down and what they've changed in number of times a week or whatever it is to tell, looking forward to the last half of the year, looking forward to the first half of 26, should we be nervous or no, the traditional markets should be coming? We think that's, that's the second part of that question was to look at. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say we're certainly looking at ways that we can do more with our Allegiant partners, um, or with Allegiant and partnering to market in those areas. Um, so obviously the National Beach Day, uh, Allegiant promotion, um, you know, I, I'm looking at Jason making sure I can talk on that. Okay. Yeah. So we are, we are offering, you know, a discounted flight kind of rate for all those flights, uh, into our area on National Beach Day. Um, you know, we're, we're excited about that. We, we've been working with Allegiant to, to kind of work on some social marketing, um, opportunities and things like that. But, you know, it, it, the Allegiant markets are, are kind of interesting because a lot of them are just outside of some of those major markets. So, you know, is it looking at those markets from a broader perspective? You know, that those are also things that, that we're looking at, um, as well. Yeah. We just, just want to share a couple things. Um, first, um, you know, I, I see the negative, but I, I see where, uh, Dunedin was up 21%. Uh, and thank you to our, um, neighbors and friends in St. Petersburg who are up 8%. Um, and even Clearwater was up 3.3%. So, uh, we're, you know, we, we are a very diverse county with diverse assets and, um, and certainly the, the other numbers and the overall number is, uh, important to look at and address. But, uh, folks, uh, Dunedin, St. Pete and Clearwater had a really good month. And, uh, and, uh, I just want to thank, uh, thank, you know, our hotel partners who, at least in Clearwater, they're some of our largest taxpayers in the city of Clearwater, our, our big hotels resorts for pulling their weight. And, um, I know the vacation rentals and miscellaneous is hard to classify by locality. Uh, and I understand there are very good reasons for that. Um, we really don't know exactly where those are coming from. Um, but you would assume that, you know, quite a few of them are in South County where they do have smaller properties and they do allow folks to do short-term rentals. But if you take that out, um, you take out vacation just because we don't know. Well, and you just look at the hotels, uh, Clearwater generated in March, 49.3% of the county's bed tax, almost half. Uh, and I can tell you if you go back to March, uh, I think we generated 47%. It's been a pretty consistent number since the two hurricanes. Our hotels in Clearwater have, have, have, you know, carried a lot of the weight, uh, and glad to do so to get the bed tax in, particularly since the hurricanes last October. Uh, but, but I want folks to also understand that, um, those, those same hotels, uh, there's at least in Clearwater, they're some of our largest real property taxpayers. And we spent as a city $85 million to get back quickly. And chairman, you, you and I had a press conference out there in February, I think with Brian and, uh, we're back and, and we had media and everybody out there, well, this is, we can't see much damage just a short time. Well, that didn't happen without, uh, us spending that amount of money to get back quickly. We needed to, not just for Clearwater, for the entire county to keep people in Pinellas County for their annual vacation that they've always taken. Hopefully next year they'll go back to wherever they have been used to be going. Um, but we spent $85 million. Now, will we get that back in my lifetime? Hopefully all of it, most of it, but it'll take 10 years to get all of it back. Uh, it, it was a commitment by our taxpayers and to do that. And it wasn't just the money we spent. We, we've got, we, we have the luxury of having over 1800 employees. I don't know how much time our employees spent putting sand, cleaning it, putting it back on the main part of Clearwater beach. So it would be comfortable for tourists to come back and did it quickly. So I want to thank, I want to thank, and I had lunch with our innkeepers yesterday. I want to thank our resort properties in Clearwater, Sharon Sankey, uh, the Opal group, you know, Sam Pearl, Opal Sands, um, the Hyatt, uh, all, all of those big taxpayer properties contributed a lot to be able to get us to the point where over the last six months, we have been bringing in a significant amount of bed tax to benefit the entire county, to allow us the luxury to be able to do beach renourishment for the entire county. Uh, and, uh, and, and yesterday, uh, you know, I, I know it's not, it's hit and miss on properties, but two of our, two of our properties told me yesterday, July was the best July they have ever had. So I just want to make sure we're acknowledging that, you know, this, this didn't just happen. It happened because our taxpayers and our tourism community in Clearwater made a commitment to get back quickly. And, uh, and, and we have the luxury of being a larger municipality and being able to put the resources in to do that. But I want to thank our taxpayers for doing that because it's not just helping Clearwater. As you can see here, it's helping the entire county. And the second thing I just want to say is, uh, uh, I understand, I understand that it's, you know, there are businesses struggling and you can look here and I feel for our folks South of us that are, um, that are really still having a hard time. Um, but I, but I can tell you, you know, it's not all about tourism and all that. I mean, we, we all can drive down Gulf Boulevard and you can see the difference. I mean, some of the, some of our community South of us are still struggling to get it back together, to make it attractive to tourists to come back. And they have smaller, uh, you know, the short term rental and smaller hotels that are still being in construction. So I think, you know, I understand, you know, economy and all these other things that could affect, uh, you know, I, I think we're doing a fantastic job of promoting. I, I can't tell you how impressed I am with everything that St. Pete, that Pete Clearwater does to promote tourism in our County. Uh, but I think a lot of this is just the nature of the time it's taking for our beach communities and our tourism properties South of us to recover and to make themselves and their beaches attractive to tourism again, because we clearly see here, Clearwater, St. Pete, Dunedin. If you're back, if you've got that same experience available to folks that they've always been used to, we're having great success. And so, you know, I see this story in Yahoo Finance that came up, um, just this past week. Uh, and I love the people at ABC Action News. They do a fantastic job. I love Wendy Ryan, all the folks over there. They do a fantastic job. Uh, but the, and, and, and I feel for the folks at John's Pass who they interviewed who, uh, I get it. You know, we've had small businesses struggling on Clearwater Beach too. And, and I feel for them and they're probably feeling some of the brunt of some of this, you know, recovery, um, South of us. Uh, but that's not the story for the entire Pinellas County beaches. And it's not the story for the state of Florida, which, um, which Yahoo Finance, you know, tend to try to make, you know, the governor and the president look bad, you know, by trying to tell a story that's