Seneca Finance Committee approves HAT Funds

The City of Seneca Finance Committee met for the first time this year on Thursday morning and approved requests for HAT funds.  Seneca Mayor Pro tem Ronnie O’Kelley, who chairs the Finance Committee, gives details.  “Twice a year we go over the HAT Fund requests, try to fill all the requests where people can entice people to come to Seneca to spend money.  We were able to fund the projects requested, actually their was about $194,000 worth of requests.  We typically take in 150 requests, so we had to go through what we felt like meet criteria by our city attorney and then fund the projects that will bring the most people to the city to spend revenue and take advantage of all our facilities.” The Seneca Finance Committee also approved funds for a luncheon celebrating Black History and the city’s Bertha Lee Strickland Cultural Museum, explains Mayor Pro tem O’Kelley.  “We did fund to be able to do the Black History Luncheon where local people can buy a ticket to attend that.  It will be a luncheon and there will be art exhibits on display for people to look at, archives from the Strickland Family and things like that.  We are excited to kick off this Black History Month Luncheon and tie it in with the Strickland Museum project of where we are going to try to get that museum up and running.  It will be a part of the LunneyHouseMuseum.  That is going to be something very big in 2014 that the city is excited about.  Everyone is working hard to make that happen and tie it in with what is going on with the city right now.” More information about the city’s Black History Luncheon will be released later this month.