Macon City Council members appear solidly in support of pledging $500,000 over three years to help fund the Georgia music and sports halls of fame. A resolution for that funding sailed through the council’s Appropriations Committee on Monday.
Committee members unanimously backed the promise, expected to face a full council vote Tuesday evening. Save the Halls Inc., the nonprofit group bidding to keep both halls in Macon, will ask Bibb County for an identical commitment, group chairman Mike Dyer said.
“This is the last time we’ll come and ask the city and county for money,” he said.
The financing plan required with a bid for the halls demands that the institutions become self-supporting within five years. Dyer said the nearly complete financial plan predicts that, but acknowledged that it’s an uphill climb. The state subsidized the halls with a total of $790,000 last year.
Appropriations Committee Chairman Mike Cranford noted that local governments already have invested nearly $8 million in the halls, counting land and construction work.
“In my mind, we’re protecting an investment we’ve already made,” he said.
Dyer said that if attendance and support aren’t going as expected after three years, Save the Halls would acknowledge that, cut its losses and turn the halls back over to the state.
The music hall has been in Macon since 1996, and the sports hall opened in the same downtown complex in 1999. They have never broken even, and the General Assembly has made clear that it won’t subsidize the halls any longer. It has put them up for bid by any city in Georgia. Athens has shown some interest in bidding on both, while several smaller cities are considering bids on the music hall alone. Bids for the music hall must be in by Dec. 10, and for the sports hall by Dec. 31. The state will pick winners based on financing, operation and marketing plans.
“Those decisions will be made no later than April 15 of next year,” Dyer said.
Save the Halls has launched a local advertising campaign and petition drive, since the group must demonstrate public support as part of its bid, he said.
City Attorney Pope Langstaff asked if this request is in addition to what the halls already receive from 1 cent of the local hotel room tax. Yes, Dyer said, adding that the halls expect to get $180,000 from that dedicated funding source next year.
Even with city and county support for three years, the halls will still need constant infusions of cash to stay open, Dyer said. Save the Halls expects to ask foundations for $2 million in support, he said. On top of that, the group would ask many of the halls’ inductees to aid fundraising through charitable appearances, shows and tournaments, Dyer said.
“The name of the game’s going to be fundraising,” he said. “You can’t support either of these museums based on paying $7 to get in or whatever.”
Another potentially lucrative avenue, and a way to boost attendance, is to focus on getting more student groups to tour the halls as they do at the Museum of Aviation and associated Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame in Warner Robins, Dyer said.
If both halls stay in Macon, some jobs and functions would be combined to save money, he said.
“The people that are working there today might not be the people working there tomorrow. I don’t know,” Dyer said.
The city resolution pledges $250,000 next year, $150,000 the year after that, and $100,000 in 2013. Bibb County Commission Chairman Sam Hart has said he’ll take a matching request for funding before county commissioners as soon as it’s received.
Commissioner Elmo Richardson, the county Finance Committee chairman, has said the county probably would have to dip deeper into its hotel tax to make any substantial contribution, but that the county must first make up a $10 million budget shortfall because of a decline in property taxes.
To contact writer Jim Gaines, call 744-4489.