different from the success we are having in Clearwater and in Pinellas County. Yes, we're down as a whole in the county. Our tourism, our beach, we are as attractive to tourists as ever. And I just want to make sure that in addition to addressing this, the 12% drop, we are maintaining the positive message as a county that we are prospering. We are leading the state of Florida and recovery and in tourism. And although part of our county still struggling recovering, part of it is not we're having, we had our best spring ever. We're having, we had a great overall, you know, varies by property, but we had a great summer. And I just want the world to know that, uh, we are as excited in, uh, about tourism in the county. We think our, our, um, this is St. Pete Clearwater is doing a fantastic job of promoting us. And, uh, and I think, you know, once we get these other, uh, properties repaired south of us, I think, uh, we're going to continue the same growth and prospering that we've been doing for, for, uh, the past, uh, history. So just want to share those two things about, uh, these numbers. Uh, I appreciate the comments and agree. I think, uh, a rising tide raises all boats, right? And I appreciate Clearwater and everything you've said and echo your sentiment because that, that press conference was awesome and it helped other businesses. I mean, we were quick in John's past. We opened up five days behind Helene and my effort was similar to your sentiment. The quicker you get back open, the more people will, uh, start to follow suit. And as the dominoes fall, more people will come back. And we saw that. And we've had an amazing year so far. We've, we had the best June we've ever had. So I saw the same story you alluded to on Yahoo, uh, fine or whatever that was. And, and I don't agree. It was a totally different story than we're experiencing. Um, but it's one of those balances that we have to strike, uh, as business owners and community members and not being in Clearwater beach where everything is prospering seemingly. Uh, it's tough because right to our South, right to our North, we have neighbors that are suffering. So it's hard to be on top of a mountaintop screaming, Hey, this is the best year ever. We're doing great. When other people around us still haven't been able to open up or haven't been able to recover or still struggling, stop work orders, all this, all this difficulty. So it's a, uh, a challenge to walk that line. And that's what I think we struggle with specifically in my business is, Hey, we are having a good year and we do want to be positive. When we do want to scream from the mountaintop, Hey, come visit us. Everything's great. While at the same time, the neighbor over here is like, look, and, uh, why can't I get my permit? And these challenges that they face, right? So it's, uh, I agree with you and I think we need to remain positive, but also I think it's a little challenging in this aspect that we have to kind of balance that with the struggles that some people are still having. Quick question. Do you think the, uh, new nonstop flight from Allegiant, uh, between Pi and Atlantic city, does that offer any opportunities for us? You think? Um, that's not something that we've, we've talked about yet, but I mean, with every airline, um, route that's new, there's, there's opportunities for sure. All right. Any other questions? All right. Thanks, Eddie. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Now we are on to seven to seven day. Come on up, Jessica. Good morning, everyone. Jessica Morrow, marketing project manager at visit St. Pete Clearwater. Happy to be here with you this morning to recap seven to seven day. Um, had a really exciting event this year, not only one days, but a whole weekend. So happy to talk a little bit about that. When we looked at our objectives for this year, we really wanted to build upon the successes of the previous years we've had. Um, we also really wanted to home in on our messaging. So, um, our goal was seven to seven day really is to work with our tourism industry partners to thank the residents that live in our community for welcoming all of our millions of visitors that come into the destination each year. We also really wanted to build on the success of the local deals that we had last year, um, and really drive engagement with those deals in local businesses. We wanted to activate, um, in different areas of our community, um, to directly communicate the impact of tourism and the value of tourism in our local communities. For our promotional strategy, we really amplified a lot of the efforts that we did last year as well. Something new that we started to integrate was, um, mobile passport technology. So we used our bandwango technology to create the seven to seven day passport. Um, this allowed us to track some of the engagements with the deals themselves and local businesses. This was a change from last year. I'll kind of dive into some of those numbers later. Um, but we really wanted to make sure we could see the engagement in the community. Um, also driving traffic to seven to seven day.com. So that was kind of where we were sending all of our media for the days and the weekends activities where folks could learn more about how to get engaged with this day, as well as download their mobile passport for the traditional media efforts, as well as PR and digital. Um, we tried to again, amplify some of those efforts that we saw successful last year. We worked with the Tampa Bay times as well as I love the Berg to communicate seven to seven day messaging. Um, we also worked with some of our local influencers, the seven to seven society to spread that messaging as well. Um, and tapped into local radio, newspapers and TV engagements. We, um, provided assets for our chambers, our municipalities and our participating businesses to help spread that message as well as worked with the Clearwater Threshers and the St. Pete pier, um, to try to get more promotion around the day. And then we, um, accepted a proclamation on behalf of the board of County commissioners, as well as the city of Clearwater and the city of St. Pete, the infamous t-shirts. Hopefully everyone got their t-shirt this year. I know folks were banging down Brian's door to try to get their own. Um, so we had a huge success with the shirts last year and we decided to branch out with a different artist. So we worked with Chad Mize, who's a local artist to Pinellas County, um, to make this year's design because there was such a large demand on t-shirts last year. We wanted to not only order some more to make sure we could meet that, but we also produced a eight by 10 print. Um, so for those folks that weren't able to get a t-shirt, they could also get a print with this new design, uh, to be able to get one of these t-shirts. You did have to engage with our deals through the bandwango passport, um, and claim your prize. There was limited, uh, supply t-shirts on that as well as you could visit us at our two activations at the Clearwater's Threshers game or the St. Pete pier to claim your t-shirt. Um, as the passport that, the passport that I mentioned. So we used our bandwango technology, which is the same technology that we use for our Funshine Savings Passport or our Gulf Coast Passport. Um, happy to say when looking at the data, data, all of our 137 businesses that submitted deals with us did get at least one redemption, um, from all of our, our, um, our folks that are using the passport. So every single person that submitted a deal business