By Apopka Mayor Bryan Nelson
The Apopka Voice published an OP/ED by Orange County Commissioner Christine Moore on May 15th urging Apopka to take a more conservative approach to its Tourist Development Tax grant bid.
"When Apopka’s application was returned to the county a few weeks ago, while extremely well written and documented as to its benefits, there was a much larger request for $13 million," Moore wrote. "I have never seen a smaller municipality receive this large one-time grant. Additionally, the ARC Committee has only $15-20 million annually to award. The requested funds for upgraded amenities at the Northwest Recreation Complex could cause the entire application to be rejected."
Apopka Mayor Bryan Nelson pushed back on Moore's assertion in an OP/ED of his own he sent to The Apopka Voice:
"In an editorial by (Orange County) Commissioner Christine Moore, she complains that the City of Apopka shouldn’t ask for both 4 new baseball/softball fields as well as improvements to the Amphitheater from the Tourist Development Tax (TDT) for our Northwest Complex. I’m sorry that she doesn’t feel that adding four additional baseball/softball fields at Apopka’s Northwest Complex is worthy of TDT funding.
It is disingenuous to say that there is only $15-20 million dollars available, for everyone knows that the amount budgeted is $75 million and could be as high as $100 million over the next 3-5 years.
Our softball and baseball tournaments generate heads in beds (hotel stays) with one tournament alone generating a thousand room nights in the theme park area. We have 5 hotels in Apopka that generate between $750,000 and $1,000,000 of hotel tax revenue each year and hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in sales tax, but in the almost six years that she has been a County Commissioner we haven’t received one dime of TDT money.
Additionally, if you look at most of the other projects on the TDT list they have either had year over year grants or the funds are needed for basic building maintenance which isn’t putting more heads in beds to generate more TDT dollars. Apopka is comfortable with funding our NW improvements over three to five years to lessen the immediate burden on the TDT fund.
As our County Commissioner we expect that you will fight for the largest city in your district and fund four new ballfields for our neighbors in Seminole County are about to approve a $65 million-dollar indoor facility which will directly compete with the 16 fields that we hope will be available over the next several years. We are asking for your help to fund our baseball/softball fields."
