e e e e e e Board of county commissioner meeting is called to order 6:30 p.m. um commissioner reic is going to lead us in vacation and in the Pledge of Allegiance all right let's pray Our Father in Heaven father we thank you so much for another day of life thank you for all the blessings you poured out upon each and every one of us and father I thank you for every person that's here tonight dear Lord I pray you have your hand upon them and father I pray for this board dear Lord I just pray that you'll give us wisdom from above to help us make good decisions and good choices that will benefit everyone in Bradford County and father most important I just pray that whatever we do tonight or say will glorify you thank you again for everything you do for us Jesus name I pray amen amen I pledge Al to the of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands na indivisible andice for all good evening again everyone um at this time we'll have public comments and we have just one did I miss anyone uh Dr still all still 14167 Southwest 101st Avenue Stark part uh tonight I want to talk about the camores Trail Ridge South mine and uh the Bradford County issued the special uh permit for mining for that operation and I would urge you to have County staff do an inspection of the mine site to make sure that commor is meeting the requirements in that special uh permit for Mining and this is driven in part because uh kores has had a couple of instance that had to be reported as solution discharges at that site uh the first one uh dealt with elevated radium radium is a radioactive material it was in their processed water and they reported that the more uh significant one was actually on January 31st uh in which they had a discharge of almost 200,000 gallons of water that actually uh went off their site uh onto to uh the north Florida Landress property uh off of uh griffus Loop Road there and the uh we're the mine has been in operation about a year now so we have a year of data to look at I think it would just be a good opportunity to make sure that everything is being uh done according to the the permit and the big concern that I have is that if uh the discharge was caused by wash out of one of their BMS and if a u if we have a major rain event uh then we don't want to have a a major discharge from camores that would go beyond the properties of the Swan River Water Management District property um radium at this point is also a a concern because it'd be a shame to have that uh soil that Swan River water Management District property contaminated with radium to the point uh that it could not be used in the future as a part or once the mining operation is completed I think it just means that it could well be that there the radium is not an issue we just need some data to back it up and back up that conclusion and so I'd urge you to again to have uh I'm not sure who would do the inspected for the county but have somebody just take a look at that operation to make sure that everything is working as it should be thanks thank you um and next we'll have the approval of a consent agenda to approve motion by commissioner dhy second second by commissioner Thompson any further question discussion all in favor by the sign I I any oppose I though and our um next is our medical examiner services on Madam Madam chair we need to move to item four I'm sorry excuse me I skipped number four um the north Florida Economic Development Corporation presentation M amers oh well Mr mil is going to do it not Amber thank you madam chair Amber will be up here in just a moment I'm G to try to keep it short because y'all hear from me enough and I've got to get to my church and help them get ready for Easter jam and 200 kids on Saturday morning wow first of all let me change hats for just a second and say as uh president of Bradford Fair Association I want to thank each of you individually and collectively for y'all's incredible support uh as well as uh manager corn uh in spite of the two rainy nights uh this was still our best fair for us economically since uh 2019 before Co that's great uh and it was a for a combination of reasons in spite of those again the rain really hurt us those two nights but uh I have to give kudos particularly to uh Jason Dodge and uh Public Works uh they did Miracles the last two weeks before the fair uh and of course we're glad to be housing Benny Jackson in our office now the fair office that we lease from agriculture uh and and he he with his job in the rolloffs as well uh so it was your participation your support uh I think went a long way in helping us have the best fair that we've had in five years so thank you for that okay uh tonight I'm here very briefly seriously to uh introduce you most of you have heard a little bit about and we've made presentations about the northeast Florida Economic Development Corporation previously we had the Bradford County Development Authority and that had existed for over almost 70 years I think and uh Dean Weaver one of our members and myself were on that Patricia Evans for the last few years now Dean and I weren't there 70 years sometimes it seemed like it but and uh when when Governor des santis and the legislature decided to do away with Special Districts of course that had to do with Disney but unfortunately we got caught up in that there was only nine districts we were one of them and we had to disband by July 1st of last year and we did that and turned the money over to yall which was about 186,000 I think or so at the time working with Mr corn and with you all very cooperatively once the new uh board was formed had to be totally separate from the last one that that it went out of business and we did that then you all restored the money to us and we're now using that I assure you uh in a very fruitful way and uh I just want to briefly introduce Sandra kale is actually the president uh she lives at kingy Lake and uh she is an engineer and attorney real estate she's got several different degrees Avery I can't remember them all but uh anyway she unable to be here tonight I'm the vice president Patricia Evans is our Treasurer Marty Shaw is a secretary and also here tonight as I said is Dean Weaver just raise your hand everybody see who you are Mr Avery Roberts and Evan Douglas and Dawn Strickland so our additional members that are here tonight and uh we had to make a choice about trying to hire an executive director uh and quite frankly we just couldn't afford that I mean basically we've got enough for less than two years of what the average uh executive director of a Development Corporation our size would make so we are extremely fortunate to be able to contract instead with a lady from Keystone Heights and that's Miss Amber Shepard who's going to be making the presentation in just a moment and she has her own business has had several businesses and uh this one is Strate she's our strategic alliance's business partner and she has taken it on full fledge uh she has good experience incredibly knowledgeable with it uh and reaching out out to entities both nationally and internationally uh from her business experience and and we've really hit the ground running we appreciate as we told uh Mr corn in our meeting yesterday so much you all designating us as the development uh coordinator for the county uh because that that's huge uh Pam gets calls at at the chamber uh when I was city manager I got calls I assure you Mr corn does of people wanting to do business a lot of times it has to be proprietary and can't be shared with certain people and so forth but now then we're trying to funnel all of that through the Development Corporation and Amber is handling every that every day calls from people and so it's the people I just mentioned like Avery and Dawn and and Evan and Dean that have a lot of experience in development and real estate and things construction uh have just make our board fantastic not with standing myself the rest of them have a lot of gifts okay so Amber's going to come up and give you a few minutes of what we're about and how we' like to work with y'all in the future and I thank you for your time thank you um and welcome M sheer thank you very much thank you okay all right so thank you guys for having me this evening very honored to be here give me just one moment while I learn how to maneuver this the clicker so just a a quick slide um covering what Bob had previously mentioned about the BCD and how that was exited and now we've formed the northeast Florida Economic Development Corporation and our board of directors listed for you as Bob has mentioned um we are in the process of building we're a brand new organization and I love the startup world so just to give a little bit of background about myself I've lived in this area since 1984 I was actually the director of career services at foris college for um nine years at Forest College and then previously at Everest University so um Workforce Development is in my heart and is a passion of mine and you know when I was growing up professionally seeking New Opportunities seeking new ideas of what I wanted to do with my future I pursued a master's degree in Human Resources management and then started looking for new opportunities and then covid hit and so that kind of changed the game plan for everybody it opened up doors of opportunities that I had never had opened to me so while Co was horrible in some aspects it was amazing in others because it created this opportunity that I had never imagined and the door opened for me to connect with a gentleman out in California who has a consulting firm who worked globally and was building relationships with municipalities in South Korea my first job with him was to arrange what we would call like um a spee dating for investors to meet with businesses that were in South Korea that were considering localizing in the United States and I was like oh this is so interesting and then he had another relationship that was developed with the Korean Business Development Center in Washington DC where we