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Tag: Blythewood Chamber of Commerce

  • Chamber financials reflect inconsistencies

    BLYTHEWOOD – Whenever the Greater Blythewood Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Mike Switzer requests additional funding for the chamber, council members generally have been willing to cough up more money.

    As Blythewood council members plan to discuss increasing the total annual funding to the Chamber by more than $15,000 to $57,500, during a budget workshop Thursday, May 24, a review of public records, as well as a former chamber employee, signal several inconsistencies in chamber financials, raising questions about how accommodation tax funds and a town hall grant are actually being spent.

    At Town Council’s April 23 meeting, for example, the Greater Blythewood Chamber of Commerce Executive Director, Mike Switzer, said the chamber needed additional funding to cover non-specific, additional costs incurred in running the visitor’s center.

    “A lot of this deficit is startup costs of putting the extra hours into getting it (the center) up and running,” Switzer said. “The situation we have is the doors are open from 9-5. Before we signed the lease, we were already in there a year and our hours were 10-2. That’s what we could afford.”

    According to its most recent federal tax return, the chamber claimed a deficit of $4,885 just months after reporting a $5,755 surplus.

    Switzer called the numbers and their relation to visitor’s center finances “apples and oranges.”

    Payroll doesn’t add up

    In May 2017, Switzer requested $33,000 to run the visitor’s center, telling council members that $18,000 of that money would be spent on a part-time employee at a cost of $15 per hour for 20 hours plus FICA.

    Council voted to approve the $18,500 specifically for that employee.

    When contacted by The Voice, that employee, who is no longer employed at the visitor center, said she was only paid $10 per hour, not $15, for an annual payout of only $10,400.

    A visitor’s center report provided to council last January raises more questions.  The report, which is broken down into two columns (2017 July 1 – Dec. 31) and (2018 Jan. 1 – June 30), shows a total revenue for fiscal year 2017-18 of $18,500 and expenses of more than $26,000 causing a deficit of $4,885 for July 1 – Dec. 31, 2017 and an anticipated deficit of $2,758 for Jan. 1 – June 30, 2018 for a total of $7,643. A $300 addition error in each column of expenses would, if corrected, bring the deficits even higher. Council voted 4-1 on April 23 to give the Chamber the additional $7,643 to cover the two deficits.

    That’s where the report becomes difficult to follow. The visitor’s center payroll expenses are listed at $8,332 in each of the half-year columns. But the former visitor’s center employee said she only received $5,200, not $8,332 for the six month period ending Dec. 31, 2017. And the report anticipated another $8,332 the first half of 2018, leaving $3,132 in employee payroll unaccounted for in each half of the year for a total of $6,264.

    When asked by The Voice, Switzer was unable to provide a breakdown of the $8,332 listed for payroll. There is also no explanation of how a fourth of the Chamber’s rent, insurance utilities, accounting and other expenses including office supplies and other items that were previously charged to the Chamber are now charged to the $18,500 that was earmarked for the visitor’s center employee.

    In another instance, the chamber received $8,750 in accommodation tax funding for The 2017 Big Grab. Switzer charged $4,318 to staff expenses, breaking it down among three employees: the visitor’s center employee, $426; Switzer, $1,558 and Kitty Kelly (Switzer’s assistant), $2,234. But when contacted by The Voice, the visitor’s center employee said she was never paid the $426.

    Budget incongruities aren’t limited to visitor’s center funding. Mismatching revenue figures provided by the Chamber are apparent in funding to promote the 2017 solar eclipse.

    Eclipse the Park budget records list T-shirt revenues at “$5,000 (approximate),” although financial data obtained by The Voice pegs that figure at $9,991.

    Sponsorship revenues showed a similar gap, with $750 listed in budget records and actual revenues of $4,500, documents show.

    On May 4, The Voice issued a Freedom of Information Act request for annual budgets and profit and loss statements for the visitor’s center and chamber for the past five years.

    “There will be costs associated and I will get those to you as soon as time allows,” Switzer said via email on May 8. “We have, as always, a lot of work going on right now.  I will bring all of this to our next board meeting on the 15th and get back to you after that.”

    The Voice had not received the requested documents at press time.

  • Visitor’s Center shares Palmer’s post

    BLYTHEWOOD – As the residents of Rimer Pond Road and the LongCreek Plantation neighborhood continue to fight a Columbia family’s fourth attempt in as many years to bring commercial zoning to Rimer Pond Road, the Blythewood Chamber of Commerce Visitors’ Center raised the hackles of those residents by inserting itself into the emotionally charged zoning issue with a Facebook post on Monday, Jan.29.

    After posting seemingly innocuous information about a community meeting for residents concerning Hugh Palmer’s commercial zoning request on Rimer Pond Road, the Visitors’ Center’s Facebook page also featured a link to the Facebook page titled ‘Voice of Everyone – Blythewood’ that openly supports the commercial zoning and is administrated by Hugh Palmer’s son, Patrick, former longtime Chairman of the Richland County Planning Commission.

    While the name of Palmer’s Facebook page, ‘Voice of Everyone – Blythewood,’ is strikingly similar to The Voice of Blythewood, it is not in any way associated with the newspaper.