partnership got engagement from that. We got, um, 85, over 8,500 mobile passport signups. So those are locals. Those are folks that we can now serve additional messaging to from visitors with love messaging or anything hyper, uh, focus that we want to communicate, communicate to that group. And then also we got, um, 4,815 total redemptions on those deals. So whether it was an online deal, um, an in-person redemption, we had that number of engagements for the two days that we had deals live, um, on our passport. And then within the passport, we did try to cap our t-shirts at a thousand for the passport. We did go, we put a buffer in there. So we ended up, um, having folks redeem 1,086 t-shirts throughout the bandwango passport, as well as 458 prints. Obviously we wanted to hyper target our marketing in Pinellas County, but this map is kind of interesting to see. So this is the map of origin of folks who downloaded the passport and then used it over the weekend. So even though all of our marketing was hyper targeted in Pinellas County, the word did spread. Um, it's interesting to see some of those other markets that touched and hopefully those folks came into town for the weekend and stayed the night. Some of our top deals, as I mentioned, we had over 137, uh, deals available for the two-day period. Um, excited to see a ton of engagements here. So Mandarin Hyde and Doc Ford, some of our downtown businesses received over a hundred deal redemptions over the weekend. Um, some of our smaller partners like Pete's Bagels or Grove, um, and Indian Rocks Beach received 94 and 82 redemptions respectively over the weekend. And then we did have some online deals. So the Don Cesar and Starlight Cruises offered deals that no one needed to go in person to redeem, but could use a promo code for that redemption. And the, we saw great results on those, um, the Don receiving about 88 redemptions as well as Starlight in the 80s as well. For our activations. So we did have two local activations throughout the community. We worked with the Clearwater Threshers to develop, um, an activation at their game as well as, um, the, um, the St. Pete Pier in the afternoon, all on Sunday, 727. Um, in total, we saw, uh, 7,064 engagements, um, in person from those, uh, impressions from those activations. And then, um, we also, for those activations, which is why I had these flyers, which I dropped, um, we asked the folks at the front of our activations to hand out, um, these flyers to, uh, the folks that are attending the events. And then they would bring these to our activation station, get it from visitors with love stamp and bring these back with them. Um, a part of this was including a message that, um, from visitors to our locals, thanking them for being so welcoming to our community. Um, and then also on the back folks could, we partnered with Allegiant and PIE for an enter to win. So anyone that filled out this QR code was able to, uh, answer a few questions that basically gave recommendations to our locals, their favorite things to do in the community. And they are entered to win a $727 voucher for Allegiant Airlines. Um, I will pass these out later, um, just so you can put eyes on them. But the, we, last time I checked, these will also go into the mailer. So anyone that's receiving their t-shirts or their prints by mail, um, will get one of these and we'll still get some submissions. Last time I checked the QR, we had about a hundred submissions from folks on the enter to win. And that's some information we can use in future marketing or kind of conversations between our locals and our, um, our visitors. For our advertising efforts, uh, we worked with BBK to get some added value from some of our ongoing media. So, um, we engaged with, uh, did, or we were able to put placements in digital billboards, uh, digital boat bulletin, and the digital grocery store TV, um, resulting in 17 million impressions across Pinellas County. For our digital performance, um, we did have our 727 day driving focus to the landing page resulting in 24,247 sessions. And that was our number one landing page on visit stpeteclearwater.com, um, including our homepage. For social media, we had over a million total views across platforms, as well as 500, almost 550,000 in total reach across our platforms and almost 10,000 engagements across platforms as well. I hope you guys saw some of these graphics around. Something new we tried to do this year was really give tools to our partners and to folks to help promote with us. Um, so we made some templates, some banner ads, and some branded material that participating businesses could use, um, as well as our partners to help promote the day. We saw a lot of engagement with these on our socials and people kind of taking that branding and making it their own to promote 727 day. For public relations, um, our team worked very hard to get those 54 earned media resulting in more than, uh, 57 million impressions locally. Uh, we also were featured on all greater Tampa Bay TV stations, including Spanish radio, Cox media, Beasley, and iHeart. Uh, the PR team also really wanted to make sure we focused on the stories of our local businesses as well, tied in 2727 day. So we were able to feature some of our partners like the James Museum, Bandit, um, Coffee, Mandarin Hide, Seventh Sun, Body Electric, and Starlight in some of those media spots that we were able to earn through, um, the PR efforts. And then this is just kind of a recap of that day. So, um, as a team, it takes our whole, uh, whole team to throw this event. It's, some of us are sitting, sweating at the Threshers game on the hottest day of the year. Um, some of us are adding a ton of deals to our passport, our activations team, our media, our marketing team, our entire team, all the volunteers, and all the businesses that have participated. So much thanks for all of you. It's, it really takes us all to get here. So I feel it was a very exciting, uh, weekend to have. Hopefully we will, um, have even more success in the future. Um, only I think 341 days to go. Um, but overall really pleased with, um, how this weekend went and, and excited to do it again and happy to take any questions. Questions? First, I love it. Uh, I've always loved it. I love how it's growing every year. It's just fantastic. And, um, I, I have to admit, confess, I don't, uh, only wear the 727 day t-shirt on 727 day. I wear it throughout the year and I work Sunday and people were like, where do I get one of those? Uh, the design this year was fantastic. I had so many people ask me about it. Uh, I, I love the way we do this every year and I love the way we're hitting it out of the park, growing it and making a bigger, bigger deal every year. So thank you for what you're doing and congratulations. Yeah. I was just going to say, I could speak to an attraction in the business and we were absolutely sold out this year. We participated last year. We got a minimal this year, absolutely sold out all weekend. So as a business partner, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I was, I was just going to comment that on the growth as well. Uh, we were a little involved last year, kind of missed the boat. We were a little late to the party, but this year sitting here, I was, I was, uh, aware of it much earlier and able to, uh, be involved more. And it was, uh, we definitely had a lot of phone calls asking about it and engaging with the deal. So it was cool to see. Great. Thanks, Jessica. Oh, Clyde. Sorry, Jessica. Did I hear the drone show was going to be rescheduled? Yes, it is rescheduled for October 18th and I don't want to make any promises, but keep some eyes out if you really liked those shirts. Um, there might be a surprise at that drone show. