City council members are expected to vote Tuesday on whether to match a grant that is helping fund renovations to the Tennessee Williams Home and Welcome Center downtown.
If they don’t fund the match, either Mayor Keith Gaskin or the Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation may be on the hook for $54,000.
A $313,000 restoration to the center is expected to be complete by the end of October. CCHF obtained $265,000 in grants for the project from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Hills Heritage Area. Work began in April.
The largest of the grants, $159,000 from MDAH, requires the $54,000 in the next few months, CCHF Executive Director Nancy Carpenter said. Only one problem: Gaskin signed a letter in September 2023 committing the city to the match without first getting council approval.
Gaskin has publicly apologized for the snafu, blaming it on the timing for submitting the grant application. Carpenter, meanwhile, appeared before the council during its Thursday work session in her continued plea for the match.
“It is the first place … people see when they come to Columbus,” Carpenter said of the birthplace of the famous playwright. “It has been chosen as an iconic symbol for the state of Mississippi.”
The home is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a Mississippi Landmark.
Vice Mayor Joseph Mickens, presiding over the work session during Gaskin’s extended absence for a health concern, pressed the council to vote on the matter Thursday. They opted instead to push it to Tuesday’s regular council meeting.
Gaskin has repeatedly characterized the letter he signed as an agreement to work with the council for the match or raise it through private donations. In a copy of the letter The Dispatch obtained from a private citizen, Gaskin makes no mention of private donations. The letter is typed on city letterhead and signed by the mayor.
On a separate page, which Gaskin also signed, it lists “City of Columbus” as the donor for the full match.
That didn’t sit well with many council members, especially with work ongoing at the site.
If the city won’t fund the match, Carpenter said CCHF would seek ways to raise it privately. Worst-case scenario, she said, CCHF would pay the match. She does not believe the organization would have to return any grant money.
Though they wouldn’t commit to how they would vote Tuesday, several councilmen indicated after the work session that Carpenter may have little reason to worry.
“A promise was made by somebody who didn’t have the power to make it,” Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones said. “I don’t necessarily want to hold (CCHF) accountable for that. But we are in our budget process, and we have a lot to consider. I haven’t made up my mind yet.”
Ethel Stewart, councilwoman for Ward 1, said she is “all for” restoring the Tennessee Williams Home, noting $54,000 is “a drop in the bucket” compared to the costs of losing it as a tourism asset.
Mickens said the one-time match is “for a good cause,” and officials noted American Rescue Plan Act funds could cover it.
He also went easy on Gaskin for his mistake, citing the mayor’s health absence.
“The mayor stepped out,” Mickens said, referring to the match letter. “But I’m not going to beat a man when he’s down. Let him get back healthy.”
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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