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The Community Redevelopment Agency’s recent decision to reallocate $3 million in Tourism Development Tax without outlining procedures that prioritize equity and transparency is a blow to citizen input and accountability.
County commissioners, in a rare check and balance, can veto this decision and acknowledge the grant’s flawed history while providing transparency in the distribution of the remaining $1.8 million in arts, culture and heritage funding.
To avoid bias and conflict of interest, the CRA must also be separated from city leadership, governed instead by citizen checks and balances.
A citizens committee, impaneled in 2018 to decide how to spend $3 million in TDT arts tourism funding, recommended fully funding proposals from LeMoyne Arts and for the preservation of Ashmore’s Drugstore as a museum and contemporary arts incubator.