Thursday, May 21, 2020 - 20:27 Sundae Horn
TDA to Meet on Zoom Tomorrow

The TDA decides the fate of 2% of Ocracoke's occupancy tax proceeds.

You can join in on Zoom on Friday, May 22nd at 9am. 

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One Friday at 9am, the TDA will meet by Zoom to discuss the following agenda: 

At their April 20th meeting, the TDA discussed their break from OCBA. Beginning with the new fiscal year on July 1, 2020, the TDA will no longer contract with Ocracoke Civic & Business Association to funnel money to OCBA for administration and marketing. 

Instead, the TDA will become an employer and hire an Executive Director. Helena Stevens is currently OCBA's executive director, a position that is funded by the TDA through June 30th. Beginning July 1st, she will (if she chooses to be) work for the TDA. The TDA offered Helena the new position; they haven't announced if she accepted. There will be a pay cut due to Dorian and COVID-19's impact on TDA revenues. The OCBA position paid $60,000 plus benefits a year; the TDA tentatively budgeted $45,000 plus benefits for the new position. 

TDA chair Amy Howard reports that a job description for the new Executive Director position is in the works.

On Monday evening, the Occupancy Tax Board (OTB) met to appropriate funds to Ocracoke's organizations. They are an advisory board that decides how to spend the 3% occupancy tax that visitors pay to sleepover on Ocracoke. They make their recommendations to the Hyde County board of commissioners who vote to make the funding official.

The Tourism Development Authority (TDA) is a 5-member board appointed by the Ocracoke commissioner. 2/5 of board members must be in the business of lodging (the industry that collects the occupancy tax.) The TDA gets to spend their 2% without county oversight. They are their own final authority. 

Ocracoke TDA is comprised of Amy Howard (chair), Martha Garrish, Lisa Landrum, Greg Honeycutt, and Daphne Bennink. For some background on these decision-makers, I thought I'd share their current occupations. Amy operates Village Craftsmen, which is owned by her father. Martha is a real estate agent and works for Ocracoke Island Realty (lodging). Lisa works at the Ocracoke Harbor Inn owned by her in-laws (lodging). Greg is a non-resident property owner and owns Ocean Atlantic Rentals with locations in Corolla, Duck, KDH, and Avon. Daphne is a real estate agent and part owner of Ocracoke Lightship Realty, and owner/chef at the Back Porch restaurant. These are very busy people with a long history of serving on boards of Ocracoke organizations, and each one is currently on another local non-profit board.

Dana Long takes the minutes and organizes the TDA meetings in her role as OCBA administrative assistant. (The Current is under the impression that this position ends on June 30th. OCBA, which also currently employs an event coordinator, is advertising just one new position beginning July 1st here.)

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