had the opportunity to provide consulting services to those organizations who were again interested in localizing in the United States and as these opportunities came to me now mind you I grew up on on a dirt road out off a 2115 in Clay County so you know I I grew up playing in the street playing baseball with the boys beat up a couple of them here and there but you know I never imagined the possibility of being able to be involved in global economic development and as I had these opportunities presented to me I really just um was thankful for the opportunity but it became a passion of mine I felt this calling inside of me that I want to do this for Florida it's nice that I'm helping out South Korea with these things and through time we actually began creating meeting opportunities for those municipalities um to bring business manufacturing to South Korea and I thought I need to do this for Florida you know we can all see the volatility in in the economics and in our our world today and as I see these things going on around us my heart and my passion is to make sure that our community can withstand any of the turbulence that comes our way and it just so happened the door opened for me to bring a delegation from that was originally from South Korea through the Korean Business Development Center in Washington DC to Bradford County and I had my first very first delegation um come here in the summer and we were able to meet and talk about opportunities and it didn't come to fruition for them to move here right now but it is something that they're still considering and so that led opportunities for me to meet with Patricia and the other board members and we began working together because we all share this passion how do we protect our community grow our community create higher wage jobs and opportunities for our our children and our children's children and ensure that our community is able to have a stake in the global marketplace now for a girl who grew up on a dirt road in middleberg out in the middle of nowhere I never thought about the global market place as I was growing up but I see how things are changing and how we have to be at the Forefront of that if we want our children and our children's children to have opportunities for those better wage jobs um and to be able to provide for their family in the coming years so that's just a little bit about me and my background I wanted to give you guys a little bit of that Insight so you know who you're working with um so our our purpose we are working together and I'm not going to read the slide for you so um we are working together to ensure that we are building our community to the best of our capability and we want to work collaboratively with the local municipalities the state government level local businesses we want to make sure that we're bringing the right types of businesses into the county and we want to make sure that we're collaborating with you guys and with all of the stakeholders to ensure that that it's good for everybody so as you can see on here we have our mission and vision statements and our primary goals we are really really focused on building out those public private relationships those are really important we know that we can't move forward without all of us working together and and to be honest and to be fair when businesses are considering moving here they don't know everything they don't know what they don't know and so we want to be the liaison that kind of helps guide them through the process lets them know uh where they can go and find that information maybe even help facilitate meetings and create new relationships new business opportunities we want to drive business expansion and Innovation we recognize that Bradford count County and its surrounding counties have really good businesses that are already established and a lot of people are ready for growth but maybe they don't know how so we want to be a resource for those organizations as well and then we want to elevate the community Economic Opportunity because that's really what this is all about is strengthening our community so that we are all doing well together so what if we been doing since our Inception well I can tell you that I have been probably busier than I have been in quite some time so we have established our organization we've um filed our Articles of Incorporation got our bylaws situated we've built out our website um we're working on building out our marketing materials right now so that we can go and begin really seeking member investor opportunities we have been meeting one-on-one um with a lot of the Business Leaders in um community leaders so that we can develop those relationships and reestablish the relationships that had been started under the bcda but we also want to take it to the next level we want to in our next phase begin some Outreach uh and with my experience and the work that I've been doing it really opens up a lot of opportunities for us to reach out nationally here to people in the United States plus the opportunity to reach out to organizations that are growing globally and offer them the opportunity to come to the United States at one of the more recent conferences that we attended we were informed that Europe is having kind of a mass Exodus because of energy costs and we were informed that Florida is very competitive in that regard and so that is a great opportunity and a great attractant for some of those organizations so we have that opportunity and we have that knowledge on how to reach out to those people and bring them into conversation additionally um we have also been uh very supportive of efforts here in the community as well we partnered uh with the county to bring on a lobbyist so that we could take care of the transfer of the Douglas building and try to get that secured for mhd Rockland and and move forward with that so we are here to be collaborators we're here to be partners with you guys and we want to make sure that we are carrying forward not just our vision but we want to make sure that we're carrying forward with the vision that you guys also see for your community you've been elected by your constituents to represent specific districts and so I'm really looking forward as we grow forward to having the opportunity to sit down with you each of you and maybe learn what your your constituents would like to have because with my marketing capabilities I can Target those specific kind of Industries as a matter of fact for the work that we were doing with um South Korea they had a really big push to drive activity in smart technology so we're you know the the AI but also electric vehicles autonomous vehicles um all of that that's really being you know semiconductor manufacturing that you we're seeing a lot of these parks formulating and growing down south those are high-wage jobs that bring opportunities for our students and our our college graduates as as well and we're competitive in that area so what do we need recently we've had a really big push from fpno and other organizations to really start honing in on that site list fpnl has a push right now to identify properties that are at least 100 acres in size and of course the big qualifier is they have to be serviced by fpnl um but they want these s and they as much as possible they want them shovel ready but they're willing to take the sites that we have available and work with us and try to create those marketing materials and help us promote those opportunities to businesses um that have reached out to them and their site selection organization we also want to make sure um that we're building those relationships with our community and so that's an area where we need support and help from you all um we really have appreciated the partnership it's been expressed um tremendously now I'm the new kid on the Block but I have heard many great things about the working relationships that you guys have had in the past with the bcda and we definitely want to be able to continue that as we grow forward so I've enclosed also um and attached a copy of our member investor application we definitely would appreciate your your continued contribution and your continued support of our efforts as we work together but you can consider Northeast Florida Economic Development Corporation um essentially like your marketing firm for economic development in your area and then not only do we bring these leads but we're also able to mature them and qualify them and make sure that they're a good fit for our community so that we see um Bradford County and the adjacent counties growing together according to the vision that we have and in and in alignment with our values because that's really important we want to make sure that Community stakeholders are able to be involved and able to be proud of the businesses that they have coming into their community so thank you all for your time I appreciate the opportunity to meet with you tonight and to share a little bit about our organization and I look forward to any questions if you have any or comments we appreciate your presentation and we look forward to continue working with you with your leadership and with the business Community well thank you very much okay okay um any comments from one yeah I just look forward to working with you also anywhere we can help out just let us know absolutely thank you all you have a great evening thank you thank you ma'am well can I can I ask one question um Can anyone attend your meetings the uh member excuse me the board of director meetings are closed at the time but um we do welcome uh requests to be uh participant so if you are interested in a attending please feel free to reach out to me and uh we can just let the board know ahead of --------- e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon welcome everyone um this joint tourism Development Council Workshop is call to order joint meeting between the board of County Commissioners the board of City commissioners and the T tourism Development Council welcome everyone