Fallout from Pridefest controversy harms other Brevard cultural groups

For years, Brevard County has used some of its tourist tax money to award grants to arts and cultural organizations.

But, in a surprise move earlier this month, the County Commission voted to not award those grants for the coming budget year, and instead commit the money to hiring more ocean lifeguards.

The move came as Florida Rep. Randy Fine was railing against a proposed $15,000 cultural grant to Space Coast Pride, an LGBTQ+ organization that sponsors an annual Pridefest event in downtown Melbourne.

"Thanks to YOU, the County Commission just voted 5-0 reject funding Drag Queen Story Time in Downtown Melbourne!" Fine posted on Facebook shortly after the commission's move.

County commissioners deny they were targeting Pridefest. But the commission's move to reject all 25 proposed grants was viewed by prominent members of the local arts community as aimed at Pridefest, which met all the qualifications for the grant.

Titusville Playhouse Executive and Artistic Director Steven Heron was blunt.

"They did it so they wouldn't have to discuss their bigotry," he told members of the Tourist Development Council's Cultural Committee.

Representatives of the Space Coast's arts and cultural community were stunned by the move to reject funding recommended for all 25 organizations that qualified for cultural grants.

"I was certainly terribly disappointed," said Ron Davis, the volunteer grants manager for the Valiant Air Command's Warbird Air Museum in Titusville, which was in line for a $25,000 cultural grant for the 2023-24 budget year.

Davis ― a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and pilot who has volunteered at the museum since 2008 ― said the loss of that funding could mean the museum will have to delay some of its work to restore planes targeted for exhibit there.

Similarly, the nearby American Police Hall of Fame & Museum is taking a hit because of the County Commission's rejection of its $25,000 cultural grant.

Janey Hicks, chief partnership officer at the Police Hall of Fame in Titusville and the affiliated United States Law Enforcement Foundation, said various educational and outreach events for families may have to be trimmed without the cultural grant the facility qualified for.

25 cultural grants rejected: Brevard County abruptly ends cultural grants program

"It puts us in a difficult position," Hicks said.

The grant funding in question comes from revenue generated by the county's 5% tourist development tax on hotel rooms, vacation rentals and other short-term rentals, and not from local property taxes.

County commissioners decided instead to move the $530,000 in proposed grants into a budget that would help pay for beach lifeguards and promote the safety of Brevard's lifeguard-protected beaches, saying it will be part of the Space Coast Office of Tourism's marketing efforts to attract tourists to the local beaches. They also said they want to move another $900,000 in tourism cultural fund money expected to remain after the current budget year ends to the lifeguard program. Brevard County had seen a spate of drownings this year at non-lifeguard beaches. Commissioners are scheduled to discuss details of that plan on Tuesday.

"To me, this is a setback for our community and its residents," Davis said, referring to the rejection of the 25 proposed cultural grants.

"As a community, we have regressed by two decades," said Brevard Cultural Alliance Executive Committee Secretary David Schillhammer, who also is executive director of the Brevard Symphony Orchestra, which was in line for a $25,000 cultural grant. "And I feel it's disheartening."

BCA board members hope to rally support, not only from the arts sector, but also from local businesses that benefit from the arts, such as restaurants that are packed before or after a theatrical or concert performance or during festival weekends.

Representatives of arts organizations plan to address the County Commission on Tuesday, both on the cultural grants issues, and on a proposed contract renewal between the county and the BCA that is scheduled to come up for a vote.

Space Coast Pride controversy

Some prominent members of the artistic community believe county commissioners were swayed, at least in part, to end the cultural grant program by social media publicity related to Space Coast Pride. The organization's annual Pridefest in Melbourne attracts more than 1,000 out-of-county visitors, as measured by cellphone tracking technology use by a Space Coast Office of Tourism contractor ― a criteria for qualifying for a cultural grant. The 2024 Pridefest was recommended for a $15,000 cultural grant.

Concern about Pridefest: Brevard grant for Space Coast Pride event under scrutiny, after Randy Fine's Facebook post

Fine made a Facebook post six days before the County Commission meeting, highlighting the proposed grant, saying the commissioners would "directly fund Drag Queen Story Time in downtown Melbourne using your tax dollars. If you do not believe we should have government-sponsored child grooming activities, please let your County Commissioner know." In a subsequent interview, Fine said he was not indicating opposition to the grant, but just wanted to keep the public informed.

Commissioners say they received a number of phone calls and emails from constituents in opposition to the Space Coast Pride grant, and eight people made public comments during the Aug. 8 County Commission meeting criticizing either the Pridefest event or the proposed grant to the organization.