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Jessica. Okay. And we'll move on to pallet and pallet media event. Lauren Jason, how's it going? Okay. Um, finished, figured we could finish with food here before we head to lunch soon. Um, I, um, I'm passing something around. Clyde's got it. I only had one copy. I apologize, but it's going to make its way around the room. I know. Um, so did want to just kind of recap an event that, um, we, we did middle of July up in New York, uh, that we aptly titled pallet and pallet leaning into the ampersand and tying in food and art. Um, we partnered with the James Beard foundation up in New York city. They've got a, a, um, a tiny little pop-up spot on, uh, pier 57, uh, that has a deluxe kitchen in it. Uh, we invited four of our chefs from St. Pete Clearwater, uh, to show off our culinary excellence, um, and really lean into, uh, the growth that we've seen, especially coming off of, um, the stats that Eddie shared, uh, when we last met from spring that showed, you know, 50% of the visitors to the area where we're coming because of our food. Um, so we wanted to show off, uh, that, that, that strength that we have and, and the growing, um, uh, scene that that's, that's here in St. Pete Clearwater, but we didn't want to just have dinner. Um, we thought that was maybe a little boring and didn't really represent us totally. So what we wanted to do was lean into the fact that we have such an incredible art scene as well here and really tie in the fact that, um, you are designing food and you're designing culture, uh, both on the plate and just around the community as you walk through it and experience our destination. Uh, so we had four chefs come to the area. We paired them with four museums for inspiration. Um, these were the chefs that we invited up, uh, Chef Artrip from the Black Pearl up in Dunedin, uh, Chef Rob from, uh, St. Pete, who's got Wild Child and Slim Charmer, uh, Chef Reyes from the St. Pete Distillery and Chef Nick from Alello and June on the Peacock, um, in downtown St. Pete. And these are the museums that we paired them with. So, um, you know, we, we originally reached out to the chefs. We said, Hey, you know, we love what you do. We'd love you to cook. We'd also love you to be inspired by a museum. And then we actually took them to the museums, uh, and had them review the museums, look through the art that's there so that they could then design a dish that would be emblematic of their partner museum. Um, and this works. This is a video that we, we put together to kind of tease the dinner. So, um, let me back up just a second. Let me go back. So the dinner that we were organizing at the platform was for 45 media and content creators based in New York city. So these are foodies, um, that go to food and restaurant openings all the time. Uh, they get invited to probably three to four events each week, uh, because it's such a hot scene up in New York city. So again, we wanted to stand out as much as possible with this group, um, and really flex our muscles. So, um, this is kind of just a tease that they received. So they knew what they were walking into for dinner that night volume and asking the folks in the back, if we can restart this with volume, the latest make me hungry. I, well, yes. Wait till you see the pictures coming up. There's no volume. I feel like it would be a lot better if we had the plates of food. I know. I'm sorry. Future reference. Some of those cocktails look pretty, I'm just saying you can have a cocktail. There's definitely audio on the clip clip. Yeah. We can watch it. I, we will, we will email it to everyone. It's a really great, it's very well done visuals to speak for themselves. We'll email this to you afterwards as you can see it. Um, chef Rob is talking about how you don't have to go to big cities. We've got a great stuff happening right here in my tap shoes today. No, should we just move on? Let's move on for now. Yeah. There it goes. Yeah. Technology. Gotta love it. It's a great video. The commentary that goes over it is great too. Talking about drawing the inspiration, talking about the pressure of cooking at the James Beard platform. Nick's talking about, you know, all the visuals that you see. I'll say if you've, if you've ever watched any of those, uh, chef neck, uh, restaurants or top chefs or those types of shows on TV, that's what this looks like. It's introducing the new season of one of those. It's really well done. And, uh, I look forward to y'all being able to see it with chef Rob was talking about how it's really difficult to make his food. I'm going to move on. I'll email you guys a video. Yeah. Can we go back so I can control? I'm sorry. In the back, talking to the voice of God. Yes, sir. So, uh, the, uh, the visuals, obviously you took the chefs from here to a local museum. Oh, thank you. I like to have surprises within something that just is very simple. Working in a kitchen. It is hard, but you have to love it, which I do. I'm exactly where I should be. And I'm doing exactly what I should be doing. Every week I'll have at least a few new things on the menu. That's part of the fun. Four top chefs from St. Pete, Clearwater, Florida. There's really amazing chefs and restaurants here where you don't have to go to bigger cities. You can have it all here. Paired with four of the Sunshine City's renowned museums. Having this many museums in such a small radius, I think it opens up the door for creativity and encourages it. Each course developed to incorporate the destination's dynamic art scene. Expect the unexpected because that's exactly what you feel when you walk into some of the galleries. Not everything is as it seems. An inspired, one-of-a-kind culinary experience of cuisine and creativity. It's definitely a challenge to try to get a food to look that beautiful and that, like, intricate and that sharp. That pushes you harder to up your game a little bit. I don't know if the watermelons in New York are going to be as good as the watermelons in Florida, so I'm bringing them with me. The pressure and expectation of cooking at the James Beard House is pretty high for a chef. You need to have soul in the food, explore new things, and give it a little of your own spin. There's a beauty of simplicity in cooking where you're putting yourself out there without any mask on. Working with your hands, but also creating art. It's art and craft. My hope is that when they see this dish, they chuckle. Yeah, so we send that out ahead of time again the day before, so the folks kind of knew what they were walking into. We gave them a little bit teaser and also introduced the chefs a little bit. Dylan, sorry, we can go back to you. Yes, sir. And now I'm more hungry. But so essentially you took these chefs to local museums, got them inspired, and then this James Beard House is just like a kitchen on a pier, and then the influencers came in and enjoyed the meal at this one location. So all the chefs were together. Correct. Yeah, we went up to New York. We flew up to New York. They prepared that day. They got in at 10 a.m., I think we started, and they started preparing at 10 a.m., and then everybody came in around 6.30. That's when we started the dinner. So it was a full day of cooking. Awesome. And this one, yeah, and you'll see some pictures coming up. You'll be able to