Columbia City Council Work Session
August 19, 2015
By Temple Ligon
Council met on Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 on the second floor of City Hall.
Top on the agenda was tourism funding, $5.6 million of it. The big bucks went to Columbia Museum of Art ($716,107), Historic Columbia Foundation ($686,500), EdVenture Children’s Museum ($509,850), City Center Partnership ($300,000), Congaree Vista Guild ($250,000), and Five Points Association (225,000).
The hospitality tax comes from a 2 percent charge on prepared food and drink, which is distributed to fund events that draw visitors, who in turn spend more money on food and drink. In other words, brick and mortar is not sponsored and neither is any annual budget for operations. It’s the crowd-pleasing event that gets the city support.
One group to hear a pleasing change of heart was the Palmetto Opera, which in the coming year puts on a concert in May in the business school’s auditorium, and earlier in February produces Verdi’s Rigoletto, a grand opera with the S. C. Philharmonic in the orchestra pit at the Koger Center.
The Palmetto Opera’s full-scale production last year was supported by the city to the tune of $22,000, but this summer the hospitality tax committee recommended only $4,000 in hospitality tax support.
Council member Moe Baddourah told council that to drop support for the opera from $22,000 to $4,000 was essentially a suggestion to the opera to shut down. Council put the opera’s take at $16,500, a workable number albeit a few thousand dollars less than last year.
Columbia City Council Regular Meeting
Council’s regular meeting at 6:00 p.m. on the third floor of City Hall was held Tuesday, August 18. About halfway through the agenda was an ordinance authorizing the city manager to execute a license agreement between the city and Hallmark Homes International Inc. for the lease of unreserved parking spaces in the Lady Street parking garage and the Washington Street parking garage, 425 parking spaces altogether. Developer Don Tomlin wants to build residential units on top of each garage. To start, he’ll take the Lady Street garage and add 22 stories and 250 apartments above the existing garage.
