It took a lawyer and a financial analyst to sort it out, but the City of North Port finally has a place on the Sarasota County Tourist Development Council.
The Sarasota County Commission on Oct. 27 appointed North Port City Commissioner Dave Garapola to the seat that had been occupied by Venice Councilman John Moore.
The county commission acted after it learned that state law requires the largest city in a county to have a seat on the advisory board overseeing the county’s tourist tax. The TDC during an Oct. 15 meeting offered North Port a non-voting seat on the panel.
Before appointing Garapola to take Moore’s place, the county commission noted that Moore’s appointment expires on Nov. 1. However, plans to have Venice and the Town of Longboat Key receive ex officio non-voting membership on the TDC were scotched by County Attorney Stephen DeMarsh.
"State statute won’t allow ex officio members. They cannot sit at the dais," said DeMarsh.
Sarasota County Chief Financial Planning Officer Jeff Seward took the commission through the various ways it could decide which city was the largest in the county. Options included using only the once-every-10-years U.S Census, the annual estimates of the federal census board or figures from the Florida Bureau of Economic and Business Research.
BEBR is an arm of the University of Florida.
The federal census regards Sarasota as the largest city in the county, but since 2008, the BEBR figures show North Port is the largest. The commission decided to use the BEBR figures from now on.
TDC EXPANSION SOUGHT
In addition to booting Moore and seating Garapola, the commission decided to seek legislative approval to expand the TDC from nine to 13 members. Two of the additional members would be elected city officials from Venice and Longboat Key.
Because the TDC was created to give collectors of the "bed tax" a voice in how the money is used, two people from the tourism sector would be added as well to keep the majority in industry hands.
A local bill in the Florida Legislature will be needed to achieve the expansion.
The TDC is an advisory committee. Authority to allocate the tourist tax revenue remains in the grip of the county commission.
November 3rd 2009 - 10:51AM