    The Palmer page, which was shared by the Visitors’ Center on its own Facebook page, promoted the commercial zoning request and featured a photo of a colorful, neatly landscaped row of four shops proposed on the Palmer’s Rimer Pond Road property. The page suggested that seemingly benign businesses such as a Sylvan Learning Center would be the kinds of businesses coming to the Palmer’s property which is across from Blythewood Middle School. According to Richland County zoning codes, however, other less desirable uses such as a convenience store with gas pumps, are also a permitted uses in the Neighborhood Commercial zoning requested by the Palmers.

    Patrick Palmer’s page offered itself as a safe place where residents could freely voice their opinion on the matter, stating that the page was ‘not judgmental.’ However, as the comments against commercial zoning in the area began piling up on the page, they were promptly removed by the page’s administrator and those posters were subsequently blocked from posting. Screen shots of the blocked pages poured into The Voice.

    “…comments that we posted on the Facebook page, ‘The Voice for Everyone – Blythewood,’ were deleted by the page administrator,” LongCreek residents Dan and Amy Wrightsman, who oppose the commercial zoning, stated in an email to The Voice.

    “Palmer’s Facebook page, ‘Voice for Everyone – Blythewood,’ was bombarded with dozens of negative comments from residents,” Rimer Pond Road resident Trey Hair stated in an email to The Voice. “He deleted those comments and subsequently blocked those folks from being able to comment further. But residents had left 38 negative 1-star reviews on the site which the administrator was unable to delete per Facebook rules, so the entire page was ultimately deleted by its administrator,” wrote Hair who owns and operates ‘Keep it Rural,’ a Facebook site that serves as a hub of information for those who oppose the commercial rezoning in their neighborhood.

    By the next morning, the flurry of angry, though civil, comments on Palmer’s Facebook page, that was being shared on the Chamber’s Visitors’ Center’s page, prompted Blythewood Mayor J. Michael Ross to call Switzer to complain about the Chamber’s Visitor’s Center’s page for sharing Palmer’s page. Ross has been a strong supporter of the residents’ fight against commercial zoning on Rimer Pond Road for several years.

    “The Town government has been in support to keep this property [on Rimer Pond Road] rural from the beginning and will continue this by attending the [Windermere] meeting Jan. 31…I really want to focus our efforts on stopping this rezoning,” Ross said in an email to Hair’s Keep it Rural page. “Everything anybody needs is in Blythewood or on Killian Road.”

    While Switzer took everything concerning the proposed commercial zoning off the Visitors’ Center’s Facebook page, he defended himself and the Chamber, telling The Voice in an email that “nobody on the chamber staff is siding with Palmer.” They also did not side with the community’s residents. Switzer placed blame for the entire posting incident on “our social media girl,” who, Switzer said, “did the post-share on her own…she thought it was informational.”

    The ‘media girl,’ Heather Holt, was hired by the Chamber earlier this year as a specialist in Facebook and social media. The Visitor’s Center is funded by The Town of Blythewood through the Accommodation Tax fund.

    Ross reiterated, however, that he stands firmly with the residents against commercial zoning on Rimer Pond Road and that the postings on the Visitors’ Center’s Facebook page did not reflect the Town’s stance on the issue.

    “The Visitor’s Center’s Facebook page is supposed to be used to bring tourism to Blythewood,” Ross said.

    ”it was…only to generate a discussion regarding that location based on the discussions at the council meeting,” Holt said in an email to The Voice after the posts were removed. But the Mayor, during that council meeting, had spoken out against the commercial zoning request and in support of the residents. Holt’s Visitor’s Center’s Facebook page did not take that stand.

    “I thought (regrettably so) that sharing a post from that [Voice of Everyone – Blythewood] page would start a conversation about the proposed development,” Holt stated in a post on the ‘Keep it Rural’ Facebook page, in which she shielded Switzer and the Blythewood Chamber of Commerce from any blame for the postings. In an email to The Voice, Holt stated, “It was information I thought people would be interested in knowing.”

    County Council will cast their first vote on the issue on Feb. 27, at 7 p.m., in Council Chambers in the County building at Harden and Hampton Streets. The agenda and packet for the meeting should be available from the County the week prior to the meeting. To obtain a copy of the agenda and the entire meeting packet via email, call Tommy Delage at 576-2172 or email him at delaget@rcgov.us or call 576-2190.

    Community information about the meeting can be found on the Facebook page, ‘Keep it Rural.’ Patrick Palmer, whose family is requesting the commercial zoning on the road, has posted signs at the Rimer Pond Road site asking residents to call him at 556-3340 for information.

  • Blythewood names Columbia realtor Business Person of Year

    Blythewood – Peggy Fowler, a Columbia realtor was recently selected by the Blythewood Chamber of Commerce as its Business Person of the Year. The Chamber also selected a Columbia business, Chick-fil-A as its Large Business of the Year.

    Blythewood’s Doko Smoke, owned and operated by Tony and Chris Crout, was selected as the Chamber’s Small Business of the Year and the Chamber’s Community Service Award of the Year went to Liz Humphries, owner of Blythewood Consignment. The awards were made at the Chamber’s annual Gala on Dec. 8 at Doko Manor.

    “We are working hard to make Blythewood a better place to live, work and play, and the efforts put forth by these successful businesses and individuals makes that job easier!” said Mike Switzer, executive director at the Blythewood Chamber.