COLUMN: Unanswered Questions Persist In Battle For Kentuck

*This is an opinion column*

NORTHPORT, AL — It's been a contentious year in Northport.

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Be it changes in the mayor's office, a failed push for a city school system or the City Council backpedaling on the sale of the Northport Community Center.

No other issue on this side of the river, though, has struck a nerve quite like the uncertainty looming over the future of the Kentuck Art Center and its annual festival.

As Patch previously reported, the Tuscaloosa City Council is set to consider a vague Memorandum of Understanding with Kentuck Art Center during its regular meeting Tuesday night.

This comes after the nonprofit declined a last-minute request by Northport for a sit-down meeting ahead of the Tuscaloosa Council considering the measure and following several public spats over everything from Kentuck's annual funding to the location of the festival moving forward.

Going into Tuesday night's meeting, though, this reporter has few answers to offer and is, instead, left with a long list of questions.

So let's start with transparency.

The Kentuck Board of Directors represents a private enterprise and, thus, is exempt from the Alabama Open Meetings Act — regardless of whether the nonprofit receives a dime of government funding. This private entity just so happens to provide over 250 days of art programming for over 5,000 non-festival attendees each year.

Considering that, it's understandable that the Board of Directors would want its meetings closed to the public and media, to plan without outside scrutiny. However, this becomes a problem when tackling recent developments like the announcement that the nonprofit had made numerous leadership changes, including in its executive director position.

Tuscaloosa Patch has reached out for clarity regarding the timing of the changes and what they would entail but has not been offered a response on the record. While this doesn't necessarily raise red flags, it does track with criticism coming from Northport City Hall.

This lack of transparency has been a noticeable sore spot for Northport officials and the lack of public comment provided by Kentuck during this most recent chapter is certainly telling.

And to Northport's credit, the city has been quite vocal — at times, to a fault — over its deteriorating relationship with Kentuck and City Hall's desire for additional transparency from the nonprofit.

During this time, Northport officials have been the lone harbinger of breaking news items regarding Kentuck's intentions moving forward, leaving many to wonder if City Hall is sounding the alarm bell for the community or merely covering their backsides after destroying a longstanding relationship.

Keep in mind that Northport has accused Kentuck of working to set a public narrative in its favor while ignoring just how little Kentuck has said publicly. Indeed, one could make the argument that, instead, it's Northport that is projecting its attempts to set a narrative.

Conversely, officials like Council President Jeff Hogg are right to speculate that no entity hires a marketing firm to handle its public image without having a narrative it wants to set.

Still, what's Northport's end game here?

Do officials sincerely want to keep the festival or are recent actions simply telegraphing a desire to keep elected office?

For those who have been following along, bad blood can be traced back to the pettiness shown by both entities during the Kentu Nutrition controversy, which saw elected officials make the questionable decision to publicly weigh in on a trademark dispute between a nonprofit and a private business — a public fight that many argued should have never happened.

As a quick side note: Kentuck Art Center recently trademarked the "Kentuck" name in a move that some still view as underscoring the nonprofit's desire to move the festival from Kentuck Park, while retaining its well-known name.

Odd territory, indeed, but it underscores a pattern of, at times, toxic behavior shown by both Northport City Hall and Kentuck Art Center.

Fast-forward to August, though, when Council President Jeff Hogg removed Kentuck from the city's budget when approving outside agency funding as the city tried to secure a five-year funding partnership with Kentuck to ensure the festival would stay in Northport.

It's worth noting that the city initially cut its funding for Kentuck from $75,000 to $68,000 for the current fiscal year. And while Kentuck's funding was not completely gutted, this was viewed by many as a "haircut" for the nonprofit before city leaders made the surprising pivot last week to approve $75,000 in funding for the current fiscal year, along with offering a cherry on top in the form of a one-time $5,000 special allocation.

Why the change of heart?

An even better question, though, is why the Kentuck Board of Directors has yet to approve this most recent funding agreement — one that appears to have met all of the nonprofit's previously expressed demands.

