Columbus-Lowndes County Convention and Visitors Bureau will soon see a new face on its board.
Following a 5-1 vote from the city council Tuesday night, Melodie Cunningham, daughter of former Ward 4 Councilman Fred Stewart, was appointed to replace Nadia Colom, whose term expired March 1. Ward 6 Councilman Bill Gavin, who was in favor of local businessman Quinn Brislin instead, cast the lone dissenting vote.
Cunningham, a Columbus native, has assumed several roles in city and county service. She currently serves on the Municipal Executive Elections Committee, where she assists poll workers for Columbus elections. She also served as a Lowndes County Election Commissioner from 1996 to 2004.
Cunningham has also co-owned local child care center Stewart’s Nursery and Learning Center and was an administrative assistant with Columbus Municipal School District, serving as a case manager for Special Programs. She is now a sales manager at Ulta Beauty in Columbus.
Taking pride in her business background, Cunningham said she expects to bring her business perspective to the CVB board.
“I can bring my experience just as … a team player (to the board),” she said. “I can bring my energy that I have … on the board, trying to work with other people, trying to bring things to Columbus and try to keep money generated.”
Ward 3 Councilman Charlie Box said he voted for Cunningham because she actively reached out to him.
“That’s the person I feel like would do a really good job,” Box said. “She called me, she (showed) desires for the job.”
Gavin said he has no problem with Cunningham’s appointment. However, he said Brislin’s experience with business management would have been valuable to CVB. Brislin is the owner of Brislin Inc., a heating and air conditioning company in the Golden Triangle area.
“Quinn’s a local business person,” Gavin said. “He’s good with numbers. … I think Quinn has the ability to go on and do the job.”
At the meeting, the council also unanimously reappointed Whirllie Byrd to the CVB board.
There are nine total members of CVB’s board, which oversees local tourism efforts. The city council and Lowndes County Board of Supervisors each appoint four and jointly appoint the ninth member. City and county officials still have to jointly fill the vacancy left by Thomas Moore, who resigned from the board in January.
In other business, the city has seen more than 500 reports of problems and processed 310 cases since the SeeClickFix system officially went online in November, said Columbus Public Information Officer Joe Dillon at the meeting. Citizens can upload photos of the problems through the system, and city will dispatch department crews to address the issues.
The most popular problem among cases filed, Dillon said, was yard waste, which accounted for 154 cases alone. Almost 100 potholes were reported, he said, and 73 cases were problems with the drainage, which he said would take longer to fix.
The city saw 137 cases reported in February, a spike due to the recent heavy rain, Dillon said. The rain also slowed down city crew responses last month, he said, stretching the average time to close a case to 42 days.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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