Even as the Columbus Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau still works on a revised budget to stay in operation through the end of the year, organizers for two of the nine festivals the CVB helps fund have announced they will cancel this year’s event.
At Monday’s meeting of the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, District 4 Supervisor Jeff Smith and District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks distributed a statement saying the Southside Blues and Juneteenth festivals have been canceled this year, even though CVB funding for the events had been approved.
Both supervisors have worked with the festivals over the years. Brooks was the founder of the Juneteenth Festival, which began 21 years ago, while Smith has worked with the Southside Blues Festival, which held its 12th festival in 2017.
Both festivals were scheduled for June.
Smith said although the CVB had confirmed it would provide $10,000 in funding for this year’s festival, the uncertainty of funding since March, when a bill that would extend the county’s 2-percent restaurant sales tax died in the Mississippi Legislature, made it difficult for organizers to raise outside money and plan for the event. The tax, which expires June 30, provides most of the funding for the CVB and its programs, and CVB officials are restructuring the budget in a plan to keep the organization in operation through the end of the year.
“There was so much speculation about whether the money would be available that it really affected our planning,” Smith said. “We had to ask ourselves if there was going to be enough money to put together a quality event. In the end, we decided that we would rather cancel than see the festival be less than it should be.”
Smith said he expects the Southside Blues Festival to return next year.
“Hopefully, the tax issue will be settled by then,” he said.
Brooks said the fate of the 2-percent tax weighed heavily in the decision to cancel this year’s Juneteenth Festival, but said the CVB’s ethics policy, amended in 2013 to prohibit elected officials from seeking festival funds, also played a role in the decision.
Since that policy change, Juneteenth chair Cindy Lawrence has managed funding requests, but Brooks has remained involved with the event.
“To say that (elected officials) can’t be involved in something that brings culture and entertainment to their community still doesn’t make any sense to me,” he said. “Our argument is we have as much right to provide cultural activities as roads or anything else.”
CVB budgeted $10,000 for this Juneteenth Festival. Last year, it provided $7,500 for the event. Two years ago, the CVB funded Juneteenth at $15,000.
“Hopefully, next year we’ll have this all worked out and we’ll get the $15,000 and go on about trying to raise the level of entertainment for Juneteenth,” Brooks said.
Nancy Carpenter, executive director for the CVB, said the funding for events scheduled after June, when the tax expires, has not been finalized.
In this year’s budget, the CVB set aside $79,500 for those events — Artesia Days ($8,000), Caledonia Days ($8,000), Crawford Days ($8,500), Roast N Boast ($5,000), Seventh Avenue Heritage Festival ($10,000), Tennessee Williams Tribute ($10,000), Juneteenth ($10,000) and Southside Blues Festival ($10,000).
The only festival to receive its CVB funding so far was last week’s Market Street Festival ($10,000).
“Right now, I can’t honestly tell you what’s going to happen with the festival funding,” Carpenter said. “With the status of the restaurant tax, we’re looking at everything. We’re making cuts across the board, not just festivals, but everything we do.”
The CVB’s next meeting is May 21, but Carpenter said she’s not sure if the board will address a revised budget at that meeting.
“It may be something that comes up, but most likely, we probably won’t deal with the revised budget until our June meeting,” she said.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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