At Monday’s meeting of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors, Harvey Myrick, who founded Grilling on The River, said the event would return in a “bigger and better” capacity. Myrick, who serves on the CVB board noted the event was on hiatus, while Myrick waited for an opinion from the Mississippi Ethics Commission.
“I’m a CVB board member and Grilling on the River is funded in part by the CVB,” Myrick said. “I wrote a letter to the Ethics Commission to make certain it was lawful for me to serve on the CVB board and be involved with Grilling on the River.”
“The board member has no financial interest in the nonprofit corporation and it is not a business with which he is associated,” Tom Hood, Executive Director and Chief Counsel for the Mississippi Ethics Commission, wrote in an issued opinion. “Therefore, no violation will occur if the CVB provides funding for the event.”
Myrick was delighted to have received the opinion.
“I am very excited about this,” he said. “We look forward to bringing back Grilling on the River and for it to be bigger and better than ever.”
The board also heard requests for more festival funding, less than a week after the board voted to add an additional $26,250 to its local grants fund.
The following grant requests were heard: $10,000 in grants was requested for the Artesia Days festival. Last year, $8,000 was allocated for the festival. Additionally, $8,000 — double the amount allocated last year –was requested for Crawford’s Cotton Bowl Festival and $16,500 was requested for the Tennessee Williams Festival, for which $18,000 was allocated in 2011.
Also, $26,650 was requested for the Townsend Park Blues Festival, for which $12,000 was allocated last year.
The board will vote on the requests in May.
“We will be strictly adhering to our festival grant guidelines from here on out,” CVB Executive Director Nancy Carpenter said Tuesday. “Everyone that applies is going to have to keep within the guidelines, before the second round of funding is issued.”
Carpenter said accepted grant applicants receive half of the approved money up front. The second half of the grant is issued after a project clearance report is reviewed and approved.
Jeff Clark was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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