ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — One day before Orange County commissioners were scheduled to discuss how to divide $900 million in future tourism development tax collections, rifts emerged that threatened to derail the quick decisions the mayor hoped to make.
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A series of meetings by an appointed board had narrowed the final projects for commissioners to consider. The remaining hopeful projects included phase 5 of the Orange County Convention Center, an expansion to Camping World Stadium, work to the Amway Center, an expansion to the Dr. Phillips Center and support to UCF athletics.
In a memo released Friday, the mayor said he preferred giving $500 million to the convention center and $400 million to Camping World, after Comptroller Phil Diamond asked commissioners to be conservative with their budgeting due to lower-than-expected collections. The mayor’s recommendations followed the board’s advice and rankings.
“While many of us, and especially those entities seeking funding, had hoped that the debt capacity amount would be much higher allowing us to meet all the current requests, the prudent decision is to work within the debt capacity amount provided by the comptroller and county staff in this initial decision phase,” Mayor Jerry Demings wrote.
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However, the memo irritated at least three commissioners who felt like they weren’t being given any opportunities to make their own decisions.
“No one came to us and said, ‘This is why we think we should be funded. This is what we want,’” Commissioner Mayra Uribe said. “What we did have were private meetings behind closed doors individually, but not together.”
Uribe released her own memo Monday morning that questioned the necessity of funding the Convention Center and Camping World. She said she wasn’t told how much expanding OCCC would cost, and thought Orlando should pay for the Camping World project.
She also proposed renegotiating the contract with Visit Orlando to reduce how much TDT money the organization receives, citing its budget ballooning from $60 million to $110 million in recent years as her motivation.
Commissioner Nicole Wilson agreed with Uribe’s request to see an actual cost for OCCC.
“That project was priced out in 2019 prices. We can’t get anything anywhere for 2019 prices,” Wilson explained.
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Wilson has long taken issue with the way the TDT process was playing out, calling for additional transparency measures and a way to explore spending the money on other items instead of well-funded major attractions.
Wilson particularly sounded interested in using the money for infrastructure to support the attractions – which is currently restricted by state law.
“I understand [tourism industry workers] get up and go to work every day, whether it’s for Disney, or for one of the small businesses that surround the other parks,” she said. “So, they’re my priority and we’re trying to make sure that we’re not forgetting them in this discussion.”
Other commissioners weren’t as moved. Commissioner Mike Scott, whose district includes the Convention Center, noted that the expansion project was approved in 2019 and was put on hold because of the pandemic.
“Move forward with what was originally approved by the previous Board of County Commissioners, and then decide the other projects based on the merits,” he said.
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