City approves room tax grants for cribbage tourney, music festival, Chair Affair Auction events
Cribbage, a music festival and the Chair Affair auction in the downtown will get funding from this quarter’s city room tax grant funds.
On Tuesday, members of the Medford city room tax grant committee reviewed requests from organizers of a multi-day national cribbage competition, the Grass on the Black Bluegrass Festival and the Friends of the Downtown.
The city of Medford charges a special sales tax on hotel, motel and Air BNBstyle rooms rented in the city. A portion of the money collected goes to general government operations, while the bulk of it goes to the committee to be allocated to local organizations that request money to help put on events. The Chamber coordinates the room tax grant program for the city.
Sue Emmerich of the Chamber, explained that while a total of $7,629 in funds were turned over, due to decisions made by the committee earlier this year to spread out some annual requests over the entire year, only $4,379 was available to be allocated this quarter. She noted that the amount is usually higher and this quarter’s room tax collections are generally the lowest in the year.
Organizers for the Stetsonville Mid-Summer Classic Cribbage tournament reported that by moving their event to the last weekend in July, they hope to draw an even larger pool of participants than in previous years. Henry Brandner explained that the cribbage tournament year runs August through July. He explained that the top cribbage players in the national tournament series who are chasing points will be looking for places to play that weekend.
He said that last year’s event drew people from 13 states and that so far this year he has been contacted by people from 27 different states including as far away as Hawaii. He said they have expanded it from being a three day event to being a four day event and that last year many of the attendees from out of town stayed in Abbotsford since the Medford motels were full.
Marilyn Frank from Grass on the Black, said their request will help fund additional costs of putting on the three-day music festival that will be held July 11-13 with venues throughout the downtown and at Hacienda and 64 North outside the city.
The Friends of the Downtown requested funds to assist with moving the annual Chair Affair Auction to between the afternoon and evening bands at the Old School Street Dance on July 19. Organizer Billie Hartwig noted there has been a lot of overlap in the vendors and people attending the two events and by combining them on the same day, it could be beneficial to everyone making it a bigger event going forward.
Committee members voted to give $1,000 to the cribbage tournament, $1,500 to Grass on the Black and $1,250 to the Friends of the Downtown.
