The Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors may shrink from eight members to six before inflating to nine.
A joint committee including representatives from the city, county and CVB met Friday to hash out details of a new CVB ordinance and interlocal agreement. The meeting was called after it was discovered weeks ago no interlocal agreement was ever reached between Columbus and Lowndes County following the state Legislature”s approval of a 2 percent restaurant tax in 1986 to create the CVB.
The oversight became apparent after members of the board of supervisors argued whether the county should reappoint its four appointees to the board in order to reestablish a neglected term schedule.
City Attorney Jeff Turnage, who represented Columbus on the committee along with Ward 1 Councilman Gene Taylor, began Friday”s meeting citing state code section 17-3-21 which governs convention bureau boards in the absence of a local and private agreement between municipalities and the state. The code section states the board of directors “shall consist of three (3) members appointed by the governing authorities of each participating county or municipality.”
A local and private agreement approved by the state would allow Columbus and Lowndes to set its own rules for the board, but until a local and private agreement is obtained or the state code is changed, Turnage recommended the current eight-member CVB board be contracted to six to fit state law.
The committee agreed, choosing to recommend the county”s Columbus Lowndes Development Link representative, David Sanders, and the city”s historic homes representative, Dixie Butler, be removed from the board for the time being.
Taylor expressed a desire to fill the entire board with at-large appointees, but the remainder of the committee agreed special interests directly effected by the CVB”s actions should be represented on the board.
Turnage and Taylor plan to present the committee”s recommendations to the city council at its Tuesday meeting. County Administrator Ralph Billingsley and Board of Supervisors Attorney Tim Hudson will present the recommendations at the supervisors” Dec. 30 meeting.
The committee also agreed the CVB board has performed admirably in recent years as it stands, and resolved to return to the current configuration plus a ninth member to avoid ties. The ninth member is to be a joint appointment by Columbus” mayor and the president of the board of supervisors.
The original CVB ordinance called for the president or director of the chamber of commerce to serve as the ninth CVB board member, but the seat has gone unfilled for years. The chamber was folded into the Link years ago, with the Link performing all the duties of a traditional chamber of commerce.
No consensus was reached by the committee whether a local and private agreement or a change to state code should be sought from the Legislature when it meets in January.
“I think local and private bills are always tricky,” said CVB board member John Davis, who represented the CVB on the committee with fellow board member John Bean.
Hudson stated a local and private agreement would likely be easier to achieve because it won”t affect the entire state.
If the Legislature is presented with a request earlier in its session, it could put the issue to a vote within six weeks.
The committee also agreed the new CVB board should be responsible for naming outgoing CVB Director James Tsismanakis” replacement. Bean said a CVB employee will likely be named interim director, but Tsismanakis said no current CVB employees are capable of filling the director role.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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