see kind of the setup. That's cool. Yeah. Very cool. So worked with our agency, MMGY, up in New York to secure these attendees. These were some of the folks that came, and then like I said, there was a lot of influencers there as well that could easily share the story. Everybody that came got a gift bag where we were able to promote the museums additionally with some other flavors. Also had, you know, our information in there as well, so they left well-informed and well-fed. Dylan, this is the setup here that you can see. You know, it's two long tables of 25 each, and then the kitchen is open in the back, so you can kind of watch folks as they're, watch the chefs as they're preparing. And then these were the dishes that were plated. So as you see the menu as it comes around, this is the order in which they received their dishes. Yeah. Very well done. But the chefs, they knocked it out of the park. These are a couple of the reactions. I think just overall, Steve and I were both up there to work the room and just kind of make sure everybody, you know, knew who we were and knew what they were experiencing and could learn more. You know, when I go back to what I originally said, these folks do food events all the time. I sat next to somebody that was there at the same venue doing an event on Monday of that week for Bastille Day. So they had brought in two local French chefs and he said that our meal blew that one out of the water. So, you know, when you, when you walk away hearing stuff like that and you, you know, you see quotes like this that talk about, you know, I didn't know about the destination. I didn't know that this, this existed there and what a great way to tell the story. You know, it was really a nice way to weave everything in and not just leave people with, well, I had a great dish, but you know, they also learned a lot more about us as a destination. This was some of the other, the other clips that, that were instantly put up. So you see the, the kitchen was open. So folks were actually, I didn't include a picture, but folks were actually going up to the kitchen. They were leaving their seats at the table to go up and watch the chefs make the final preparations to their dishes. Again, this was just kind of real early stuff from the 45 attendees. We had the social posts, more than a million impressions came out of just that. And then the conversations continue from there, right? So with the media, that's, that's there finding the opportunities and to bring them down to the destination and have them explore the food and all the rest of the attractions and experiences here. And then right after that, really fortunate turn of events. We had food and wine shout us out as an upcoming food destination. So one of the top, they, they only listed eight destinations. We were the only Florida destination. And they really included, you know, our four Michelin recommended restaurants, and then went a little further and included some others, which was great to see. And then the partnership with James Beard is going to continue. So we had the dinner, but we'll also have some activations with them. They do some taste America events throughout the country that will go to various, various cities. We selected these two key markets so that we can go and, and show off again, our, our culinary muscle, uh, to the folks that attended. So it's 400 at each event. Um, plus the, the James Beard reps that will be in attendance. That's it. That's it. I would just to say, like to say, you're blowing me away to do it at the James Beard Foundation. Now to continue doing it both for the chefs and the chefs that didn't go to say, this is what we've done. It's a pinnacle. I, we've done it with our Biltmore Hotel in Miami, but this is really for us in our area to step up and to do something like this and tie it together with the museums. You're blowing me away. And I think it's great. What a great new step for culinary and those chefs that haven't done it yet or haven't been invited yet. It's going to make them step up too. I'm just so proud of you. It's awesome. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And again, it's, you know, it was kind of, you look at the Michelin coming to the destination and we've got that. And, and James Beard is, is another brand that we want to be associated with. That's an elevated cuisine, um, that, you know, that you can't find just everywhere. So, you know, as much as we can tie ourselves into those conversations, that's the point. I agree with everything, everything Russ said. Doreen. Thank you. Just wanted to point out that, you know, as your representative for creative Penelis, um, how important this is to showcase why arts and culture are so very, very important. And having the arts council to continue on an ongoing basis, representing who we are, what we are in all aspects is just, um, invaluable. We can't do it without having that cooperation, um, both ways. And so I'm just, you know, super impressed, uh, that this just, just, you know, it was the top of the, of the, the, the list to be able to feature both. So thank you for doing that and, um, bringing us to that next level. Yeah. And it was, it was a, you know, it was a good, um, maturation, I guess, because when we went to the Michelin announcement last year, that was one of the things that we wanted to show was pallet and pallet. And that's what we, you know, we brought the Dalian museum up there with us. So just kind of taking that and building upon it for this and, you know, where we can continue to take that. Yes, long for, yes. Thank you, Steve. Yes. So we, yes, we did, uh, also we, we videotaped, um, much more than just that two minute clip, um, and producing a longer form six to seven minute video that will recap the entire experience for the chefs and, and dig a little deeper into them, who they are, who their restaurants are and who the museums are as well, um, that we will then put out and then we can use that in additional, uh, marketing future. Thank you, Steve. Great. Any other questions, comments? All right. Thanks, Jason. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right. We'll move on to our update from our CEO. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I've got a few updates that I want to put on your radar and make you aware of first, um, as you are aware, um, our advertising agency, uh, contract is coming to an end. And, um, earlier this year we went out, uh, to bid and we actually, um, did two RFPs. We split instead of having everything under one agency. We wanted to explore the potential of potentially having, uh, one agency for, uh, creative and brand strategy, and then one for the media buying and planning. And so we went out, uh, we had a great number of respondents, um, and we put together an evaluation committee. Uh, I want to thank, um, uh, Captain Dylan Hubbard who represented the TDC on that. And hopefully he's, uh, still talking to me after that. Uh, when I reached out, uh, neither he or I, uh, envisioned the amount of, uh, reading and time, uh, and review that would take. So I want to thank him. I also want to thank all of our other partners, uh, from the industry who participated on that. Um, and we also had, uh, it was led with Steve, uh, and Katie, uh, from the advertising and promotion side. Um, and we did come out with a new agency, actually one agency, um, was ranked number one, uh, for both of those RFPs. So we're combining those into one, uh, and that will be going to the board of county commissioners on September 