Flat Rock village council to vote on $100,000 Playhouse donation

A report in the Hendersonville Lightning on today's village agenda meeting:

Flat Rock Playhouse officials faced three hours of tough questions today but with the backing of a new group of influential and connected business leaders left with a proposal on the table for a $100,000 donation from the Flat Rock Village Council....

[Flat Rock Mayor Bob Staton] ended the meeting shortly after noon by framing a way the village could meet [Commissioner Larry Young's] demand that the village match the county's funding level, at $100,000. The village has $50,000 in the current 2012-13 budget and has spent just $1,350 of it. Staton put on the table a plan to county $25,000 the village gave the Playhouse last January, add $50,000 this budget year and complete the $100,000 with $25,000 more in the 2013-14 budget.

"I think that would meet the letter and spirit of Mr. Young's challenge," he said. The optimistic tone set at the Village Council meeting — even the theater's strongest opponents on that board acknowledged it needed to be saved — added to a brightening picture for the State Theatre of North Carolina, which announced in mid November that it had run out of cash and needed emergency help from public and private donors to stay alive. The Community Foundation of Henderson County announced on Monday morning a $5,000 donation from the Perry N. Rudnick Endowment Fund.

The Village Council brought the first public appearance by a powerful group of community leaders that grew out of last Thursday's meeting in Commissioner Young's office. The business leaders urged the Village Council to do its part to save the venerable theater across the street from Village Hall. Doing so would help businesses in Flat Rock, they said....

Read it all. My understanding is that the village council will vote on this at the upcoming monthly council meeting on Thursday, December 13, at 9:30 a.m.