and so thankful for all of you being here and I'm going to um turn the meeting over to Mr carneg thank you madam chairman welcome everyone thank you so much for being here uh judging by the uh attendees I think we're going to have a great opportunity to have disc discussion and talk about some things involving tourism development here in Bradford County and we have the perfect person here to facilitate this discussion and Miss Kimberly Morgan um Kimberly is the director of Tourism and film development in Clay County and Kimberly and I have known each other since 2017 is that when you started uh when I was the city manager in Keystone height so we've been working together closely for over seven years and and uh you'll you'll figure out what right away that she's an expert and uh really knows how to get things done so at this time Kimberly if you want to go ahead and get started and um we'll move on from there thank you Scott um thank you Commissioners and and TDC members and council members for allowing me to share my biggest passion which is destination marketing and destination management um I see my wonderful colleague Pam um great to see you Pam um y'all um what what I want to do today is kind of walk you through um what I call TDC 101 and and this this is actually kind of a how we on board our TDC members so that there's a clear understanding of what legislation says what's what we can do how we can dream and how we make things happen so um with that I'm going to kind of give you a little overview we're going to have a legislative review we're g to discover how we get the alphabet soup tdt tourist development tax we're going to talk about permissible uses of that tourist development tax we're going to brainstorm a few ideas for the future and then um have some q& a okay so with that we're going to um talk about legislation first the State of Florida governs the collection of the tourist development tax so the tourist development tax has specific legislation about who can how it can be how those dollars can be spent the committee or Council that can can kind of governs that spend and um how you get th those dollars what what actually constitutes the tourist development tax so my favorite Statute in Florida statute is statute 125.0 104 that is the statute that basically says this is how you set up a tourist Development Council it tells you who can serve on that Council and then it tells you how you can spend it because there are specific and Florida is Florida is unique in this and and I want you to be sure that you know that because it's been a Hot Topic in Tallahassee right y'all are nodding your heads yes it has been so Florida is unique we are the only state to my knowledge that has dedicated funding for tourism marketing everyone else across the country has to battle it out with the general fund and their communities to do destination marketing and when I say destination marketing we're going to talk a little bit about what that is a little later but just for the for the group it's basically tourism tourism marketing you all see that every day um Disney you see the Disney commercials you see the Georgia mountain commercials all of you know they're trying to attract you to come to their destination for vacation those are the things that that we call Destination marketing um the other statutes that govern this or that impact tdt are Florida statute 212 509 and 511301 those are the where you're going to find the definitions of overnight accommodations whether that's a campground whether that is uh a vacation rental um but generally what the definition for tourist Development Council is or tourist development tax is any overnight accommodation that is less than 180 days or six months and that's really regardless of of whether it's a campground whether it's a a hotel a motel a vacation rental that's why when you see even apartment rentals you see a month-to-month lease that's always more expensive and you see a seven-month lease because those apartments should be paying tdt because it's an overnight accommodation less than six months so um just wanted to kind of go over that the other useful tool is those attorney general opinions um that kind of pull out specific guidelines and guidance um for permissible uses and and different definitions so um just kind of wanted you to have those tools in your toolbox handy so as a reference guide you kind of know where to go um but who again who pays the did I I put the clicker down and forgot so who pays that tourist development tax now I will tell you that if you were talking to a hotel year they say they pay the hotel tax or the tdt tax but they are just the collector they um they charge their room right um and then the consumer is the one that actually pays it now that consumer can be I'm staying here because I'm I just want to get out of my house and I could live in Bradford County but I just want to go have a unique experience in one of those covered wagons down the street or it could be somebody from Atlanta that just wants a small town experience and so the consumer is the one who pays the tdt I I just want to make sure that I mean my hotel year friends um like to think that they pay it but they collect it for us and pass that on to the tax collector or the Department of Revenue um so that's kind of how that works um but again you'll see the the different variations of of the overnight accommodations that it applies to so are y'all ready buckle up because we're going to go through 125.0 104 okay section five is the best section ever because and and this is this is me trying to make legislation fun okay y'all so um there are six pennies that you can get no more than six and we're going to walk through all six so that you know what you can have and what you can't okay so permissible uses for the first three pennies okay are you ready to acquire construct extend enlarge remodel repair improve maintain operate or promote one or more of the following now the reason that I kind of bounce through those verbs those verbs matter and you got to pay really close attention to those verbs or your county legal team is going to get on you okay so those verbs matter um but so you can do any of those things all of those verbs for publicly owned and operated convention centers sports stadiums Sports Arenas coliseums or auditoriums you all have actually done this so kudos to you because this is a great way to make an investment in your community so kudos um those auditoriums that are publicly owned and operated by nonprofits aquariums or museums that are publicly owned or um or and I say operated by a nonprofit but the but the county still owns or a public entity owns the building um and to promote zo that are open to the public so that's the first one do y'all have like that makes sense that's y'all are familiar I can tell um the next so I broke this one two and three you can do a lot with so I broke that down to promote and and advertise tourism in the state nationally and internationally and anything that's expended from that needs to go towards an event or a the purpose of promoting visitors coming to the area that has to be the ultimate goal and so um the so that encompasses a a lot of different things and we'll talk about some of those things that that you can be doing with that under that bullet point of a permission a permissible use to con to fund convention and visitor bureaus tourist information centers and that whole I don't want to read this to you y' this is legislation so um and these are the ugliest I will tell you these are the ugliest slides I've ever made so because it is just legislation but um copied straight from statute um but whether you and you all have have made a great choice in Contracting the Chamber of Commerce to administrate your tourism marketing or your tourism efforts um there's no right or wrong way to do it every all 67 well out of the 67 counties in Florida 64 of them have a destination marketing effort and there are probably 60 ways to do it okay um the the most common ways are are really the top three there's a government entity that does it so I am actually a Clay County employee they have decided to house this effort under their government walls you all have chosen to contract that out to the Chamber of Commerce it's another great way to do it another option is like our friends to the North in Jacksonville and they have a standalone nonprofit that actually um conduct they have a Convention of visitors bureau visit Jacksonville and that and that's how they've chosen to do it so there's no right or wrong way it's just whatever fits best for you all as a community so um so to fund those convention and Visitor Bureau operations um that may that mean staff that could mean photography that could mean a a variety of different things um but to operate that means technology that could mean an app that could mean any number of things um the other things U for of permissible use here is to finance a beach park facility or beaches uh Beach renourishment projects those could be for lakes and and and different things here um but this is a permissible use that's mainly on our Coastal for our Coastal communities um but can definitely be used for Springs Rivers um and lakes um moving on um again verbs to acquire construct extend enlarge remodel repair improve maintain operate or Finance public facilities um this is really about public space and um using it for Group business whether that's a Convention Center whether that's a you know it it just drills down um a little bit more especially for the communities with less than 950,000 people so it kind of gives you that we all good so far y'all have made it through the first three pennies really well yes sorry to interrupt so no no no that's fine so based upon what I'm hearing you say a shade structure a you know so this is this is um this is where it gets really fuzzy I'm just going to tell you I think that this is a a great opportunity for County legal council and the board to Define that collaboratively it's