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Flagler, Florida and Beyond
FlaglerLive | April 5, 2019
The Sheriff’s Office requested that the criminal investigation of Flagler Tourism Director Matt Dunn be conducted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Amy Lukasik, the tourism bureau’s marketing director, is taking over Dunn’s duties for now.
FlaglerLive | August 8, 2018
The grants were part of the annual county tourism bureau’s funding round and are designed to enhance tourism and the visitor count in the county.
FlaglerLive | May 21, 2018
The proposal never went before the Tourist Development Council. The county administrator says the $284,000 cost will actually be less than the existing contract.
FlaglerLive | April 17, 2018
The Flagler County Tax Collector, not the state Department of Revenue, will be collecting the 5 percent tax on short term rentals starting in July–a tax hundreds of property owners are evading currently.
FlaglerLive | May 16, 2017
A good showing in December aside, when year-over-year tourism tax receipts jumped 18 percent, Flagler County has done less well, and not necessarily because of Hurricane Matthew.
FlaglerLive | March 20, 2017
County Commissioner Donald O’Brien’s proposal to shift more money toward beach restoration prevailed today in a joint meeting of the County Commission and the county’s tourism board, and the county administrator pledged to allocate $2 million to Flagler Beach’s needs.
FlaglerLive | March 20, 2017
Paying for critical repairs to Flagler County’s beaches is hostages to a tourism budget’s scandalous and unaccountable promotions spending, which the county administration wants to increase despite the emergency.
FlaglerLive | March 6, 2017
County Commissioner Donald O’Brien today was willing to raise the county’s tourism tax to 5 percent, but to further increase revenue for beach restoration, and, for a year, lower revenue for promotions.
FlaglerLive | February 20, 2017
The tourist sales surtax tax is applied to hotels, motels and short-term rentals, and would increase beach-restoration revenue to $2.25 million over the next three years.
FlaglerLive | February 12, 2017
Enterprise Florida and Visit Florida are two tax-supported state agencies that act more like slush funds, wasting money behind secretive veils and returns on investment that have never lived up to the promise.
FlaglerLive | January 23, 2017
Flagler County commissioners agreed today to deplete a $1.5 million fund for beach management as part of a match to draw down state dollars, but none of the money would benefit Flagler Beach, angering officials there.
FlaglerLive | December 21, 2016
The 4 percent surtax currently generates $2 million a year. An extra penny would add $500,000, but there are differences over whether all the added revenue should go to beach restoration or whether some should go to marketing the county.
FlaglerLive | December 19, 2016
Flagler County commissioners heard sobering costs of repairing 18 miles of beaches but a “unified” plan local cities, state and federal agencies can agree to is entirely lacking.
FlaglerLive | December 4, 2016
The spending authorizations depart in one way or another from county or tourism council policy and underscore to what extent the paper trail behind tourism office spending has been thinning out over the past two years.
FlaglerLive | May 18, 2016
The questioning was another example of of the TDC’s more inquisitorial attitude toward local projects as opposed to a less rigorous or accountable approach when the applicant is an out-of-town organization, including for-profits.
FlaglerLive | March 21, 2016
County government’s tourism arm, which manages $1.6 million in tax dollars, is diminishing emphasis on community events to push sports and conferences which draw people without necessarily promoting the county.
FlaglerLive | December 17, 2015
The $40,000 in county tax dollars will help pay for rooms and food at a writers’ conference at Hammock Beach Resort, in hopes for good press in return. There is little evidence of such returns.
FlaglerLive | December 15, 2015
Palm Coast Little League organizers say the way the city is booting them off Indian Trails Sports Complex fields for a for-profit tournament is a violation of a contractual agreement that defines how the city may go about doing so. City Manager Jim Landon disagrees.
FlaglerLive | October 22, 2015
While the Spartan race appears set at a private ranch in Flagler next March, again, serious questions of transparency and patronage are undermining tiourism chief Matt Dunn’s latest approach.
FlaglerLive | August 23, 2015
County Administrator Craig Coffey, conceding to the outpouring of opposition to holding such a race at the preserve—and to a majority of county commissioners’ categorical opposition to the event there—informed commissioners Sunday that the race would be pulled.
FlaglerLive | August 21, 2015
Bill McGuire, a tourist council and Palm Coast City Council member, is concerned about the Confederate flag display at an upcoming Civil War reenactment at the Agricultural Museum. He spoke as a bill was introduced in Tallahassee to ban all such displays on public grounds.
FlaglerLive | August 19, 2015
The Spartan extreme-sport race in March will cover 8-10 miles and feature nearly 30 landscape-altering obstacles, with 6,000 racers and 2,000 spectators expected. The county is subsidizing the race.
FlaglerLive | August 17, 2015
The tourism office’s four employees have been under contract through the Flagler chamber of commerce. By next fall, they’ll be county employees, but their budget will still be underwritten by the 4 percent surtax on short-term rentals.
FlaglerLive | June 23, 2015
Flagler County wants to raise the local sales surtax on hotel and motel stays to 5%, from 4%, even though revenue has grown ten-fold over the past decade.
FlaglerLive | March 18, 2015
The $71,000 Deltronics sign, plus $15,000 for its installation, was paid for through a $150,000 grant from county government’s Tourist Development Council and is part of a series of improvements at the auditorium designed to improve visibility and impact.
FlaglerLive | February 16, 2015
Monthly tax collections from Flagler’s 4 percent surtax (or bed tax) on fees at hotels, motels and other short-term rentals were up 13 percent by the end of the 2014 fiscal year (it ended in September), after increasing 5 percent the previous year.
FlaglerLive | February 21, 2014
Palm Coast and WNZF have ended the partnership that produced the annual Rock ‘n Ribfest every spring and the Seafood Festival every fall in Town Center. The Ribfest will be reborn as part of a fly-in at the county airport called Rockin’ the Runways in late April. In an unrelated move, the Flagler County Chamber of Commerce is ending its annual Taste of Flagler and replacing it with Restaurant Week.
FlaglerLive | December 5, 2013
Georgia Turner, the county’s radiant tourism director who oversaw Flagler’s and Palm Coast’s realignment as niche sports destinations, a steady rise in tourism-tax revenue and a first-ever working coalition of local arts groups, is leaving after just two years on the job. Personal, not political, reasons led her to the decision.
FlaglerLive | April 30, 2013
The New Jersey-based Player Development Academy will build up to six fields on 65 acres west of U.S. 1 that will link with the Indian Trail Sp[orts Complex–and with Palm Coast’s sports-niche market, which has turned into an engine of economic development.
FlaglerLive | February 22, 2013
The Flagler’s Tourist Development Council is spearheading an effort to make sure landlords who rent homes or condominiums on a short-term basis, defined as less than six months, pay the 4 percent tourist development tax.
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