KeepTheBeachClean.com Fireworks Cleanup Day - JULY 5

As much as I hate to see federal dollars spent on issues that should be resolved by locals, thanks to our hard working senators, we now have National Clean Beaches Week during July 4th.

Please sign up to join the first annual "KeepTheBeachClean.com Fireworks Cleanup Day." We'll do it Thursday, July 5th.

All you have to do is send an email with or without your name and let me know what stretch of beach you will cover that day. I will announce through the site what parts are covered, as well as photos. Send an email to info@KeepTheBeachClean.com. Thank you!

More Treasure in the Sand

Replacing trash with treasure is one of the goals at KeepTheBeachClean.com. An article in the AJC today reports Atlanta is rich and getting richer.

The article quotes other media as well:

"Atlanta consistently ranks as a city hospitable to the rich:
• Business 2.0 reported that Atlanta "leads the nation in attracting the labor market's most coveted demographic: college-educated workers ages 25 to 34."
• Kiplinger's Personal Finance said metro Atlanta is the largest U.S. city in the "married with kids" age bracket.
• Black Enterprise magazine said Atlanta and Washington are at the top of the list of "10 best cities for African-Americans."
• Fortune said Atlanta ranks third behind New York and Houston as home to large public corporations on its Fortune 500 list, such as Home Depot, UPS and Coca-Cola."

There are great people in Atlanta who do not know how to look beyond the "drunk-fest" image to see our amazing beaches and environment in Bay County. It's not just about the summer vacation season either; we should be targeting businesses to have meetings, retreats and presentations down here year round. I don't believe many Atlantans realize that on some of those cold, rainy February mornings, we have sunny 60 degree weather down here. Corporate folks love to "get away" to make big, important decisions.

We need to improve our product and image to appeal to them; it is the easiest path to improving our county's tourism industry, and possibly Bay County's entire economy. We should be known as "Atlanta's Beach."

To Rake, or Not to Rake?

We currently spend over a half million dollars a year in Bay County to clean our beaches. It is expensive to operate high-tech machinery and tractors to groom the beach. According to this article on beach grooming from the Surfrider Foundation, grooming has its negatives, including:

• Significantly lower diversity and abundance of wrack-associated animals (wrack is seaweed that washes up on our shores from time to time.)


• Lower abundance of shorebirds


• Higher relative numbers of flies


• Lower numbers of native plants


• Coarser sand

In another article from Surfrider, it claims that the federal government does not allow grooming on most beaches during sea turtle and shorebird nesting seasons, unless a special annual permit is granted where it is proven that no nesting activity exists. As many crazy hoops as Bay County already has to jump through to protect the turtles, how do we avoid this one?

Last year, the TDC renewed a 5 year contract with a company to continue to use tractors, trailors and Barber Surf Rakes on the beach. By the time that contract is over in 2011, I hope to have the TDC convinced that people, not machines, are what we need to keep the beaches clean.

Sticker

I'll get this on any beach window that will take them.

Glass Half Full

I really believe I'm a glass-half-full kinda' guy, so I really don't find too much pleasure in complaining all the time about trash and PCB's image. I can look at this photo above, and in a glass-half-full kind of way, see that gorgeous Gulf and rush to get in the water. I can see how kids getting out of the wagon after an eight-hour drive would react to the white sand and green-blue water.

But why, oh why, does that pile of trash have to greet us? Why can't we make sure we do not have trash? It might be a small issue compared to insurance and property taxes -- which are money issues -- but I see the trash and image as a money issue too. I'm not a tree-hugger trying to save the earth. I'm a marketer who believes the product of Bay County's beaches is much, much better than the marketing behind it and the customer reps who take care of it.

These ARE the World's Most Beautiful Beaches!

So why would anybody do this?...

Marketing Atlanta

Today's Atlanta Journal Constition home page has a couple interesting features that should grab our attention in Bay County.

First, if there's any negative news about our town, Atlanta loves to poke at it. Girls Gone Wild and Spring Break stories are always promoted at the front, and it always makes Panama City out to be a trash hole.

Panama City Beach is the closest beach to Atlanta. We're even just as close as Hilton Head, SC, and closer than Georgia's own St. Simons Island. It's arguable that other Georgia beaches are closer, but when comparing that part of the Atlantic to our Gulf... is there really any comparison?

Our image in Atlanta is terrible. When I told this to TDC leader Bob Warren, he snapped back that "21% of our visitors come from Atlanta."

Really? A whopping 21%? (that's almost a million visitors.) Don't you think we should be able to boost that number significantly for a huge city that's only a short drive away? (and soon to be completely 4 lanes?)

We're 5 hours away from 5 Million people, and the former TDC group decides to spend money marketing to places like Cincinnati, OH. The biggest problem is that the higher-income Atlantans are heading an extra 40-60 miles west of us, and plopping their money in Walton and Okaloosa.

We should focus on renewing our image in Atlanta before we do anything else. They are our low-hanging fruit, and if we clean up this place, we'll see loads of dollars coming across the Hathaway bridge.

The other interesting article on the AJC site, appropriately titled "Lessons in Hospitality," indicates a pet-friendly hotel in midtown is doing well. People love their pets, and most markets carve out at least a little place to attract dog owners. It's crazy to me how the dogs-on-the-beach issue is more important to most Bay Countians than the trash issue. Would you rather step in dog poop, or glass? Or how about a dirty diaper?

What's wrong with Destin?

I've heard several times since I started the Working Billboards project last summer that "We don't want to become another Destin." Most recently, I read that the new mayor of Panama City said it when he became elected last month. (He's not the beach mayor... what's he worried about?)


Anyway, when I go to Destin, I see:

• excited tourists, mostly from within driving distance, mostly from Metro Atlanta.
• crowds. period.
• expensive cars.
• nice shops and restaurants.
• money.

What's wrong with any of that? In comparison, I drive PCB and see moderate crowds at best, a lot of hootin' and hollerin', and a dollar store or head shop every 100 yards.



Please someone, tell me, what's wrong with trying to be more like Destin when it comes to having a clean image and attracting more money to our county's economy?

No Butts On Beaches

This is a tough one... it's going to be hard to keep smokers from flicking butts. But we need to try to let smokers know that the butts are killing the beach. Read AP article here.

The Beach is Looking Good!

But the entrances and parking lots are not. I'll say it til I'm blue in the face... if we clean up the trash, and enforce glass and litter laws (the way we enforce dog laws) we will send a message that Panama City Beach is serious about keeping our World's Most Beautiful Beaches beautiful.

Fantastic Weekend

I saw more people and less trash today than any of the 14 weeks I've monitored the beach. Of course I could show you a dozen photos of inexcusable trash from today, but it was just too good to complain.

KeepTheBeachClean.com is about showcasing the positive side of our beautiful beaches too. Please volunteer to send a few photos each week of crowds, trash... and beautiful photos of our paradise on earth.

There were great crowds, but there were still stretches of perfect, isolated beach that could have used a few more visitors to the World's Most Beautiful Beaches.