Supervisors to take second look at $50,000 request for arts center

By By Steve Gillespie / staff writer
November 11, 2004
Lauderdale County Supervisors plan Monday to revisit a $50,000 request from the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Center.
Supervisors tabled the request during a Nov. 1 meeting because the board had asked for a list of contributors to the project but had not received it.
Now the board has that information, but District 5 Supervisor Ray Boswell asked other members of the board during a work session Wednesday if they support an effort led by Meridian Mayor John Robert Smith to amend legislation.
In a letter to Gov. Haley Barbour, dated Nov. 3, Smith called for changes in state law to create a Meridian and Bonita Lakes Development Authority and give it the power to impose a food and beverage tax without a required election. The letter also asks for the authority to issue bonds against the new tax revenue without a vote.
The issue
Both District 2 Supervisor Jimmie Smith and District 3 Supervisor Craig Hitt told Boswell it wasn't an appropriate time to address the issue.
Hitt said it was not an issue for this board and that he didn't want to talk about it publicly until it was.
Boswell said once he received the letter, he had something to do with it.
Plans call for the Mississippi Arts and Entertainment Center to be developed on a 175-acre site at Bonita Lakes, It will include an entertainment Hall of Fame, a concert hall, a 5,000-seat amphitheater, an artists-in-residence village and a Choctaw Cultural Center.
It is estimated the project will cost more than $50 million.
Lauderdale County supervisors gave the project $100,000 last year to help hire a director, Charlotte Tabereaux, whose duties include raising money to build the center.
The mayor's letter
The governor called a special session that began Monday to consider several issues related to economic development across the state.
This provision is completely unnecessary and only places more obstacles in the path of providing local funding for the arts and entertainment center. We have been unable to find any other legislation that requires two referendums on essentially the same issue."
What: Lauderdale County Board of
Supervisors meeting
When: Monday, 5 p.m.
Where: Raymond P. Davis Courthouse Annex, 410 Constitution Ave.
Information: Call the supervisors' office, 482-9746