Down to the Proverbial Wire

Well So much for that....

Last Thursday morning a meeting was held between Jeff Fulp, Chairman, EDA, Gayle Darugh, CVB, and Frank Wheeler, Chamber of Commerce. The meeting was called at the request of Rabun County Commissioners Eston Melton, Virgil Kilby and Pete Cleveland, after a specially called meeting of the Commission Last Tuesday afternoon. An hour later, in time for the CVB meeting that night, a meeting was scheduled for United Community Bank at 9:30 am.

The initial reports coming out of that meeting were that a compromise had been struck, which would see that the CVB would be the recipient of 30,000 dollars in County Hotel Motel Taxes. Now, Just hours before the Commission meeting where Commissioners are to discuss (and it was presumed vote) on the issue, that agreement looks like it never existed. Sources within the chamber say they'll be moving forward with their request.

This sort of confusion is typical, because of the way these meetings are conducted. You can't have a majority of decision makers at a "secret" or "impromptu" meeting because that would make it an open meeting with the media present. But since you don't have a majority, no decisions are final, so no one can be really sure if compromises worked out, will become the policy of the groups doing the negotiating.