In the ongoing debate about whether Knox County should continue to provide money to the Beck Cultural Exchange Center--and if so, how much--there has been a lot of talk about the 2004 Memorandum of Understanding between the center and the county. The MoU, which expired last year after former Knox County Mayor Mike Ragsdale terminated it, set up a complicated legal and financial arrangement. It basically made Beck part of the county library system, to be staffed and funded by the county. That's why recent discussion of an audit of the Beck's use of county funds has provoked some confusion: For most of 2004-10, Beck was actually, legally, part of county government. Or at least, that's how the Memorandum seems to read.
Anyway, this all happened before the current mayor and most of the current commissioners were in office. So at the request of Commission Chairman Mike Hammond, Beck board member Arnold Cohen today distributed copies of the legal document. It will take better legal minds than ours to figure out what exactly it means for the current and future relationship between the county and the center, but for what it's worth, here it is: Beck_Knox_MOU.pdf.
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.