[justjim]

I don't have a problem with TV getting such a Grant. Several moons ago I was involved in evaluating grant proposals and sit on a State Advisory committee and we volunteered to evaluate, along with State Staff, tourism grant applications. There should be a method and criteria to evaluate the intended results of such a Grant and that would/should have been included in the RFP (request for proposal) and TV'S proposal itself. If the results were to be evaluated, it would be interesting how they proposed to do it. Every guest we have for the first time, we usually take them to the entertainment at one of the squares. A lot of the time they spend money at the stores and/or vendors----this in turn generates sales tax for the county. Consumer spending----this is the engine of our economy.