not cut and dry it's not cut and dry we we had to do this we just had this conversation actually back in 2017 with welcome signage and mon like Monument signage welcome to Clay County is that a permissible use is it not and the Attorney General opinion on that was simply you decide well it it sounds like it but but at the end I mean you this is where it gets gray and and and why it's so important for you all to kind of put a stake in the ground and decide what you want to do from a destination management and marketing perspective because people aren't going to come to your community because you have a welcome sign people aren't going to come to your community because you have a shade structure however those things may enhance the experience and so you all have to decide what you want your funds used for is it about the experience how much of how much of an investment do you want to invest in the experience and how much do you want to invest in the marketing to get them here and that's the tricky that's that's why you all get paid the big bucks because you can make those big decisions so does that does that help I I know I I didn't really give you an answer but I gave you guidance I get it okay oh it's a great question um so we're going to go on to um the next per um section for the fourth Penny the fourth penny has a little bit of flexibility in it because you can Bond it if you want to do that um you can pay debt service on it on bonds you can do different things with that um but you that goes to um also the maintenance and and construction costs for a convention center but only for up to 10 years so you've got to really time that out and financially plan for what that looks like um and then of course my favorite permissible use to promote and advertise tourism in the state nationally and internationally so that fourth Penny you see this is all for the fourth penny it's not as broad as the first three so when we're tracking our finances in Clay County we actually have them divided up by the penny so that we can keep make sure that we're using it according to the the appropriate permissible use okay you ready for yeah go ahead well since this is a workshop I'm going to ask the dumb questions but um now it says pay the operation maintenance cost of the convention center for a period of 10 years we do that on ours right Pam oh okay okay that's the difference all right thank you yeah absolutely okay so this one we don't get to get neither of us Clay County can't get it and y'all can't get it because it's the high tourism impact County so this is for the the counties that collect these huge amounts of tdt so the cmis of the world the the Miami tampas Orlando those those Jacksonville you know they they get that fifth Penny but we don't even have a shot at it okay so um and then um the permissible use for the sixth penny so we we collect in clay We collect five pennies so we do one two three four and six we just hop over that that fif that fifth one um and I think y'all are at four so you have the option to get another one and which would be this one and this is how you can use it to to pay the debt service um for um professional sports you know dream big right um and again to promote and advertise your destination n in state nationally and internationally those are the six pennies okay awesome so I'm going to run through ideas from Clay County this is and y'all this isn't a comprehensive list of what we do I just threw threw out some ideas um we we built our the the history in Clay County is that the tourist Development Council actually started because somebody wanted to build a Performing Arts Center called The Thrasher horn Center and they that that was the sole reason to start collecting tdt was to build that building um and so to this day we have a fiscal responsibility to make sure that that investment continues to operate well and so we give them a reimbursable grant um every year to make sure that they can use it for operations and and really what we call product development bringing in great acts to attract those visitors and to um to be a great place to have an event um the other thing is operations of a convention and visitors bureau destination management and marketing and that's that's the Crux of what my job is yes it is administering the the financials and the administrative work of the TDC um making sure their their meetings are scheduled and noticed and everything is is ready for that public meeting but then everything else is the operation of a Convention of visitors bureau everything else that we do from a marketing perspective from administering those grants it kind of flows over into both the TDC and the the convention and viser Bureau model um the other thing research and strategic planning when we are marketing we do not just throw a dart and hope it sticks somewhere we know exactly where who we're aiming to reach and what what we want them to do and what we're going to ask them to do um there are different and this as a business owner you all do this every day you know who your customer is well it should be the same in destination marketing we should know who our customer is and we should know how how to reach them how do we get them to come here those are all the things that we do on the marketing side um but that takes research we have to know who's coming because when I first got to Clay County they were like nobody comes to visit and I'm like oh well then why are the hotels full and so we we have kind of started to to change that perception that people do actually come here to Florida Northeast Florida um from Atlanta from Knoxville from Tallahassee from Orlando and Tampa they come up here to get that old Florida feel that natural Florida feel um so there's definitely visitors coming New York we we get a lot of visitors from New York and the DC area as well so um and we know this just by research and um we have a strategic plan that kind of gives us a road map for the next five years so that we know where to go um from a destination management perspective and a destination marketing perspective coming soon is the Clay County Regional sports complex um we're getting ready to um open a sports complex that has eight multi-purpose fields that will not be leased to um Community sports teams it'll be available for tournament play um and right now that's that's a big deal in Northeast Florida there's no one in Northeast Florida that does that um or has that capability so we've already booked a national championship um that'll be coming in December and um we've got a two Regional championships and opening weekend we have a collegate uh showcase where High School lacrosse players will get to play in front of College Scouts so um that's that's a big deal for our area so um the other thing is you know event marketing and and we choose event marketing because we know events are a destination driver for us that people come to Clay County for events um and um and I put in their Sports grants because you can't play in the sports space unless you kind of give them a little money to come so that's that's some of the things that we do not all of the things but some of the things that we do what what event do you draw the most crowds or what is your best event that you have so I'm going to kind of reframe your question if that's okay certainly um the largest event that actually brings a a ton of visitors so so see there's there's a difference and I think that you all have to when you're talking to the tourism team in Klay County you're you may get a different answer than than someone else in the County government okay I love our fair and they bring 140,000 people to Clay County but s 92 I think it's 90% % of those people are in the Jacksonville MSA so they're not staying overnight they're day visitors now those day visitors are important don't hear what I'm not saying those those day visitors come into our community and they buy gas they eat in our restaurants or they spend tons of money at the fair they they are very important so don't hear what I'm not saying but you can't collect that tdt from those day visitors and if the money is going out you want some return on your investment and you all need to Define where you want the greatest return if you want that in sales tax and gas tax revenues or if you want that in overnight tdt revenues or both and there's a way you get both and that's with really getting those people to stay overnight um um does so bet I didn't really so going back to your question Vintage Market Days actually brings a ton of visitors that actually make it a girls weekend and they stay overnight um I think with the the sports events that we've been able to host we've seen a huge I mean so it's not I mean like I said I wish I could say our fair but that's a local that's a great local event Scottish games they bring in um a a a a good couple dozen room nights um believe it or not the Moose Haven chili cookoff brings in about 200 room nights W because those moose members from Connecticut want to come to sunny Florida and and put their chili to the test and so those I mean so it's not what you would it's not what you probably would have thought coming from the tourist I mean the tourism girl has a different perspective you what what are you starting to see I know it's new but what are you starting to see with Moto surf so Moto surf is a so let me tell you the strategy behind our Moto surf booking um Moto surf doesn't generate room nights for us the the visitors that come from Moto surf are generally the competitors and they're from nine different countries I mean they at least that's the the crew that came last year um were from nine different countries and it's cool but from a marketing perspective I I can't buy airtime on CBS sports for what I give them in a grant and then I get that CBS Sports footage that we can use in our marketing and in our efforts and so that's worth it to us because we get that video asset we get that marketing because there it's I mean someone will sit and it's