New Tourist Development Council members shake up their five committees with appointees

The new chairman of the Brevard County Tourist Development Council, Tim Deratany, says he wants to shake things up a little on the board.

As part of that shake-up, Deratany has named four new committee chairs who joined or rejoined the TDC within the last few months. 

Deratany named:

• Giles Malone as chair of the Capital Facilities Committee. Malone is a partner at the Space Coast Daily media company, and a partner at Brevard Productions, an event and sports management production company. Malone recently rejoined the TDC after being a member and chair in the past.

• Anna Palermo as chair of the Marketing Committee. Palermo is an account executive with the media company Spectrum Reach. While Palermo is a relatively new member of the Tourist Development Council board, she served for the last 13 years as a member of the TDC's Marketing Committee.

• Harry Santiago as chair of the Sports Committee. Santiago is a Palm Bay City Council member.

• Andrea Young as chair of the Cultural Committee. Young is a West Melbourne City Council member.

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The only committee chair who has been on the TDC for an extended time is TDC Vice Chair Laurilee Thompson, who retains her post as Beach Committee chair. Thompson is co-owner of Dixie Crossroads Seafood Restaurant in Titusville.

"The status quo needs to be challenged," Deratany said. "It's good to have a fresh outlook, and I just thought it was time for a new beginning. It's a new day."

The Tourist Development Council is the advisory board to the Brevard County Commission on tourism-related issues. That includes the spending of Brevard County's 5 percent Tourist Development Tax on hotel rooms and other short-term rentals.

That tax raised $15.58 million in the budget year that ended Sept. 30, and is projected to raise more than $16 million this budget year.

In all, there are five relatively new members on the advisory, nine-member Tourist Development Council — the fifth being Brevard County Commissioner Bryan Lober. 

Each of the nine TDC members appoints one person to each of the five committees, except for the committee chairs, who do not get an appointment to the committee they head.

The committee appointments were announced last week, and it resulted in a majority of new members on all five committees, which each have a total of nine members. There were five newcomers on both the Capital Facilities Committee and the Marketing Committee, seven newcomers on both the Beach Committee and the Sports Committee, and eight newcomers on the Cultural Committee.

"With five new members" of the TDC, Deratany said. "you're going to have a lot of new people" on the committees.

Palermo said she is excited to be appointed as Marketing Committee chair and looks forward to continuing the good work accomplished by past chairs of that committee.

She said, while all four of her appointees to the other TDC committees are new to the committees, all four have expertise in the fields their committees deal with.

Santiago said he believes the new committee members will help bring "dynamic, fresh ideas" to the tourism agency's operations. Santiago used his appointments to retain members of two committees and to replace members of two other committees, as he sought to have appointees with a South Brevard perspective.

Here is the full list of committee members:

Beach Committee: Laurilee Thompson (chair), Duane DeFreese, Bobby Freeman, Brooke Goldfarb, Michael Goldstein, Debbie Knight, Malcolm "Mac" McLouth, Ray Walton, Tom Williamson.

Capital Facilities Committee: Giles Malone (chair), Bill Benson, Donna Cayer, Theresa Farnsworth, Marcia Gaedcke, Jim Handley, Tom Hermansen, Jeff Whitehead, Keith Winsten.

Cultural Committee: Andrea Young (chair), Julie Braga, Susan Hammerling Hodgers, John Knox, Elizabeth Lamb, Javier Molinares, Tom Powers, Jim Ridenour, Susan Thompson.

Marketing Committee: Anna Palermo (chair), Jackie Barker, Bob Baugher, Karina Connor, Andrea Hill, Tres Holton, Puneet "P.K." Kapur, Natalie Sellers, Gary Tietjen.
     
Sports Committee: Harry Santiago (chair), Paul Alfrey, Rusty Buchanan, Nancy Evans, Bill Hendrickson, Bill Jurgens, Scott Levey, Tom O’Hara, Joe Shanks.

Each of the committees focuses on certain aspects of the Tourist Development Tax spending, which breaks down as follows:

• 47 percent for promotion and advertising of Space Coast tourism in an effort to attract more tourists

• 25 percent for beach improvement

• 14 percent for capital facilities

• 5 percent for the Brevard Zoo

• 4 percent for cultural events

• 3 percent for Space Coast Stadium

• 2 percent for visitor information centers

Not all of the committee appointments by TDC members were newcomers for the TDC operations. For example:

• Baugher appointed himself to the Marketing Committee after Deratany removed Baugher as Marketing Committee chair in favor of Palermo.

• Baugher appointed former TDC member Williamson to the Beach Committee.

• Deratany appointed former TDC member and 2018 TDC Chair Kapur to the Marketing Committee.

• Thompson appointed former TDC member Ridenour to the Cultural Committee.

Among other changes:

• TDC member Debra Green appointed Knight to the Beach Committee. Knight previously was on the Capital Facilities Committee.

• Baugher reappointed Hermansen to the Capital Facilities Committee. Hermansen previously served on both the Capital Facilities Committee and the Marketing Committee.

Dave Berman is government editor at FLORIDA TODAY.

Contact Berman at 321-242-3649

or dberman@floridatoday.com.

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