Clarksville City Council approves Art, Culture and Tourism Authority
The Clarksville City Council voted to authorize the creation and appointment of the Art, Culture and Tourism Authority at a special session meeting Feb. 26.
As announced by the City of Clarksville last Thursday, the ACT Authority will become the entity through which all arts, heritage, culture and tourism in Clarksville will get funding and support.
The ACT Authority will be a legally separate entity from the city government, but will have board appointments exclusively provided by the city, and an executive director appointed by the board.
“The creation of this ACT Authority comes with the intent of obligating and ensuring a solid base of revenue support and daily management, for our entire package of arts, culture and tourism offerings in the City of Clarksville,” said Clarksville Mayor Joe Pitts in a press release.
The ACT Authority will hold the titles of the soon-to-come Performing Arts Center, Customs House Museum & Cultural Center and Art & Heritage Council.
“I greatly appreciate our Chief Financial Officer, Laurie Matta, who spent countless hours researching this endeavor and creating a sound, workable solution that is quite exciting, and will carry the City forward with confidence,” said Pitts.
Although the resolution passed, 8-2, the council was met with some questions and comments regarding the Authority.
Councilperson Karen Reynolds made a motion to postpone the vote to the first of March, giving council members more time to read the resolution.
Councilperson Wallace Redd disagreed with the motion to postpone for next month since the council had already voted to approve the funding for ACT.
"I'm here and ready to go," Redd said.
Custom's House Museum chairman of the board, Larry Richardson stood up during public comment to express his thoughts on the Authority.
"I'm a little lost about commenting on anything because this is the first time I or the director of the museum saw anything," Richardson said. "It leaves a lot to be questioned of how things will work."
Richardson also said that by the news hitting media outlets before they knew, they were unable to tell their staff ahead of time.
What are the main objectives of the Authority?
According the the city, the Authority and its partners will be assigned the responsibility of ensuring that all resources going to the arts, tourism and their facilities within the city are being managed most efficiently.
The main objectives of the seven-member board will be:
To maximize the economic, tourism, social and cultural benefits of Clarksville
To identify and assist in developing cultural events and providing a location to display the various forms of art within Clarksville
To coordinate a calendar of events for cultural and artistic creators
According to the city, an Authority devoted to Arts, Culture and Tourism would be beneficial in that it would offer:
Sustainability, by bringing all arts under one umbrella with the goal of them being self-supporting entities to preserve the arts and history while also supporting the downtown area with tourist destinations.
Economies of scale, by utilizing one marketing strategy, one Human Resources department an Accounting department and a Maintenance department, among others. Reducing the individual costs and improving efficiency.
What does this have to do with funding?
Part of the reason the Authority is being created is to help with the financing of the long-awaited Clarksville Performing Arts Center.
Funding would come from the PAC's revenue as well as:
City hotel/motel tax of 4%, dedicated to tourism resulting in about $2.2 million annually
County Hotel/Motel tax of 8% with 12.5% to the City's General Fund. Montgomery County ratified a measure on July 9, 2018 that stipulates that approximately $650,000 annually is. budgeted to fund Clarksville tourism, which is currently budgeted to fund the Museum.
Under the ACT Authority, the Museum, Art & Heritage Council and Roxy Theatre will each submit budget requests the Authority Directory annually, which will allocate funds.
Leaf-Chronicle reporter Kenya Anderson can be reached at kanderson@nashvill.gannett.com or on X at KenyaAnderson32.
This article originally appeared on Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle: Clarksville City Council approves Art, Culture and Tourism Authority
