Gainesville City Commission allocates $40k in GCRA funds to Cotton Club Museum

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Despite Mayor Harvey Ward’s previous pledge to raise private funds to replace air conditioners at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, the Gainesville City Commission voted unanimously on May 7 to allocate $40,000 in GCRA funds to the organization; however, Ward said he would not support any more requests in this budget year.

On April 23, after hearing from representatives of the Cotton Club about their need to purchase new air conditioners to replace non-working units, Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut made a motion to “One, request the City Manager to work with the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center to resolve the air conditioning issue by May 10, and two, direct staff to assist the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center through the Business Improvement Grant process.” The motion passed unanimously, with Commissioner Bryan Eastman out of the room.

During that meeting, Commissioner Desmon Duncan-Walker asked Ward if he would be comfortable promising funds to the Cotton Club Museum by May 10, and Ward responded, “Here’s what I feel comfortable with: I feel comfortable making phone calls. And again, we all should be willing to do that if we’re serious about this, to other private citizens, prior to the next meeting of the Gainesville City Commission, which is May 7. I think this is solvable within the community, instead of us trying to figure out how to build a process that doesn’t exist right now.”

At the Commission’s May 7 meeting, Interim City Manager Andrew Persons said the City has copies of quotes the museum received for replacing the air conditioners, and County representatives had toured the facility and identified numerous areas that will require repair or renovation. He said the County had “already identified some funding source that had been reserved for capital funding for cultural amenities, [but] the City is still expected to put the $40,000 from the original request to address the immediate issue, which is the HVAC system.”

Persons said the staff recommendation was for the Commission to “approve that funding, consistent with what the Commission did with Heartwood, which is an expectation that for the next three years, the Cotton Club would make the facility available for City use, free of charge, four times a year.”

Motion

Chestnut said she’d “had no doubt that [the Interim City Manager] would be able to find some funds to help the Cotton Club out.” She also thanked the County for offering additional funds and doing the inspection. She made a motion to “authorize the Manager to move forward with an award of $40,000 to the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center from the Gainesville Community Reinvestment Area Fund.” Commissioner James Ingle seconded the motion.

Commissioner Ed Book noted, “Since the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center is in the GCRA area, that allows us to use monies that are specific to a geographic area; it doesn’t impact our overall programming.”

Commissioner Casey Willits said that if property taxes are reduced, “the community is really gonna have to support a lot of the things they want to see,… the things that are most important to them,… and we’re gonna have to cover… the basics.”

Willits concluded, “I’ll support this motion, but every group can’t continue to come to us — there’s just not enough money to restore every church, every nonprofit, every interesting building, every private building.”

Ingle said he thought it was “a win-win for everybody” that should also help with operating costs because the new units should be more efficient.

Mayor Harvey Ward: “I absolutely support this motion, no worries at all, but I do want the rest of the community to hear me: for the remainder of this fiscal year, I’m not going to be able to support any new requests [for City funds].”

Ward said the City has “kind of a tradition that, over the years, every now and then an organization shows up and needs something… Often these sub-$100,000 investments in various organizations end up paying longer dividends for the community… Having said that, with the budget circumstance that we’re in –… I absolutely support this motion, no worries at all, but I do want the rest of the community to hear me: for the remainder of this fiscal year, I’m not going to be able to support any new requests [for City funds]. That doesn’t mean you can’t make them, but I’m not going to support [them].” He said he would like the City to build some processes that provide more structure than “how we are feeling on the dais at that moment.”

Vivian Filer, from the Cotton Club Museum, expressed concern at the burden the 12 events would place on the organization: “It costs us to do that, so I need to know what we’re putting in — how many events, up to what hours, and at our discretion on our calendar.”

First amendment to the motion

Ward suggested amending the motion to state that the rentals would be negotiated between the City Manager’s office and Cotton Club Museum leadership, and Chestnut agreed. Persons said the City “may not even need to use all of those.”

Ward added that staff were probably “trying to think of ways that they’re going to have to come up with eight events now, per year,” between the agreements with Heartwood Soundstage and the Cotton Club Museum.

Second amendment to the motion

Chestnut further amended the motion by saying the City would do “up to four rentals” a year.

The motion passed 5-0, with Commissioners Duncan-Walker and Eastman absent.

County inspection

The County inspection found numerous areas requiring work, including evaluating the entire roof, replacing siding, adding gutters, repairing or replacing damaged window sills and frames, demolishing the blue shotgun house, replacing the steps and ramp, sealing or replacing the exterior doors, resurfacing the driveway, building fencing around the A/C units, replacing the skirting, and adding fill dirt or raising the foundation on the 7th Avenue end of the building.