not a commercial it's an actual competition that you're watching and um so one of the things that we've this is our third year hosting it um this is um we're kind of evolving with them and um we want to really push the month of during the month of May the last part the last latter part of April and the first part of May driving um Spectators to come and visit see this cool new sport because it y'all it's hopefully y'all have been there it's really really cool oh who benefits from from Moto surf so yeah so um okay um y'all y'all know um we have Clay County has a bed and breakfast in Keystone Heights and some vacation rentals but guess who has the hotel and the campground y'all do and so when people are looking they see it's in Keystone in Keystone Heights they're going to stay with y'all and I'm paying you like the way I teed that up for you Pam so um if y'all want to like jointly do this we could we could work on that we're enjoying it just like it is [Laughter] thank well played well played but um but there's a so hopefully that answered your question a little bit I think you have to really when you throw out events you have to really know who's coming and and what what it does for your your destination so I kind of I've thrown these words around destination marketing and destination management and I kind of want to go a little deeper and explain that destination management is a role that a convention and visitors bureau should play what um what's happened industrywide is that convention and visitor bureaus so legislation was written back in the 88s so it's old terminology we've kind of grown up in the industry and we now call it destination marketing organization it sounds less like the FBI you know Convention of visitors bureau sounds like you know they didn't get like you like that joke you know sounds like the FBI anyway so um DMO or destination marketing organization is kind of what we what we call ourselves now um that m is interchangeable with management and what when we say destination management we mean what do we what are the assets that our community has that people would travel for and that's somebody has to be watching so because if you have that inventory then you know what you have and what you need and whenever you know what you need you can go out and find and see how that plays into Economic Development and that's why your partnership with the chamber is is so great is that they have that inventory they know what's going on who's who's doing business and what they're doing um the the challenge for most smaller destinations like us is that we've got to come up with that unique differentiator if we can't figure out what that uniqueness is then we don't have anything in the marketplace that makes people want to come now I'm not saying that that uniqueness has to be grandiose it could be something simple like we're easily accessible to whatever and you know yall feel in the blank those kinds of things so it but you've got to nail down what and that's branding what are what is your uniqueness what are you what do you want to be known for this was brought up in one of our meetings by Mr Crosby actually and he talked about who were we who are we and who will we become you know something like that I mean look at um the Battle of usty I mean you know it's it's what happened there and so people remember that right and so that was one of the challenges that that we're kind of looking at is who were we and who are we yeah and and I'll I'll I'll give a little kudos to our friends um in Lake City their website as Springs are us because they know people that want to experience a spring should come there and with us if you want a good strawberry come so um but but that management piece is um key and critical because not only is that management piece um the managing the inventory but it's also managing the character because once you establish a brand you want to be able to protect it so the worst thing is that you have a historic district and then this modern building is you know built smack dab in the middle of the historic district you've lost all of your character you've that that that brand is no longer protected is that you with me on that okay so that's that development and management piece um and and that's not that's all all of these things are collaborative efforts it's not just the tourism team that's doing it if anything the tourism team and I say this a lot the tourism team doesn't own anything or manage anything except the message we are actually a great risk because we are promising something that our destination has is supposed to deliver but we have no control over the deliverable but that's why relationships and that destination management piece become so critical to what we do every day because we have to know what our businesses and our our destination assets are delivering so that we can align it with the message and execution of that promise that we're we're putting out there for consumers to to partake in um the destination marketing piece again I'll I can't I am there are are a lot of moments where I am a data geek I want to know how old they the the people are where they we found out um in tourism tourism um marketing your destination marketing usually the audience is female because who's playing in the vacation right it's mama and the kids and or it's you know the wife planning the little romantic getaway well or the girls get away for whatever fun um well that's not always the case and you've got to watch your analytics on your website and in your social media and in some of the things that you the events who's coming to the events you know those kinds of things are all data points that you can have to start to build your marketing strategy um you've got to Target your audiences if you don't don't play darts without knowing where you're throwing um when it comes to marketing and branding I mean we talked a little bit about that but you have to put a stake in the ground um there is and can I is it okay if I tell a little story yeah all me yes okay please so um I went to um the governor's conference on tourism at visit Florida and this is several years back the marketing uh he was doing a presentation on marketing and he talked about this little sleepy town in Missouri and he went there and he's like there's nothing to do my my appointment cancelled or who he was going to be so he's got free time on his hands so he goes to the diner and he has a cup of coffee and he ask the server where can I go I've got a few you know few spare hours where where can I go so he says go the server says go to the James cash Penny birthplace Museum that's you know that's what we're known for here so he goes over and it's closed so he goes back down town which is a little near the diner where he was and he just walks in a store cuz he just wants something like he's just looking for something to do and he walks into this quilt shop and this is a dude y'all and so he's in a quilt shop and so he's he's a marketing guy so he goes what you know what what do you do and she's like you have entered the Disneyland of quilting and he goes really and it's like this little bitty storefront and he's like she's like yes you've you've entered the Disneyland of quilting I teach classes online I do we have this is how this works and so he was just enamored by her passion and her you know her her just thrill of what she does every day why she keeps her doors open and all the things and so he started he just followed her and and just kept in touch with her so now um he and he made several trips back so the first trip back I think is what he said um she had bought all the the buildings next to her and expanded and she has a train at like a class room where she teaches people how to quilt and busloads of people come in to her little Disneyland of quilting and now um she bought the block across the street and for free that door that storefront is open to all the men because it's got leather recliners and TVs everywhere and all the beer you can drink and so y'all are y'all following me like she she's thinking about the experience and okay Disneyland of quilting if the wife wants to go to the Disneyland of quilting and hubby comes along he's going to have a good experience too okay so then she goes to all of the the hotel Brands and says you need to build a hotel here well they thought she was crazy because they are in the middle of nowhere Missouri and so you know what she did she built it herself yep she she built her own hotel buses come in with bus loads of ladies that want to learn how to quilt she has become so successful that her children quit their Fortune 500 jobs to come work for now they tried to dazzle up her YouTube videos they got lights and they made her dress up because she was doing this in her basement in her sweat her sweatshirt okay that was that was what she was teaching with and they put the lights on and they glammed her up her viewership tanked because she wasn't being who she was she wasn't authentic and so that so when when you think about Disneyland of quilting it's not just the experience it's her she's the face she helped deliver the disas land of quilting experience so Forbes just wrote about her so y'all it it can be done it's just you know you got to get the right people doing the right things okay so Brandy she put the steak in the ground and said I'm gonna be the Disneyland of quilting and she delivered okay um storytelling storytelling is the most valuable form of marketing everybody has a story it's just a matter of how is it relevant in the tourism space and how can you use it so um with that I did kind of take a peek at some things some opportunity some some opportunities that y'all have you all have they will not let me in so I'm living vicariously through y'all okay um the north natural North Florida y'all can add brochures did you know that they have brochures online so we you can add brochures so a a destination rack card if just simply an overview of why someone should come to Bradford