Local & State Headlines

ATI discusses funding

• Albany Tomorrow Inc. considers reducing membership dues for smaller businesses.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Like two locomotives on parallel tracks, Albany Tomorrow Inc.’s Special- Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax V projects at Thronateeska Heritage Center and the Albany Civil Rights Institute are hurtling toward the same completion date — August 2008.

Both projects, a $4.05 million expansion of Albany’s civil rights museum and a $3.8 million science and discovery center at Thronateeska, are on track for completion in August, with foundation and steel work now under way, ATI President and CEO Kenneth Weaver said to voting members at an ATI meeting Wednesday.

Also in store for completion during 2008 is ATI’s Bridge House project, which will become the new home of the Albany Convention and Visitors Bureau “around March 1,” Weaver said. But he warned that efforts to keep the historic riverfront toll house “in a period style” may continue to slow work at the site.

Nearby Ray Charles Plaza, which opened to the public last month, has a few final touches to be added, including lighting, benches and a small safety enclosure surrounding the statue of Ray Charles, Weaver said.

The final SPLOST V project ATI will finish this year is the $1.4 million North Trails greenway extension, to include a pedestrian bridge across Philema Road, he said.

The organization spent $564,900 during 2007 on staff salaries, professional fees and office-related expenses, a handout Weaver supplied to board members said.

Apart from its sales tax projects, the expenses were paid for through ATI’s contracts with Dougherty County and the City of Albany, membership dues and development fees, and ATI ended the year with a balance of $2,510.31, the paper said.

Proposed changes in membership dues — lower rates for smaller businesses and individuals — are intended to be “inclusive, not prohibitive,” though not free, for ATI’s “partners,” Board Member Emily Jean McAfee said.

A bylaws group has devised a fee schedule that reflects the size of a business, to be presented to the board for a vote next month.

The proposed annual dues will be $2,500 for businesses with assets of $5 million or more, $500 for those with assets between $1 and $5 million and $100 for small businesses or individuals, said McAfee, speaking for the bylaws group.

The group had rejected the idea of membership at no cost, she said.

“We think that the board is stronger by having everyone invested,” said McAfee. “This is a little more about business.”

ATI’s current dues ($2,500) became the subject of a petition from several downtown business owners, including Bo Henry and Phil Cannon, who said the rate “excluded small businesses,” board member Jim Wilcox said. Henry, Cannon and Jay Watts were elected to the board at the start of the meeting.

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