City And County Leaders Agree On 2% Restaurant Tax Resolution, Now Awaiting Approval From State Lawmakers

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)- The two percent restaurant tax was brought before city leaders in Columbus to discuss during Tuesday’s city council meeting.

The Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau and Lowndes County Supervisors approved a resolution to fund multiple events in the city and county.

The resolution allows the CVB to fund $15,000 to four events held in the city limits of Columbus.

The county would receive $30,000 for festivals or events that supervisors vote to fund.

Those events would be held in the county.

“$60,000 will come from the CVB to fund the four festivals within the city,” said Columbus Mayor Robert Smith. “That’s the Seventh Avenue Heritage Festival, the Juneteenth Festival, the Townsend Park Festival, and the Market Street Festival. Then $30,000, the CVB will fund to the county, for the three festivals in the county, that’s Caledonia, Artesia, and Crawford.”

“The biggest cost again is good entertainment,” said Leroy Brooks, District 5 Supervisor and organizer of the Juneteenth Festival. “Entertainment goes up every year, and we had gotten to the point that most of the festivals we were rotating some of the same entertainers and it was beginning to kind of slow up, so if everything goes well, it will give us a ground floor to get out and raise the other money and hopefully grow these events again.”

The final approval of this resolution is all contingent on state lawmakers passing a 2% restaurant tax in the next legislative session.

The measure was not brought up for a vote this past legislative session due to conflicts between the city and county on where the money would be spent.

Categories: Local News

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