A request for the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors to help fund the upcoming Legends concert was withdrawn Monday, after CVB Executive Director Nancy Carpenter recommended the board not fund the event started by the CVB.
“It doesn’t fit in local grants or special events,” Carpenter told the board, referring to a request for $22,000 for the event. “I recommend we not fund it.”
The CVB, through its local grants program, allocated $25,000 to the concert in 2010 and $35,000 in 2011.
“My understanding is the CVB started the concept,” board member Bernard Buckhalter said.
“The CVB started the Legends concert,” board member Whirllie Byrd emphatically confirmed. “This was our baby; our brainchild.”
Byrd noted the first Legends concert, held in 2010, began in connection with events to commemorate Sam Hairston, a Lowndes County native who starred as a baseball player in the Negro League of the 1940s and 1950s.
“We financed the concert at that time,” she recalled. “The CVB started it. The volunteers helped us put on the event. The intent was for the Legends concert to be a yearly event, a musical mecca. In 2010, we started it and committee members were to take it forward. The Legends concert is a CVB brainchild, period.”
In 2010, the CVB allocated $25,000 to the event, which cost around $60,000, Carpenter said.
Buckhalter said pulling the funding would undermine the event in its infancy.
“I don’t think you’ve given it the opportunity to get off the ground,” Buckhalter said. “If you start something, let it grow.”
However, Board Chairman George Swales disagreed with that assertion.
“The initiative was to have a one-year concert (with the) Hairston event and that event would grow to sustain itself,” Swales said.
Legends Committee member Steve Rogers told the board the “initial cost” to the CVB was $13,678.38.
Buckhalter motioned the CVB fund the concert “since (it) was the baby of the CVB” and Byrd seconded the motion.
“It’s a tough decision to make,” board member Harvey Myrick said. “”We’re talking about an event that is asking for money. If there’s no money there this year, we found it for festivals. Can we consider finding it for a special event?”
“How long can we fund something that isn’t making any money?” asked board member Rissa Lawrence.
“It should be self-sufficient by now,” noted board member Nadia Dale.
“It’s a one-day event and special projects all have been recreation,” said board member Bart Wise. “So, I’m not sure where it would fall.”
“I don’t want us to start funding, with local grants, an event that is not a two-day event,” said Carpenter.
Columbus-Lowndes Recreation Authority Executive Director Roger Short, who serves on the Legends Committee, said Carpenter advised the Legends committee how to seek the funding.
“We were directed, by your executive director, to request this as a special event,” he told the board, referring to Carpenter, who Monday said she didn’t believe the event qualified as such.
“I told him it would be a special project,” Carpenter responded.
“It’s the date of a Mississippi State University versus Tennessee football game. I would think that would hurt the event,” she added. “I’m having a hard time wrapping my banking mind around this.”
“We’re not expecting to get anything back, right?” Carpenter asked Short and Rogers.
“(No,) just like you wouldn’t for anything else,” Rogers responded.
“Take into consideration the date, the amount and where it comes from,” Carpenter told the board.
Board member Mark Castleberry suggested the CVB board fund the concert with a “zero” amount.
Byrd noted the CVB board voted to fund a fishing tournament, which would qualify as a special project.
“I really do work hard to make sure we look carefully at what our powers (of allocating funds) are,” Carpenter said, defensively.
Rogers, who had been in the audience at the meeting, stood and addressed the board.
“Without the full support of the CVB, we’re not going to do this,” he said. “We will withdraw our request and make it easier.”
“That’s a sad day for the CVB,” Buckhalter noted.
“We were subsidizing every ticket (sold),” Castleberry said.
A motion to fund the concert failed, with Castleberry, Lawrence, Swales and Wise voting in opposition.
Carpenter’s contract
In another matter, Byrd suggested the “CVB vehicle” be designated as “for official use versus personal or leisure use.”
Carpenter noted her contract with the CVB stipulated she “shall be provided a car” and Byrd noted Carpenter is serving under the same contract as the CVB’s former director, James Tsismanakis.
Swales noted he directed the board’s attorney to present the board “with a frame of a possible new contract” for Carpenter at an upcoming meeting.
Lawrence suggested the board table discussion of Carpenter’s contract until the board’s retreat, scheduled for July 24.
Byrd motioned the vehicle “be designated as for official use only and the driver restricted to CVB personnel only.”
“We’re operating under taxpayers’ money,” she said.
Dale seconded Byrd’s motion for “insurance reasons.”
Castleberry noted the board was in “dangerous territory” discussing Carpenter’s contract and an attorney was needed to “weigh in.”
“James Tsismanakis and his wife were on the insurance policy,” Carpenter defended herself. “My husband has driven the car and staff members. I do want you to know, in December, I gave the accountant the number of miles driven. This is not the first time I’ve had a company vehicle.”
Carpenter admitted she has “driven the car to the grocery store,” but is not “taking pleasure trips in the car.”
“I do have two other cars and I do not use it to go visit my children,” she said of the CVB vehicle. “I have gone overboard. I’m doing two jobs right now for less than the director’s job.”
Byrd and Dale voted in favor of Byrd’s motion; but the rest of the board voted against it and the motion was defeated.
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