4th, uh, to finalize that agreement. Uh, and with that comes, uh, the end of working with, uh, our current agency. And, um, you know, we've had the same agency now for 17 years here at Visit St. Pete Clearwater. Uh, and when, in, in, in our business, your agency, uh, isn't just a vendor, they're, they're, they're part of the team. And so they've experienced the highs, the lows with us, uh, and our success as a destination is also their success. Um, and so I want to recognize, um, Carmen, uh, as well as the entire BVK, everyone who's worked on this account, uh, over the years, I've had the opportunity to work for them, work with them the last, uh, two plus years, but I know a lot of members on the team and some of you have worked with them for longer. Um, so I want to recognize them for their, uh, dedication, their work and their efforts, uh, on behalf of this board, uh, the organization and the entire destination. Um, so wanted to make sure you were aware of that and thank them and recognize them for their efforts, uh, with the team. Secondly, I wanted to make sure you were aware, um, our film commissioner, uh, Lisa, she will be, uh, retiring, um, October 3rd effective. And we currently have, we, um, that position is being advertised, uh, in the next couple of weeks, we will, uh, be doing interviews for that, uh, for a new film commissioner. Uh, and in addition to that, we're going to be bringing forward, uh, one of the, uh, items we'll talk about next month. Uh, uh, I'll mention that a little bit later, uh, will be a revision to our film incentive program. Um, so again, with all of our programs, we continue to revise those and where we see opportunities for improvement, we act. Uh, number three, I wanted to make sure you were aware that you have in front of you, the crisis communication plan. Um, we are in summertime. And so there's an important document. It has, um, some of the things that, uh, our team internally will be doing in coordination with the County, but it's got, uh, our contact information processes, as well as, um, others, um, in the industry, hoteliers, uh, and some, uh, and each of the board members, it's got their contact information. So make sure you keep this handy over the next few months. Hopefully, uh, it gets dusty. Um, but want to make sure you're aware of that. Uh, next, um, some great news. Um, so you'll see Steve and, and, uh, Kylie are back there and they are fresh in from Phoenix where they represented, uh, the team at the, um, US Travel Association's ESTO Conference. And some of you are familiar with the ESTO Conference, uh, in DMO world, this is like the Super Bowl and they recognize DMOs both at the local and state level from across the entire country for different categories. And I'm proud to share that, um, uh, we brought home some hardware, uh, for excellence in print marketing, uh, for our Gulf to Bay magazine. And so I want to congratulate the team. And this is, this is the Lombardi, uh, for marketing, uh, and it's here in St. Pete Clearwater. So thank you to Steve and the entire team. And I also want to let you know, um, next month we are canceling the September TDC meeting, and we're going to have the joint meeting, uh, of the board of County commissioners and the TDC, because that's a week before when the, um, TDC meeting would be, uh, we'll combine that into one meeting, make good use of everyone's time. Uh, and you guys will be, um, uh, getting an agenda for that, um, in, in the coming weeks. And I think you guys are still finally finalizing the time, but we're going to push it back. Yeah, it's, uh, it's September 11th. It originally was scheduled, um, for 9 a.m. However, that conflicts with a lot of 9 11 events that'll be going on that morning that a lot of us would like to attend. So we're looking at moving that meeting start point until noon. So final confirmation upcoming on that. Just fair. That's a city council day. And so, um, I just figured I'd let you know now that I did that strategically. Yeah. And so, um, normally that, that wouldn't be a big deal, but I being the chair this year, I'm not sure I'll have to see what the schedule is that day, but I just figured I'd give you a head jump chair. And that is what I have, sir. Okay, great. Sounds good. All right. Um, board member comments, discussions. Wow. All right. Well, I got a couple, I got a couple of quick things. Um, so earlier, uh, this year, um, I had mentioned that one of my, uh, one of my, one of my goals, one of my thoughts, uh, for TDC dollars was looking for, for opportunities to use TDC dollars in ways that not only promote tourism, but also benefit our residents. And one of the things that, um, that I heard a lot in the, in the last year or so, particularly when we're talking about any money on, on baseball stadiums and things like that was that you should find ways of using that money in, in ways that benefit us. And we all know that there's the use of TDC funds is very, very heavily restricted. You know, we can't pave roads with it. We can't lower people's taxes with it. A lot of things we can't do with it, but it did get me starting to think about what are, what are other potential uses for that money in ways that could serve a dual purpose of promoting tourism while benefiting our residents. And one of the things I thought about was capital projects, uh, for parks and ways of improving our park system. So, you know, when you look around the county, you know, what are those, what are those parks that really, really promote tourism? And there's not a, you know, they, they, they boils down pretty quickly to probably, you know, what you can count on one hand or so. Um, you know, Sankey, Fort DeSoto, um, uh, maybe Phillippe Park, you know, but Fort DeSoto, which has a campground also promotes, which also pays bed tax, uh, at the, um, at the campsite there. So I just wanted to have a discussion with this group to just kind of see what the appetite here was for this group, uh, for capital projects for parks or even, even make some maintenance in parks. So just wanted to get the temperature for this group. And if there is, if there is kind of a consensus among this group, and then Brian and his team will go to work and see what sort of projects they can, they can find that would fit that category that would truly promote tourism, but also, uh, benefit our residents. So with that, just want to open it up for discussion and kind of get, get your thoughts on that. Can, can I just ask that, um, this, uh, coming from this meeting, um, whatever the result is, um, we will then take, uh, your feedback and your input. And if there's a desire, um, to move forward with anything, uh, our team will then work on potential programs and we will then bring those to you, uh, at next month's joint meeting. So it's really important today that we get your, uh, input on this. And I want to take the opportunity, um, the chair mentioned the beach park facilities. One of the other things that we would like some direction on are the, is the beach maintenance. And so one's capital intensive and one is more maintenance. And, uh, we've spoken one-on-one, uh, about these, but it's really important, uh, for us to get your feedback, uh, and input here so we can bring something if there's any desire, uh, to the September 11th meeting. I'll be very glad to start it. Uh, this is also something that's been on my list for a long time. And I have to tell you, I have not been to Fort DeSoto in quite a few years, years, but in my travels outside of the County, people talk about