County you can do that update the locations make sure that people know what there is to see and do here so take a little time and update that add your events they have an events calendar on there and I would also suggest that you submit blogs come up with the top 10 things to do in Bradford County y' I mean that would be kind of fun so but Pam do we currently have a presence there but do we have an actual online presence with them like what Kim talk broches and locations right it it might be new yeah I don't know I like I just glanc I just glanced but but but the blog can be be something that you all already have um on the chamber site it doesn't have to be new content I just jotted down these ideas of a top 10 list and a and a why why should someone that's the ultimate question that has to be answered is why should someone come visit Bradford County Star fill in the blank okay just some ideas well and if I may just like I was talking about the strawberries while ago when we do rur County days in Tallahassee there those people that come up to us are constantly now when is your Strawberry Festival and I was wondering Pam do we like maybe advertise or anything at the capito about the festival you did oh great you want to come I start say yeah and when they come down I mean that's right I mean typically what they'll say is we heard y'all were here and we come to get the Strawberry Shortcake so it definitely like you were talking about um Talk brings people and and they've really kind of shown an interest in coming to our Strawberry Festival and I hope they do but um they ask a lot of questions about it so yeah and and I think that the the next step is kind of asking those the people that come why do you what what is it that you love about the Strawberry Festival why do you choose to come come here every year why is this a a getaway for you because then they start to tell your story which is so much more valuable than you telling it right I've been asked our yeah and that allows them to spend a lot more money in the local businesses right so go ahead so um there are so let first of all let me kind of clarify because Patricia I don't know it's you I I want I want to be sure that everybody knows that you know I don't know I don't know people's names I just know that that they that their device and and y'all and this is it kind of creeps me out too I'm not GNA you know lie um it's car devices anything that has a signal like it's car devices and it's phones and garments and like the whole the list goes on and on but we um we subscribe to an actual research service that provides us with that information so the the one that we use is called arrivalist and um we're looking at making a change so this is not an endorsement of arriv Ral list but what we can gain from that data is um twofold we know where where they are from we know we don't know age demographics or anything like that um in our little subscription but we we know where they go so if we zero in on like let's say the Klay County Fairgrounds I can tell where they go after the fair or yeah and I know the destination that they came from I also know whether Klay County was their primary destination or if we were just a pass through um which is another great piece of information um it you have to be in the market for two hours and you have to if you're in the market for more than 30 days they throw your data out so we know that it's visitors and so there's but um what we're what there's a couple of other um platform forms one's buckon and one's Placer AI um Placer and buckton both um you can type in personas like if you know like if you're looking for an outdoor adventure um and and you you just know some data about your visitors about how old they are and what they like to do you can plug all that information into Placer and buckton and they will tell you where in Atlanta those people live so that you can Target them from an advertising perspective McDonald CH they came and I watchie theat I watch Subway as they told me from place all your big boxes are when you walk in you have your well and and the other thing so I'm going to tell it to cut to your point um some of the larger destinations um well and and another company that's specifically in the tourism space in in a big way is zardo um they did a try they they did an experiment they wanted to watch the swifties and so they watched Taylor Swift's concert in Tampa and where did everybody and and there were little dots and you watched the heat map and they all went to the concert and then they all went every and it was a it was amazing to watch um they use this for convention business in the bigger cities so that um they know the beh consumer behavior of those certain typ of convention attendees to know whether they want to go after that business or not or to help um local businesses staff appropriately so different all kinds of different different ways you can use data it's not just for marketing and and just uh on a a different note I think we have some many missed opportunities for promoting ourselves in Bradford U County um our Lakes for example is one of our greatest asset that we have for our County on you got Lake Samson and Crawford and Hampton and surrounded by Santa Santa Fe and even Kinsley so you have a lot of um I guess Northern snowbird who would like to have that rustic experience in the South that would be willing if we promoted that to come and spend a weekend you know uh experiencing our Lakes by by fishing camping staying at the log cabin or or whatever what our hotels or having that that southern experience um but that is something that we can Market advertise that we have and good old Brett County and so when they come they might go over and have a scoop of the best ice cream in town right here downtown or go to our future City walk or you know um I know that the I guess the future of the fairgrounds is to have a sports arena so to attract a professional sports so those are some things we can collect that what fourth Penny or third Penny but we have a lot of opportunities that are missed um here even our ecotourism the University of Florida for research um we have a if you guys didn't know we have a butterfly park right at the hospital one on Thomas Street those those are some things that we can Market through research with the university that would people will want to come and have that experience so so so I'm just saying there's so much potential for our community that we just haven't tapped absolutely and I think that that's so I think you hit the nail on the head when you started to just rattle off the lakes and the experience the butterfly garden and all of those things all of those things need to be in your asset inventory and you just need to start telling stories about them so that and and and that's when you the way you write about it with search engine optimization and keywords all of the it's it's a craft it's not I mean Pam oh she left but um when when she you can't just write a blog you can't just write you know a a social media post you have to be thoughtful in how you do that because it's not just oh I posted something on social media it has to be intentional and it has to use the right words it so that your information comes up in searches and that's that's just part of the the strategy and again it goes back to wanting being sure that you like I would it it takes time because you're going to need to take a look at your inventory and really decide what you want to be known for and if it's so I'm just G to tell it like it is if it's all free stuff then what does that tell people you want to talk about the thing the other experiences too like so um my friends in Amilia Island Gil brilliant tourism marketer he transformed that destination from being a nice little Beach town to being an upscale Resort community and he did it by simply a strategy he looked at volume versus yield he said if people will stay at the Ritz Carlton and the Omni at that time it was still the Amilia Island Plantation or the Omni Amilia Island Plantation now if they will stay there and pay top dollar and we mark it to th that clientele then we will raise the caliber of a Hampton Inn on the island just because they can't stay at the Ritz Carlton and the Omni and so when you go to Amilia Island now their average daily rate is like $400 I don't know about y'all but I've never paid $400 to say it a Hampton in but they're not your normal Hampton ends either and so they that that um that strategy was about yield not volume but you have to have those conversations yeah um I I want to um to to yield to give an opportunity I know that Miss Mosley had um wanted to make some comments about ecotourism and also Mr um steel so to give them a chance to ask or share thank you Miss Mosley thank you Carol Mosley 10121 Southwest 104th Avenue in Graham um just a couple of things thank you um Madam chair for bringing up ecotourism which was not mentioned at all in the presentation and I think that that is one of the benefits that we do have here that is somewhat unique to our area and when we talk about a unique gem in our County that's Brook sync and it's owned by roner and that is the tourist attraction that we are not taking advantage of our comprehensive plan says that we should be buying um land for conservation when necessary and we don't really do that and that would be an ideal piece of land for us to collaborate with the state on making it a research Park uh uh uh and and and there's many many things that could be done there that would draw people to the the UN the part of Brook the part of Bradford County that nobody pays attention to Brooker so um and it's right next to alacha County with draw people from there my understanding is it's more fantastic than Devil's millhopper so that should be an our asset inventory not in roners and we should be working to purchase Brook syc and having dialogue with roner immediately about that if we really want to promote tourism in our County um I I I'd like us to be thinking about small