INDIAN ROCKS BEACH -- The Indian Rocks Beach City Commission signed on to support the additional penny tax of the county's Tourist Development Council and in the same breath took the County Commission to task.
There has long been dissatisfaction in IRB over the lack of financial support from county officials to offset the costs incurred by the city and other beach communities to attract tourists.
In other words, take away the beaches, and Pinellas County might as well be Holmes County.
The beaches are the attraction and along with that go service demands created by the tourists and visitors.
It's not a new issue with Indian Rocks Beach officials. They have been pushing the county administration and commission for what they believe is a more equitable situation.
Pinellas County, officials in all the beach cities believe, prospers overall from tourists and visitors and the communities bear the heaviest burden of cost in their view.
While the IRB City Commission listed its support in a resolution it added a key element that addressed the city's dissatisfaction with the economics of the issue.
"The Indian Rocks Beach City Commission does hereby support the levy of the fifth cent tourist developement tax dedicated exclusively to promoting and advertising tourism.
Then comes the sharp language in the next paragraph, the commission ". . .does hereby express its severe dissatisfaction with the lack of financial support provided by the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners toward offsetting the costs incurred by the city . . . to meet the demands created by the millions of annual visitors to Pinellas County."
The city thinks the county should provide funding for the following and listed these in its resolution --
The city is awaiting a reaction and response from county officials.