The rift between Forsyth County Commissioner Ted Kaplan and the county’s Tourism Development Authority is getting stranger by the minute.
Kapan plans to “will request a closed session at the meeting of the tourism authority’s board in which he plans to air personnel concerns and present evidence of mismanagement of the bureau.” Such possible mismangement focuses on Visit Winston-Salem president Bob McCoy, and while Kaplan says McCoy’s dismissal is “not on the radar screen, anything is a possibility.”
Making things even more interesting are McCoy’s comments in the trade newsletter USAE, where McCoy accused Kaplan of being anti-gay and anti-black. McCoy is indeed gay, not that there’s anything wrong with that. What’s possibly wrong is that Vincent King, manager of Visit Winston-Salem’s gift store, is McCoy’s “significant other.”
Kaplan pleaded ignorance to the whole situation:
“I didn’t say anything negative about being gay,” Kaplan said. “Hell, I had no idea (King) was gay until it was pointed out to me that it was Bob’s significant other.”
Kaplan said that had he been leading the TDA board at the time he wouldn’t have allowed the hiring, but not because either man is gay. Kaplan compared the situation to a spouse hiring a spouse.
The larger issue is whether or not Kaplan will succeed in convincing his fellow commissioners to repeal the 6-percent hotel occupancy tax. If successful, commissioners would revive the tax but would create a new authority that would dole out grants to tourism-related entities.
Stay tuned.
