After delaying its decision for a month, the Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau board voted to make $35,000 available to the Legends Concert, which is looking to bring in REO Speedwagon and The Temptations.
The money, which will not immediately be needed, will be paid in two installments.
Although the concert needs the money to secure performers, organizers said they expect to return much of the grant to the CVB after fundraising and ticket sales.
Interim Director Nancy Carpenter initially recommended the board give $25,000 instead of the full $35,000 that was requested because of the CVB”s weak-but-improving financial outlook.
“It”s fair to us and fair to them,” she told the board Monday.
Board member DeWitt Hicks made the motion to accept her recommendation, which failed for lack of a second. Whirllie Byrd then made a motion, which was seconded by Hicks, to fund the whole $35,000.
Bart Wise was the only “no” vote and didn”t give any reason to the board for his decision.
The board voted 4-2 against a motion to fund the project last month, despite warnings from concert organizers that the concert may lose its first-choice, the band Three Dog Night — a prediction that came true.
But board members said then that they wanted to review the CVB”s finances. At the time, the CVB had less than half of the $35,000 in its coffers. And traditionally, the board receives grant proposals and makes a decision at its meeting the following month.
In other matters, the board retreat is scheduled for Aug. 8 beginning at 8:30 a.m. at the Fairfield Inn, off of 18th Avenue North. They”ll discuss a 2012 marketing plan, grant approval criteria for festivals and will hear Sumner David of Mississippi State University speak on the state”s open records and open-meetings laws.
The board also voted, at the behest of DeWitt, to table Byrd”s motion to begin searching for an executive director until Mark Castleberry, who missed the board”s Monday meeting, could be present.
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