Palm Beach CVB Gets Stay from County

After a financial scandal that led to the departure of three executives and left the Palm Beach County Convention & Visitors Bureau in real peril of being shut down, a reprieve by the Palm Beach County Commission will keep the bureau up and running. Yet, the county commission left unanswered the question of whether the CVB will lose its contract to manage the Palm Beach County Convention Center.

On Feb. 28, the commission voted 6-0 to continue its contract with the CVB to promote tourism in Palm Beach County — a role the CVB has played since 1989. But bureau officials and county commissioners were in disagreement about whether the commission had stripped the CVB of the authority to operate the 350,000-square-foot convention center.

Interim bureau CEO Jim Stuber, who was the bureau's attorney until president Warren McLaughlin retired upon the revelation of a $1.6-million embezzlement last November, said after the commission hearing that the CVB will continue managing the convention center until the commission revisits the matter at a July meeting.

"Most of those in attendance thought the commission had voted to defer the entire subject," Stuber wrote in a memo to the CVB's board of directors on March 2. "We will treat the matter as such and continue to make the case for the bureau managing the convention center, until such time when the commission clearly determines otherwise."

After the meeting, five of the six commission members told the Palm Beach Post that they had voted to take operation of the center away from the CVB. Local tourism officials said the matter will be clarified when the commission meets in July.

The Palm Beach scandal broke out last October when an audit revealed that $1.6 million had disappeared from CVB bank accounts. Controller Donna Duffer was charged with grand theft and money laundering for allegedly forging checks to cover Internet gambling debts. The commission was highly critical of both McLaughlin and vice president of finance Lee Davis for not properly overseeing funds. Davis was later dismissed.