Gov. Rick Scott is cross-crossing Florida to fight for the agencies he says brings jobs and tourism to the state.

  • Gov. Rick Scott trying to save Enterprise Florida, Visit Florida
  • Scott visited Flagler Beach business on Monday for roundtable
  • Owners of Vessel Sandwhich Co. say agencies have helped them

Scott held a roundtable meeting Monday afternoon at Vessel Sandwich Co., a Flagler Beach-based restaurant that opened more than one year ago.

Hailey Kirk and her husband didn't have a lot of business when they first opened the restaurant, but that quickly changed.

"As a small business, you just don't have an endless amount of money to spend on advertising, and so it's hard to reach people," said Hailey Kirk, co-owner of the restaurant located just a block or two from the Atlantic Ocean.

Kirk said the state's Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida agencies helped bring in customers by showcasing several of the area's businesses in a promotional video in the days and weeks after Hurricane Matthew swept past the coast.

"That video kind of sparked people ... coming out here and supporting those businesses because once you open those doors — especially for restaurants, you've got food (and) you've got employees — it's important that people still patronize you," Kirk said Monday.

The two agencies are at risk of being cut by lawmakers.

"It was really recuperating and getting that momentum back and that was still kind of difficult to do because a lot of people thought the beach was still closed and that they didn't know which businesses were open ad which were not," Kirk said, referencing the days after the storm hit.

Lawmakers said the agencies haven't been transparent, can't provide enough evidence to show they're needed and believe they are a waste of millions of taxpayers' dollars.

Scott, who sent out several tweets Monday with infographics on the two agencies, said getting rid of the agencies would be a job and tourism killer.

"Politicians in Tallahassee don't understand the value of job creation, don't understand the value of Visit Florida and Enterprise Florida," Scott said. "I'm shocked if they don't understand businesses."

Butch Lyon, a tourist, said he finds the advertising helpful.

"Whenever I get a paper or it is on the news, we watch it, we see things that we want to go see that we didn't know about," Lyon said.

According to Scott, 57,000 jobs are tied to tourism in Flagler and Volusia counties. Kirk said she's hopeful the agencies won't be cut.

"Who knows what would happen in the future with that, but I hope that for the sake of the small businesses around here that they keep it in place and know that we can kind of support each other through that," she said.

Several business tax credits and job programs could be cut if the bill passes, but it hasn't moved out of the House.