one of the things on their list is to go to Fort DeSoto. They read it in the different sites and digital and, and all. And I think it's very important. And there's, as you said, a handful of parks, but I have been at San Key quite often. I drive around it once in a while. Um, I talked to the manager over there, or whoever it is. It needs help. That bathroom, public restroom area. If it's not 50 years old, it's darn close to 50 years old. And I have to admit, uh, maybe it's my age, but when I drive back from Miami and I'm hitting Skyway Bridge at five o'clock in the afternoon, I sometimes pull off right there to just take a couple minutes. And they got a new, a new rest area there. And I think there's three or four of them now, and you go up a ramp, modern, the whole bit, but you know what? It stops you and you look out and you see what's going on in the area and everything. And then when you drive by the one at Sankey Park, it's like, um, it's a long ways, a long time ago. And I think that nature, the kayaking and all those things that some of the parks have, um, turtles and the story there and everything else. So we could do a lot better job helping to promote tourism through those county parks by billboards or volunteer programs or, or whatever. And I think that we need to work with Paul Cozy and maybe we invite him to help tell us what he thinks we need to do with them. Also, what input he has, cause they're all his, and I think where they are. And, and, uh, I don't think that we're necessarily in the maintenance, but we're in the improvement and sometimes improvement of new recreational area for kids or whatever it is need to be put in and different things like that. That, that, that end of Sankey is used for fishing at night and fishing and all. And that's people that are tourists that are staying in the hotels. You see them walking out to go fishing on both sides over there. And they bought fishing equipment while they were here to do that. And so I think that a lot could be put into the parks, uh, and go forward on this. I think it's a great way to spend some money to make an improvement. The other question you asked me is, is maintenance. I don't think we should be in the business of giving cities and all maintenance money to pick up trash and, and all those types of things or maintain that we need to invest in the county parks that are bigger scale. And I think also we just heard this morning that we're spending $126 million of our tax collection for, I think is the maintenance. I think that restoration is maintaining the whole area. And that's the word that maintenance is in my vocabulary. When it comes to that, Amanda may say you're wrong or it's not, or I'm not sure, but I think that's where I understand where we need to be. Because you get also in the golf or in our Tampa Bay side, when you get into the towns and maintenance of some beaches, and I'm not sure we should be getting into that. This is a step forward. I think it's the right thing to do. And I think an example of it is how much Pier 60 is used in a period of a year with Clearwater. And if you could do the same with the county parks and do some things and some and all, it would bring tourism in. That's just my first shot towards this. I'd be very glad to help in any way. Great comments, Russ. I appreciate that. Dylan, I'm going to go to Clyde. Yeah, I would definitely agree with Russ's sentiment on all fronts. I think if we are strategic in which parks we choose, it would make a lot of sense. To young children now, I use parks a lot more than I ever have. And we have some great county parks, but we have some county parks that definitely could use some help. And being a business owner who has a county agreement to operate out of Fort DeSoto Park, I'm very intimately familiar with that park. And I think there's definitely a lot of tourism use and resident use with the bike trails, with so many things that draw residents to that park, but also tourism as well. So I think there's a really good reason to evaluate that park. And Sand Key obviously comes to the forefront, some of the others that were mentioned as well. So I would definitely support exploring this and opening up that discussion to see where it goes, right? But I would agree as well on the maintenance. I think we're spending a lot of money on maintenance already. Right. I was at Fort DeSoto in April, had some family down, and it was packed. And we were walking around, you know, the ruins and all that stuff, and the old fort. And I was amazed at how many people that were there that were speaking other languages. I mean, it was really kind of shocking to me how many were. Yeah. And that campground, you have to have a reservation, like I'm talking a year plus out. Yeah. That's how highly sought after it is. If you want a waterfront location, you have to almost book two years out. Right. It's insane. And now they've been damaged by the hurricane and a large portion of it is down. Right. And they've been getting back really quickly, impressively quickly, but there's a huge demand for that area. It's wild. Thank you, Chair. I echo both of their sentiments. I won't repeat a lot of it, but I know I personally recommend hundreds of people a month to Fort DeSoto because it's fantastic. Just a part of Florida that you really can't find anywhere else in Florida. So I think, again, to use the word strategic, to pick the right parks and put the right money. And I also agree with the maintenance. I think you lose a lot of efficiencies if you started giving cities money for certain maintenance or county versus have them take care of what they need to on their own. Yeah. I support it. I've always supported it because aside from what I said earlier about how much money we've spent of taxpayer money to restore our beach, there's the ongoing expense to support the tourism industry that our taxpayers bear that we can't be reimbursed for. We can't use bed tax for wear and tear on streets and roads. We can't. Police, particularly during spring break, we have to have an increased police presence out there. We have a command center where we're watching cameras, you know, 24 seven on those areas. There's an additional expense to police. And then even for our fire department, we have to have equipment to reach the top of those hotels that are paying, you know, this, this bed tax. So, uh, I, if there's an indirect way to, I wouldn't say reward, but just, um, be targeted with where we're doing this to, to use the bed tax in a creative way to recognize the, the areas of the county where these taxpayers are helping support the tourism industry and the bed tax. Uh, I, I think it's a great idea. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Um, I certainly agree that, um, maintenance is beach nourishment, um, providing cities funds for, you know, additional trash pickup things that they should be doing anyway. I, I don't think that falls on Amanda. Of course, I defer, but to me, maintenance means nourishment, obviously, and the dollars mean nourishment as well. Um, as far as the beach facilities, it, I think that the target of the funding has to be very specifically tied to, um, tourism dot, like data. In other words, you have Fort DeSoto, you have a, a tax that is being collected there and it's directly correlated. I have Mobley Beach Park, which is a beach facility up in the city of Baltimore. I would love some TDT dollars for it. We just spent 10 million, 10 million, $10,000 on new magnetic doors for those bathroom facilities. Um, but I can't connect that to tourism dollars. And so I wouldn't ask this body to do that. Now, you know, if, if TDT dollars, on the other hand are being used to backfill shortfalls in the county's funding and, and planned maintenance of these parks, that's a different story. But if we're talking about parks where we can specifically tie the funding to the data, then I would be interested in learning that data and, and having that discussion. