Florence City Council says 'no' to Juneteenth request

FLORENCE — Florence City Council has allocated more than $205,000 in expected accommodations tax revenue for this fiscal year despite two councilmen’s protests because the local Juneteenth festival isn’t included in the funding.

Council voted 5-2 Monday to approve the allocations suggested by the city’s accommodations tax committee. Ed Robinson and Billy D. Williams voted against the recommendations.

Funds from the 2-percent state tax collected on lodging go to organizations and events that promote tourism.

The most recent Juneteenth event, which celebrates the end of slavery in the United States, received $7,400 of Florence’s accommodations tax money.

Robinson asked committee chairman Larry Norris why the requested $10,000 Juneteenth funding for 2009 was denied. He also said he wondered if the committee thought the event “wasn’t worthy of being celebrated.”

“I’m a black man, and Juneteenth is just as important to me as the Fourth of July,” Robinson said.

Norris said the committee’s responsibility wasn’t to “debate the goodness of Juneteenth.” He said the committee submitted an application that included a “half a page of poorly developed explanations” of a “banquet in the name of black voices” to honor black leaders from across South Carolina.

“This doesn’t sound like Juneteenth,” Norris told Robinson.

He said the applicants gave no specific information about the event’s cost, location or honorees.

Robinson has received criticism for the delay of this year’s Juneteenth festival.

Although it wasn’t a “major” consideration, Norris said, the committee also considered the fact that Robinson “failed to provide the ... requested receipts” for the 2008 festival.

City records show that Florence city councilman Ed Robinson submitted receipts for $11,230 of the cost for the 2008 Juneteenth festival, which cost a total of nearly $14,000.

“I feel that (the funding) should be done through an agent and not an elected official,” councilman Bill Bradham said.

The Juneteenth conversation continued after council voted.

“Why we have black folks who don’t want to promote black history is a problem to me,” Robinson said.

Councilwoman Octavia Williams-Blake said earlier in the meeting that to her, “this isn’t about Juneteenth.”

“I’m a black woman, and Juneteenth is important to me also,” she said, “but there was nothing in that application that said what Juneteenth was about” or explained the event’s history, “and I’m a history major.”

Mayor Stephen J. Wukela said he doesn’t want to send the message that council doesn’t support black history. He also encouraged organizations celebrating black history to apply for accommodations tax funding.

The committee’s recommendations also included $33,400 for Florence Convention and Visitors Bureau, which would receive an additional $94,500 for advertising. The committee also recommended $34,700 for Florence Civic Center, $30,000 for Freedom Florence and $9,400 for Art’s Alive, among others.

Monday’s meeting also included a presentation from city Community Services Director Scotty Davis and Police Chief Anson Shells about opportunities and challenges in dealing with abandoned, deteriorated properties in the city. Council will hold a work session on the issue likely before its January meeting, Wukela said.

In other business, council:

• Deferred an ordinance that would repeal an earlier ordinance for a referendum on nonpartisan elections in Florence.

• Voted unanimously to establish a three-person council committee, led by Williams-Blake, to interview suggested appointees for city boards and commissions. Council deferred two appointments in the process.

• Unanimously re-elected councilman Williams as mayor pro tem.

• Voted unanimously to give city employees a third Christmas holiday on Dec. 26.

• Unanimously voted to join the S.C. Other Retirement Benefits Employer Trust, formed to help cities and towns implement, fund and manage post-retirement benefits after the S.C. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of a trust Florence joined earlier this year. The new trust, unlike the old, does not seek an opportunity to invest in equities.

• Unanimously approved an amendment to allow four wall signs, instead of two, for hotels and other businesses within sight of interstates and other major thoroughfares, such as U.S. highways.