The Veterans Tribute and Museum certainly has something to be thankful for this Christmas with the Osceola County Commission’s pledge Monday of $75,000 in tourist development tax money to cover operating costs between October of this year through the beginning of June 2011.

The infusion of the no-strings-attached cash, which must still be made official with a budget amendment, will help the museum deal with any costs related to the delay in moving to the Kissimmee Convention & Visitors Bureau building at Osceola Heritage Park. The county essentially had promised museum officials that they could start moving into the building by October after the commission earlier this year agreed to provide up to $1.724 million in relocation, start-up, operational, renovation and expansion funding: the $75,000 will not be deducted from this amount.

The problem is that the county agreed to relocate the museum to OHP without having a plan in hand on where the visitors bureau would move. Yes, there has been discussion about the bureau relocating to the third floor of the county administrative building at Courthouse Square in Kissimmee and the bureau setting up a satellite office somewhere close to tourist traffic, such as on West U.S. Highway 192 or in downtown Kissimmee, to offer face-to-face interaction with tourists, but no final plan has been offered.

The bottom line is that the previous County Commission – in its laudable efforts to help the museum and to find a better location for the museum than Osceola Square Mall – didn’t think through the entire process, and it now has cost the tourist development tax fund an unbudgeted $75,000.

And then, the new commission on Monday delayed approving agreements related to the museum’s relocation to OHP and gave the veterans group until March to see if it could “find a better deal.” That better deal would be for the museum – with the promised $1.724 million from the county – to be relocated to a site and a building owned by the veterans group. There was even talk of providing the museum $3.7 million over 10 years to make such a move happen.

Our questions on the museum relocation include:

• If the museum relocation is delayed past June, will the county give the veterans group additional funding?

• What about all the time the previous commission and county staff spent on discussing and then bringing forward the agreement and related lease for OHP that includes a funding timetable?

• And didn’t the previous commission intend the $1.724 million only be used for a museum relocation to OHP?