Cultural district’s funding at risk

Jimmy Cunningham had this all figured out back in December. He had come before the Pine Bluff City Council, and after he received a standing ovation and rave reviews, the council rewarded him with a unanimous thumbs up and $2 million for his project.

Cunningham is the director of the Delta Rhythm and Bayous Cultural District, and he’s hoping and planning to take $6 million and turn an area downtown into a tourist magnet.

Then Go Forward Pine Bluff reared its head, irritated that the council would dare take $2 million from Go Forward’s five-eighth-scent sales tax and hand it to Cunningham. Suddenly, the council members, many of whom take their cues directly from Go Forward instead of their constituents, got all jittery and placed the money with Go Forward’s little sister agency, Urban Renewal, you know, for safekeeping.

Cunningham could see the writing on the wall. He said that putting Go Forward between him and the money he needed for his project was a mistake. Even in the best of circumstances, he said he felt Go Forward would attempt to alter or micromanage his project, which, as Council Member Bruce Lockett recently said, is the only project in the Pine Bluff universe that has a budget that shows costs and a return on investment.

At that last council meeting in December, council members patted Cunningham on the head and said fear not, we will be with you always. Except now maybe that commitment is in question.

Lockett said he’s concerned that a half year since December, the council has yet to pony up a dime for Cunningham’s project. And now that he needs the money to start acquiring property downtown and to hire an assistant, those jitters seem to be returning.

Mayor Shirley Washington, who also taps her toe to the Go Forward beat, said that because the extension of the Go Forward sales tax failed, well, that changes everything and that the city has to be careful to finish projects already on the table since the tax won’t be collected after late next year.

That makes little sense. Cunningham’s project is actually one of those projects on the table, and the money was promised to him. And, as he said for a story in Saturday’s paper, weren’t the mayor and Go Forward smart enough not to start or commit to projects that couldn’t be finished with the estimated tax dollars coming in?

Lockett has said he felt he was doing the right thing last year in voting to park Cunningham’s money with Urban Renewal. Trust us, he said. But now with the cultural district financing apparently up in the air, he’s realizing his reputation is on the line. For that reason, he is submitting a resolution to the council requiring the city to give Cunningham more than a half-million dollars so he can get started on the cultural district project.

We will all find out soon which way the wind blows. Either the city will live up to its commitment to fund Cunningham’s project or it will renege, leaving another bad taste in the public’s mouth for city leadership and Go Forward. And if elected leaders say gee, the money’s just not there, well, that was some horrendously poor planning.