scale housing we didn't hear any mention of airbnbs um everybody I know they don't stay in motels they stay in airbnbs wherever they travel they go and they stay in an Airbnb so um but we don't really we're not really working to try to make that a possibility in our County like by promoting tiny houses and things like that that would would accommodate that um at the Keystone campsite we've got a lot of people who are permanent residents there at least according to the um the fact that they're registered to vote here which means that they must live here either more than six months of the year or they're voting illegally in our state so um why can't people have a tiny house on their own five acres of land with their own well and septic why would they have to live like a sardine in a can you know com compacted next to a bunch of people so I hope we'll be thinking about airbnbs and that would benefit individuals instead of this trickle down where it all comes to the county and then it trickles down that way these are direct payments made to individuals who own those properties and then we can set up some kind of structure where they're paying a tax if if that's what we want to do on that and so what is unique about us what is unique about us is our rural nature and our our our open spaces so we need to continue to work on that um and I would like to know how does how does a business make it to the website to the tourist development website Bell Oaks Barn um should be on the tourist development website for sure again Brook needs some attention um and I I saw you were talking about a small town quilting uh thing I saw a thing where there was some small town mid Midwest um they have some kind of a worm I forget what kind of a worm it is and they have an entire Festival that draws thousands of people every year about this worm everybody dresses up like the worms they I mean they it's all about this particular worm that is native to their area so what is unique about us that would bring people people for special things because I think at least five Counties have strawberry festivals and um and then I think you know we need to be thinking about what kind of industry do we want if we want to be a tourist destination because um my understanding and I would I would want to confirm this I recently read it on a Florida uh State website but maybe it's old information that Clay County cancer rates are much higher than the average in Florida and so if somebody's coming to a place they want to know that it's a a healthy place for them to come and explore so I I hope we will put a lot more uh effort um into um ecotourism as an option for bringing people here and individual options for individuals to make money using their own land for agrotourism ecotourism and that thing thank you thank you miss m thank you Miss Mosley for saying that word Brooker I appreciate that Dr Ste um I also want to uh talk about ecotourism and I think the key that that we need to I would suggest that you look at is actually establishing you know what we have here and uh actually I did this several years ago and presented to the tourist development uh group uh Brook sync is a really big one that that would be huge I've I've been there I don't know how many of you have been there but but it's a spectacular uh Place uh but we have much more than that we've got uh if you look at the New River just north of Brooker tremendous really nice canoeing uh like for a two or three hour canoe trip uh just needs a little bit of a a uh Improvement there at the the uh Crossing towards uh uh Lake Butler uh we've got Lake Samson uh tremendous opportunity there to Market it for interesting enough kayaks if you look people going through look how many of them have kayaks on the top of their cars are you know and that's where the boat ramp at uh Cyprus run is so important and unfortunately I must tell you that the hog carcasses are still at the Cy un bu uh the then also can develop stuff you there would be a tremendous opportunity to have a trail that goes from uh Edwards Road in uh uh Park and Stark all the way to Lake row Lake R uh is totally undeveloped it has a tremendous bird opportunity to to do bird watching you could make actually the KOA Campground a destination place for people who would want to spend two or three days hiking to and from uh Lake R just looking at Birds one of the neatest Birds that's down there is something called a Yellow Crown naron uh Eagles Osprey thousands of CPS uh but it needs a trail so you need to have you need to start applying for grants that would allow that trail to go and all the property is that there city of Stark arwan River Water Management District property so it would be pretty easy to put in a trail uh and then just what we I think what's needed is to really look at ecotourism as something that you would be really interested in developing and then you you have the spin-off of people who want to do Agri tourism bed and breakfast as as Carol said and I think uh but this is not going to happen if you're not willing to sort of push it forward and get into make that a major con conservation I mean the major uh conversation point and if you look at uh if you listen to NPR uh classic 89 out of Gainesville the other counties Market strongly there about their uh visiting the counties for their Springs and so forth and I think that would be a really great use for some of the Eco tourism dollars to begin letting people know as uh uh commissioner Spooner said that there's some great things to see here in Bradford County Lake Samson I mean I hate to I hate to do this because I love having Lake Samson all to myself but it would it's the west side of Lake Samson is totally undeveloped it's it's spectacular to canoe through to kayak through but nobody knows about it and you've just it's just that marketing bit that little bit and again the most important thing is to make sure you don't lose the Cypress runboat gr thank you Dr Ste so we have so many opportunities we can have a fishing tournament canoeing skiing all sorts of things within our our lakes and so come back to one more thing quick yes Clay County they did this spectacular thing they funded a kayak Bass Fishing competition okay and it was I I don't know how it worked out but I think that's the kind of thing that you need to look at to see how and maybe actually just cooperate with them and include Bradford and Clay County in a kayak Bass Fishing competition thank you and and um Miss Morgan I love what you said about the storytelling because each little quain po of braic county has its own unique history and story you know the whole um story about the Peggy line that used to come through here and the train that we LED you know and many times when we've had programs in downtown um I don't know which group it was through the Women's Club but they would actually dress an authentic um attire and go down Walnut and tell the stories about downtown Stark so there's opportunities to promote our community and and tell our stories Madame chair there is one other thing I'd like to talk about as we wrap up Kimberly you and I have had this conversation many times along with uh David Kirkland about the Keystone Heights airport um I think everybody understands the potential for the economic development and the job growth out there but I also believe that there is an opportunity to leverage it for tourism and I'm just wondering if what your latest thoughts are and some of the things that we've talked about in the past and I'd like for Mr Kirkland to weigh in as well yeah so um having so any destination that has an airport has a golden nugget because it's another way for people to access your destination um again you have to know who's going to who's willing and who's who's going to be able to fly in um but it also lends itself to spectacular events it's an event venue that has some Flex space within reason um but um the you know that having the asset of an airport is priceless well we've already got the crawling for the falling and that just seems to get bigger and bigger every year yeah well and they're celebrating their 10th anniversary this year and and they can't wait and they want to continue to grow and that's I think the the key point about um any type of airport space is that you have to I mean it it's Flex like I said any any space that you can create that's flexible that can help an event grow is good space a competition just back this year I left the airport earlier there must have been I don't know Park these competitors come from all over the state but I think there some out when I walked through the parking lot yesterday I saw and that's become big event for us is growing every it and most Pilots local they look for excuse fly somewhere and we' seen that issue as well so that's big for us the other event that happened was it was these trucks people put campers on top of them out like outdo the first year they had they had 80 vendors this year they had 12 vendors they people weekend Rend we are in airport but we have a lot of other surrounded we want to L there [Music] Crystal that area tin we we have one of our tenants who has this big organization they're talking about having a fly back up that's anyone else I just want I want to bring something up thought about for a long time I think I've shared with with some of the folks I know I've shared it with Mr Crosby maybe Pam U pish but um and I'm not an artist by any means but uh if you look at this the second to the last picture over here with the the front of how it used to look in the city of Stark and just imagine almost kind of like these smaller like little structures down at the square and having like a fountain in the middle and and some like pavers instead of kicking dust around or kicking mud around and and you know maybe even you know within that fountain that you know you have a flag pole that's you know up in the middle of it or something that you know you could even pull lights down during Christmas time and and and have like