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Um, I guess a couple of clarifying questions. Are we talking about just county parks or are we talking about parks in general? Is my first question. I mean, it's, it's, it's parks in general, but it's gotta be tied to, you know, tourism. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Thank you, Chair. Um, just to clarify the, the, the current tourist development plan does not currently allow for beach park facilities. So we would have to amend the plan. When we do that, we could, um, put whatever parameters we want on that. Um, but it is beach park facilities that are, that are considered. So I just wanted to clarify that we're not looking at all parks within the county, although we have some awesome parks. Um, we would be looking at beach parks and the facilities, um, that's not defined in the statute, but probably things like picnic shelters, bath houses, um, you know, rest areas, things like that would most likely qualify. Um, and we could similar to what we did when we adopted the, um, public facilities, we put some parameters on that. We said that we could fund public facilities that were directly associated with or demonstrated to be a tourist attraction. We could do something similar. So if that's the will of this body, if you give me some direction on exactly what kind of parameters you want, I can work on putting together some language that we could propose for the plan. But I do want to just make sure that we all understood we're talking beach park facilities, and we do have the ability to limit that to those beach park facilities that are, uh, specifically tourist draws. Super helpful. Thank you. Um, and then I guess chair that this, I probably a question for you on kind of where you you're thinking on this was, are you thinking of having them go through the normal capital improvement application process or you have this be separate for beach parks? Uh, probably to be determined, I think. Okay. I would just, um, I guess my feeling on it would be, I think I would prefer the application process that's already in place rather than try to recreate the wheel on that. I'm certainly, uh, in favor of trying to support, uh, beach park facilities to make sure that, um, I, I know you used, um, the campground. My family was just there last month. Uh, and so, um, we were lucky enough to get a waterfront spot. Um, and so we're, we're there often. We do Easter and a lot of different holidays, uh, there at the park. So, um, I totally, uh, I'm on, I'm on board with that. And I think of some of the other beach parks around the county that I think certainly, um, could, could use those funds in a way that helps bolster tourism and continues to make our, our destination look like a beautiful place. Uh, I'll just quickly echo the maintenance. Um, Russ hit it on the head and everybody has, uh, repeated it, you know, 120 million dollars, I think is, is plenty of, is plenty of maintenance. Um, and I know just from my perspective, um, I think we have 85 parks in St. Petersburg. And so I, my expectation is I don't, uh, I don't, I, nor do I don't want help from the TDC, nor do I think we should ask for help, um, from the TDC. And that's, we have a few waterfront parks, um, as I'm sure you're aware and wouldn't, wouldn't try to, to use those dollars. That's our responsibility in trying to make the city, um, what, what it is, the number one park city in Florida. And so, um, but, but totally agree with, um, beachfront parks and, but, but I would use the current application process as to not to double down. I think that that's where I'd be. Thank you, chair. I was going to say that I'm completely in favor of taking care of the amenities that take care of our tourists. And I look forward to the conversation. I appreciate the thoughts on the, the maintenance side. I, I totally agree with that. Um, Amanda, just, uh, the idea that it's beach parks as a, to me, it's a broader discussion about tourism based parks that include beaches. So I just, I'm just wanting that distinction. I think just of, and again, I'm not sure what capital you would do unless some cities wanted to, uh, provide some rest stop type things signage type things for the trail, because I think the trail clearly is one of our parks, so to speak, that really connects our County connects beaches to the, to the cities that connect cities to, you know, the cities and, um, a lot of tourists use that park. Um, not necessarily beachfront, but it is tourism based. So just again, I think you have to draw the connection. And if we have some metrics to do that, I think those are, I mean, I'm not talking about replacing the, the, the coating on the, on the trail, I'm just talking about other ancillary things that might benefit. Um, yes, absolutely. The plan does currently allow for public facilities. So, um, if, if, and remember those public facilities, there's a slew of different things that we have to prove in order to fund those. But if we show that it's tourist related and we get the independent study that shows, um, that it will result in drawing tourism, then a non beach park, um, public facility, whether it's in a park or anywhere else could potentially be funded. The limitation that, um, that we have internally, uh, established is that they have to be directly associated with a tourist attraction. So we'd be looking for something that we can show, hey, we advertise this. We, we try to show, you know, if we're, if we're advertising the trail prominently, that may be one way to show that it's a tourist attraction. So there are, there is an option to pay for public facilities. That's one statutory option. The other is beach park facilities. That's a separate option that, um, has fewer limitations than public facilities, uh, but it's not currently in our plan. Um, and a few people have just mentioned, I'll just throw in there while I have the mic, um, maintenance, beach maintenance. It's not defined in the statute. We have always interpreted it to mean re-nourishment. Um, but that is something that we could certainly discuss if we ever wanted to open that up to something further, but it doesn't sound like that's what the, the will of the board is, but just wanted to, to clarify that, yeah, you guys are right. We can limit it to beach re-nourishment if that's where we're going to go with it. All right. What she said. Got it. All right. Well, thank you, uh, for that good discussion, everybody. I think that gives us some, uh, good direction to move forward on. So, uh, so stay tuned. We'll have more, uh, more next month on that. Um, and then lastly, uh, for my comments, um, I've got, um, and this just materialized really kind of late yesterday afternoon, but next Wednesday, uh, Representative Luna, um, reached out to me for a meeting on beach nourishment. So she requested the meeting. I don't know what it's about yet. Uh, so I'll report back to y'all. That's all I have. Does anybody else have any closing comments? No. All right. Well, then we are adjourned. We'll see y'all on September 11th. Thank you very much. Appreciate it, everybody.