Meeting of March 23, 2023

thank you I'd like to call the uh second meeting of March 2023 to order and uh I think this is commissioner castle if you would lead us in the prayer and pledge please bow your heads and pray with me God in heaven as we come before you today to serve our community please give us the grace and strength to live the words of Saint Francis as he said Lord make me an instrument of your peace where there is hatred let me sow love whether it's injury pardon where there is doubt faith where there is despair hope where there is Darkness light where there is sadness Joy oh Divine master granted I may not so much seek to be consoled is to console to be understood as to understand to be loved as You Love for it is in giving that we receive it is imparding that we are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life

amen if you please join me for the pledge pledge allegiance thank you commissioner at this time I will be briefly suspending our regular those kind of Fiscal Court meeting and I'm calling to order a meeting of the Davis County public Improvement Corporation Jenny item one consideration for approval a appoint the following members to the Davis County public Improvement Corporation Charlie caslin is director and president Chris caslin as director and secretary Janie marksberry as director Larry Condor as director motion to approved second you got a motion a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye B minutes of August 18 2022 Davis County

public Improvement Court meeting motion to approve I'll second it got a motion in a second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye and without further business to do at this meeting this meeting is adjourned now we will resume the Davis County Fiscal Court meeting item one consideration for presentation a Owensboro Davis County Convention and visitors bureau 2022 review and we have someone here Mark latry Come ahead sir thank you George for giving me a few minutes here just to present I want to give you an update on the incredible success in uh 2022 and give you a look into the crystal ball of what the future looks like in Davis County tourism coming out of covid we had a board-led strategy and an initiative to create the five pillars of success that you have right in front of you there these five pillars represent the top opportunities to create the most economic impact for

Davis County and so as you look down through that list the bluegrass music capital of the world mission accomplished the expanded improved and enhanced the overall visitor experience that's ongoing we've improved and expanded and enhanced the economic impact of bourbon tourism that's ongoing the Owensboro Convention Center I want to talk about that in a second that was a mission accomplished and with the indoor sports initiatives that's mission accomplished and ongoing as well so our team is executed on every one of those board set expectations and pillars that they created so that was the first thing second of all I've given in front of you and an executive summary and if I could highlight just a few things on that list 2022 the Davis County Dayton Davis County we said an all-time Hotel occupancy record 59 the average rate was up over 102 dollars the rates were up 16 percent over the year before the average occupancy was up over eight percent

the Owensboro Convention Center set new performance standards in 2022 the convention center set an all-time room nights produced record for the first time and since the building's been built it didn't require a city subsidy and we have Jeff Esposito here today the general manager of the convention center and he's really helping lead us into the future he's highly motivated very talented and so he's a grip been a great partner Jeff thank you you can just introduce Jeff the Green River bourbon distillery their tourism visitation was up 34 percent so let me tell you why all that matters those are people here in Davis County those are outside people with wallets spending money here in our hotels in our businesses in our attractions in our restaurants creating that economic impact now moving on to the Futures we build onto that success this year we've received arpa funding to help tourism recover and then to keep expanding on that economic impact and so our board is set an expectation and a standard for that use of those funds to

create a 300 to 400 percent return on investment that's the standards they've set and that's the expectations that we're going to deliver as a staff and a team and so uh what else we'd like to talk about as just this week we had a big announcement just uh just today as a matter of fact with the great race coming to Davis County and thank you for coming to speak and Commissioners it goes a long way when you show up to an event like that but out of the over 3 000 counties in the United States there's only one in America that gets to claim to be the start of that major race and that's us so that's really a big deal but not that's not all the headlines and just this week I've got some articles here for just this week in the headlines the Great American Bluegrass Jam debuted this weekend sold out hotels people from all across the country came into that event and we combined multiple events into one weekend to make it a destination weekend just a few days later we announced the fear Expo is going on right now it's an exhibit going on at the convention center if you've not been over there the whole bottom half bottom of the convention center is full of haunted exhibits and they're selling to people that own haunted

houses so those people that all haunted houses across the country will be here in Owensboro trying to buy these animatronics and hot things so that's the next one we filmed a commercial last night and yesterday Miller house was named in the top five bourbon bars in America so we filmed a commercial we're going to be doing a lot of marketing on that just this week we announced the Owensboro comic and toy con will be coming in October here in Owensboro and Davis County and the guy that puts this on is uh does the Lexington con and when you think of Lexington you might think of the horses or bourbon or UK basketball the Lexington Comic-Con is the number one room night producing event in Lexington we've got the guy coming here in October to put on the same type of an event and then finally in today's paper you saw the CVB starting strong in 2023 Chris Joslin shot on there talking about the success we have with that so with all these records in 2022 I hope you can imagine what kind of success we're hoping to have with this arpa money and how we're going to leverage that into success so uh with that that's all I have order

2015 I'm curious do you do you have anything you want to share on on the the arpa funds you mentioned or you're not prepared to do that yet we can I've got it on your executive summary on the back page there there's a two pages on that so uh there's two different tranches that we've received and that money is specifically there's rules and guidelines given down specifically by the state of Kentucky on how we use that and where we deploy those right and then again the board set that economic that return on investment it's at three to four hundred percent return so okay it's designed to bring meetings events and conventions okay to this community very good Commissioners do you have any comments or questions no commissioner Connor Thank you judge uh Mark just uh to clarify for the public whenever you're talking about the five million dollars that you're gonna be getting over what four years five years something like that right yes there are a lot of stipulations that go along with this money I mean you can't just willy-nilly be used for anything that you think so the state requires a significant amount of reporting to do so right uh but I've noticed on your list