City leaders insisted at the time that this request was made to fulfill its obligation to ensure long-term funding for the nonprofit, while Kentuck leaders took issue with the initial demands from Northport that were viewed as simply untenable. These demands included funding cuts and a long-term commitment to the festival site, which sits directly adjacent to the ongoing construction of the city's new youth sports tournament complex and its mountain of red dirt that has become a point of pride for some in City Hall.

During this particular flashpoint, many speculated that a vindictive administration in Northport City Hall was going on the offensive against Kentuck for nothing more than political points at the expense of one of the area's most impactful nonprofits.

What's the good of having power if you don't use it, right?

Never mind that, despite the city owning Kentuck Park, it has invested little in its upkeep, with City Attorney Ron Davis even going so far as to admit to the poor state of the park's restrooms during the last City Council meeting.

So, with this in mind, one wouldn't be off base to argue that if the city doesn't want to invest in the park or festival, then they shouldn't have any problem with organizers finding someone who will. Right?

On the other side of the issue, many have lamented a pattern of behavior shown by Kentuck over the years, with some saying Kentuck has long used the threat of moving the festival as leverage to get what its Board of Directors wants.

Is that what we could be seeing play out right now?

But in the weeks that followed the controversy over Kentuck's annual funding, though, something in Northport's calculus appears to have changed, resulting in a seemingly desperate last-minute push to get Kentuck back to the negotiating table before any drastic decision is made.

So what happened?

On the same night that Northport officials handed activists a major win in killing the proposed sale of the Northport Community Center, city leaders took the liberty of making public their interpretation of Kentuck's evolving intentions.

What those intentions are, though, remains unclear amid radio silence from Kentuck and has become a talking point exclusively reduced to mere speculation from Northport City Hall.

Indeed, communications appear to have broken down between the two entities, with Kentuck now communicating with City Hall via its attorney, Marland Hayes.

Why the apprehension to speak directly with Northport?

Has the relationship finally hit rock bottom?

The idea of a big move for Kentuck isn't a new one, though, and what we're seeing now could very well be years of behind-the-scenes work coming to fruition.

For example, Northport City Attorney Ron Davis insisted during the last City Council meeting that Kentuck Art Center Executive Director Amy Echols had been in talks since 2019 to move the art center and its festival to Tuscaloosa. Whether these negotiations have taken place, we don't know.

But to his point, Tuscaloosa officials, such as Council President Kip Tyner, have made no secret about the potential they see for Kentuck if the festival makes the move across the river and Tuesday night's meeting is sure to see this come into clearer focus.

It's also no secret Kentuck has wanted to expand its footprint and programming capacity for some time now. Even as I pen this op-ed, Kentuck is asking for donations to expand its offerings in 2024. This is a telling, but somewhat overlooked development when considering the art center is trying to raise $10,000 for equipment for its new Clay Studio in Northport.

Does this sound like an entity that's ready to cut ties and leave the community?

Still, Kentuck has confirmed its interest in considering alternate locations for the festival and the expediency by which the Memorandum of Understanding was placed on the Tuscaloosa City Council agenda is difficult to ignore.

With silence from Tuscaloosa and Kentuck regarding the specifics of the MOU, though, all we're left with are questions for now.

Questions like why this agenda item was never considered by any of Tuscaloosa City Council's committees before being placed on a full Council agenda.

In this reporter's experience, municipalities tend to move slowly on most major decisions, so it's surprising how quickly the issue made its way to Tuscaloosa City Hall and onto a full council agenda after the news broke in Northport.

Other questions persist, too.

Whose narrative is the sincere one?

Why the recent leadership changes? What do they signify?

How long has Kentuck been in talks with Tuscaloosa?

What would losing the festival mean for Northport?

What would gaining the festival mean for Tuscaloosa?

I could go on and on with additional questions. But, for now, let's just hope we get some answers during tonight's Tuscaloosa City Council meeting.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The opinions expressed in this column are in no way a reflection of our parent company or sponsors. Email news tips to ryan.phillips@patch.com.