In a Facebook post after the County Commission vote, Aaron Collins, artistic director and conductor of the Space Coast Symphony Orchestra, wrote: "This one application was the sole reason our commissioners decided to eliminate a program that has been benefiting arts organizations and, more importantly, our community at large, for over two decades. These are the commissioners that showed their true colors, their bias, and turned their back on the arts."

The Space Coast Symphony Orchestra had been proposed for a $20,000 cultural grant.

Davis at the Warbird Museum also suspects that the flak over the Space Coast Pride event may have been a trigger that killed the cultural grant program altogether.

Davis compares it to "throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

But County Commissioner Jason Steele denies that the proposed Space Coast Pride grant played any role in the commission's decision to end the cultural grant program.

"That is completely false," Steele said. "There was not one bit of prejudice" in the commission's vote to not approve the 25 cultural grants.

Steele said the trigger to that decision actually was a determination by Brevard County Attorney Morris Richardson that tourist tax money could legally be used to help fund lifeguards, as long as there is a tourism-related purpose to having lifeguards on the beaches.

Advisory board recommendations: 25 arts, cultural entities recommended for Brevard County tourism grants totaling $530,000

"It was a tough decision and a tough vote, but it was the right vote," Steele said, adding that finding a way to pay for increased lifeguard coverage was "a great big opportunity" too good to pass up.

Just before Aug. 8 the County Commission vote on the cultural grants, Commission Vice Chair Tom Goodson asked Richardson whether denying funding through the cultural grant program could open the county up to a claim of discrimination. He used as an example the civil-rights-focused Harry T. & Harriette V. Moore Cultural Complex in Titusville ― which was proposed for a $20,000 grant.

"It's not discriminatory, because you're not singling anyone out," Richardson responded. "You're not granting any of the grant awards. So I'd be hard-pressed to find any basis to charge discrimination."

County Commission Chair Rita Pritchett ― who is the County Commission's representative on and chair of the nine-member Tourist Development Council ― had voted during an earlier TDC meeting in favor of the 25 grants. But she spearheaded the opposition to the grants at the Aug. 8 County Commission meeting, saying the same groups always appear to be getting the money.

Pritchett said expanding lifeguard coverage is a better use of the money that had been set aside cultural grants, because "if people are not surviving our beaches, it's going to clobber our tourism."

How grant program works

A 2022 study produced for the BCA by Florida Institute of Technology economics professor Michael Slotkin estimated that Space Coast arts and cultural organizations were responsible for $122.74 million in annual sales, 1,541 direct and spinoff jobs, and $40.98 million in annual payroll. The study estimated that 19.3% of the 1.71 million arts and cultural attendees at Brevard venues that year were from outside Brevard.

That is a big goal of the cultural grant program, under guidelines previously approved by the County Commission. The county wants what the tourism industry refers to as "putting heads in beds" of Space Coast hotels and vacation rentals, thereby generating more tourist tax revenue.

Under the guidelines, applicants for these grants must draw at least 1,000 out-of-county visitors for their event or season to be eligible for a cultural support grant. Applicants drawing 1,000 to 2,500 out-of-county visitors are eligible for $15,000 grants; those drawing 2,501 to 5,000 out-of-county visitors are eligible for $20,000 grants; and those drawing 5,001 or more out-of-county visitors are eligible for $25,000 grants. At least half of the grant must be used for out-of-county marketing to attract tourists to the area.

Among other groups losing out on grant money were the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Foundation, the Space Coast Art Festival and the Titusville Playhouse.

Among the nine members of the Museums of Brevard coalition that qualified for, but will not get, cultural grants is the Florida Surf Museum and its popular Surfing Santas event, which draws thousands of spectators to Cocoa Beach every Dec. 24. The Florida Surf Museum was in line for a $20,000 cultural grant.

Mitch Varnes, who will be the event director of Surfing Santas this year, worries about what may happen to other county grant programs funded by the tourist tax, including a sports grant program. Varnes typically gets four such sports grants a year for events he runs ― a marathon, a half-marathon, a triathlon and the multisports Beach 'N Boards Fest in Cocoa Beach, all of which attract out-of-county visitors to the Space Coast.

During a TDC Cultural Committee meeting two days after the County Commission vote, Office of Tourism Executive Director Peter Cranis told committee members that neither his office nor the TDC advisory boards could do anything at this point to bring the cultural grant proposal to the commission for reconsideration. That request could be made only by a commissioner.

And Cranis said there was no decision about whether there would be a county-funded cultural grant program in the future.

That wasn't what committee members such as Bonnie King wanted to hear.

"It's just so sad to see that these groups that offer so much to our community, and give residents something to do on the weekends, that we just take that away," King said.

Dave Berman is business editor at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Berman at dberman@floridatoday.com, on X at @bydaveberman and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dave.berman.54

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Rejection of cultural grants called setback for community, residents