a large tree um but something that that that catches people's attention and when they come over the bypass or the overpass excuse me and they see something that is not uh the mechanical uh meaning of you know some of these older buildings and things like that but it's something attractive that would pull people in but you know really more for events though you know like when you do the Strawberry Festival you know where people pay to have a you know set up a booth or a tent or something like that maybe this is something that you know Kanas and rotary and camor and you know all the different you know local you know maybe this is something that they sponsor or they build and then you know they're able to donate the materials for that and then it goes back to you know TDC and the city but you know I guess I'm bringing this up because it's not a sporting event it's not a professional sporting event but again what do you do you know just like Miss Mosley said you know there's other strawberry festivals that go on but what do you do to make that something that people would come and it would be a destination you know like even the the lights on 14th that's out by the golf course everybody goes out there during Halloween and Christmas and it's just I mean tons of people and they give donations to I think uh he asked for donations for the Clay County uh yeah yeah so but anyway it's just it's a really neat thing and and you know even even our downtown if it looks something like that I don't know where a downtown is that looks like that again to pull people in and to let people know that hey this is an event that's going to happen you know at this time of the year every year and then they stop at the restaurants and they buy gas and you know different things like that but I think that our square is uh very underutilized and and it's right in the the core of our County it's in our city but U anyway uh that's just something that I've always kind of kicked around in my own head but just you like I said these not I'm not talking about buildings that size just talking about something that even has like a little porch on the front so if we do have rain well now we have an overpass that we can get under but you know something you can step up on maybe one looks like a church one looks like a barber shop one looks like a garage whatever it is you know and if you if you're not a Beer Drinker the one that looks like a church maybe you go up there and you can get a sweet tea or something you know it's just a variety of different things that would uh again just I'm just throwing that out out there because I think that this is related to you know what we're talking about how do you create a destination that's different than everywhere and um commissioner door is almost uh sounded like I don't know if you've ever visited Baker County but they have a little park and it's like a little mini Community which is a replica of what Bak County or mclan used to look like and it's a big event during Christmas and it's like you gone back in time and people come and visit her I think it's Heritage Park uhhuh but it's a beautiful event they even have cane where they make the um the syrup that experience and all of those things and I think that this what you're speaking of can culminate into what we call a taste of Stark or a taste of braic County where people are coming for a special event um that can occur annually you know like they have the taste of Jackson the taste of duall let's have a taste of Stark or a taste of braford County and do something like that any other I think what about is people love to get back way of life and U that's I think that's why all to you feel like know everything's with our world it's such a bad R everything happening and I mean the work that they've done downtown is beautiful and I think it will but like you said got to find what is significantly start and and it may not be strawberry it may be but um like you said we have beautiful legs and that's why it's important that we take care of our um that we finish thers run and that we we fix our our boat ramp and we build and I've never been to Brook syc but I would love to go and look and um because I've never seen what you're talking about Miss Mosley so hopefully we can take some of these ideas and really work on them and and I think this was a great great meeting um and another thing just people love people that live in brri County love Bradford County um and I think that we need to maintain that we need to work on on just building our home again and so that people feel like you know that they are home so very good thank you yes it's Miller in case y'all don't know that's John Miller thank youall um this is great stuff um I don't think we can say enough about what's happened here today um in the in the future one thing that I want to comment on the Bradford school system in Santa have an agreement to start a a nursing school here the House and Senate gave him some money for a workup study um Bradford County needs to be a big part of that the County Commission the city of start and uh I'm not sure that Dr bro or some Santa fe's people could come and give you their thoughts on how they are setting this up um it's going to be a Major Impact if we do it right for this County and we have the assets to be able to do that the hospital murg and Orange Park have great medical facilities that can be teaching areas the shortcoming in Gainesville is they have the students and man but no teaching space we have that there's a critical need for nurses and Bradford County and throughout the world we need to be a big part of it we need to be partners with Santa Fe and the state the house and the Senate there's funds that do that they can happen thank you thank you so much Mr Miller thanks for bringing that up I because uh Mr Kirkland and Miss Evans I know we've talked about the airport and and not nursing but that's a great like you said there's a great need for it there's a great need for Aviation uh mechanics and and uh avionics and things like that that that another asset that we have that could be utilized by Santa Fe and you know I've always said if you put a kid on a school bus in the third grade and send them out to the airport let them see these airplanes then they they grow this passion for for you know just every time an airplane flies over it's just you know something that's uh it's fascinating you know and and I think the opportunities out there for almost even a tri count area you when you look at you know say Bradford you know Southern clay maybe even putam but you know part of vacha too that you know have an opportunity to you know they've got those p3s out there that are you know they're they're renovating them and and and using them for you know for other services so again Santa Fe like you said being an asset and and and and also to your point about the schools I think we've seen an uptick in the schools and you know certainly um you know that's always a good thing when it comes to people looking at you know you know why I live in Bradford County you know so it's uh education is very important there's a gold an opportunity for education in Bradford County Madam sure if yes if I were had your seat I don't thank you uh I would appoint someone to coordinate with Comm uh Santa Fe and uh I'd have this a ongoing conversation because House and Senate I'm con convinced we'll find what it takes to make that schools happen so and ever doctor or nurse or instructor that moves here going to pay some taxes and eat some food from Windex and so forth It's good it's good thank you thank you so much um and I appreciate you bringing that to our attention and I I'd certainly reach out to them myself because I'm particularly interested in it um so Miss Morgan you have any closing remarks or um Mr corn any any Clos remarks I'm just excited for y'all y'all are on the C we so Klay County was there seven years ago people told me there's no way people come to visit and and you're going to you've got a boring job and then when I told them I have the best job in the county I get to tell all the good news then they started to kind of listen and it so y'all are on the cusp of doing great things and and I just challenge you to keep thinking creatively with the assets that you have and take full advantage of it it's it's a fun time to be in Bradford County thank you madam chair yes can I ask for to one question you said that your favorite thing is the fair no no I didn't say my favorite thing was the Fair it's it if if you asked your question was about the um what draws most about the you know what's our greatest event I mean it brings 140,000 people it's a great event right and how much time do we have we've uh what was go from 3 to four but go ahead well I was just wondering I mean as far as are you involved with the fair Association yeah we work closely we we actually give the TDC gives them a grant to Market and and one of the requirements of the grant is that they have to match the grant with their marketing so we give them a certain number and they have to spend double that in their marketing efforts okay well we just had a few people here from the fair Association and so that's I thought maybe we could just talk a little bit about that so so I have to tell you I think we have probably the most creative Fair director in the entire country great she um she she keeps delivering brand new experiences every year and um that's what keeps people coming back she is um and and and I I say she the entire team of volunteers and people that that are the association and and of itself um are very focused on safety are very focused on the experience and it that's this is a a perfect example of when the people make the event what it is and we are so proud of that EV of of that event it's it's a community staple so wish to thank everyone who's come out um this afternoon um to sharing the workshop and we look forward to continually working together all right if nothing else the workshop is now called closed