BCTF grant funds down $37,000

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The Buffalo City Tourism Foundation’s 2013 budget shows $37,000 in decreased grant funding from this year.

The budget was presented by BCTF Executive Director Nina Sneider at the monthly executive board meeting Friday.

“That will be the money that really impacts what we, as a foundation, do on a day-to-day basis,” said Scott Hare, BCTF treasurer.

The 2013 budget allocates $33,000 for BCTF grants — down from $70,000 for BCTF grants this year.

Combined with a projected $75,000 in grants from the Jamestown/Stutsman Development Corp., grant funding for 2013 would total $108,000.

The 2013 budget will now go before the full BCTF Board of Directors next week. From there, it would need to be approved by the Jamestown City Council.

In other business, the board discussed the current state of the Frontier Village Association. Sneider and President-elect Alden Kollman are now attending the FVA’s monthly meetings to ensure that compliance issues are being addressed and its operations are running smooth.

“They’re moving in the right direction,” Kollman said. “Whether they are exactly where they need to be, that’s probably still to be determined. But they’re certainly reducing and working on their compliance issues.”

At the executive board’s last meeting, it approved a funding compromise for Frontier Village’s manager position through early July, citing that it would only approve additional funding for the position if the manager, Tina Busche, and Frontier Village were meeting requirements and solving compliance issues.

On Friday, the executive board approved 12 weeks of additional funding for Busche’s manager position through the end of September.

“Citing improvements in compliance, the board has agreed to continue funding the manager position,” Kollman said.

The executive board approved three additional grant requests:

* $790 for the Wild West Players at Frontier Village to purchase fake guns for use during shootouts, with the stipulation that no real guns were to be used during the shootouts from now on.

* $2,200 toward creating a disabled-accessible parking area at Fort Seward.

* $1,300 toward August’s Pioneer Days at Frontier Village.

The BCTF full board meeting is scheduled for noon Thursday in the lower level conference room of the JSDC, 120 Second St. SE.

Sun reporter Brian Willhide can be reached at 701-952-8454 or by email at bwillhide@jamestownsun.com

Tags: local news, news, tourism