That meeting is scheduled for 5:15 p.m. in the first floor conference room of city hall on Roanoke Avenue.

The meeting with representatives of Davenport & Company is one Mayor Emery Doughtie believes wouldn't be needed if a sales tax were in place, something which he will continue to encourage council to pursue after its request to the General Assembly to hold a referendum on the matter was pulled from the legislative calendar last month.

“I think it will cost us a considerable amount of money to refinance the debt,” Doughtie said this afternoon.

City Finance Director MeLinda Hite said today the current debt principle on the theater is $19,690,000. This comes after the city just paid this year's debt payment of $430,000. Council agreed last month to defer $250,000 of that debt.

Refinancing or restructuring the debt would mean the city would be paying off approximately $23.4 million but with a lower interest rate and longer time period, a move that would shave $100,000 a year off the debt.

A refinancing or restructuring agreement would also shed the city of having to pay an average of $68,000 a month on a swap payment that was built into the initial agreement. The swap payment was put into the deal so if the fixed swap rate of 5.51 percent went above that, Bank of America would have to pay the city. “We received one payment early on from Bank of America,” Hite said.

Doughtie supports the sales tax because the theater issue, he said, is not just a Roanoke Rapids problem, but an area problem which will trickle throughout the county should the city have to have a huge tax rate increase next fiscal year or be forced to cut services since the city lost its theater reserve fund in this fiscal year's budget. “It's going to negatively affect businesses here or businesses coming in.”

Doughtie said the city is waiting to hear back from the county Convention and Visitors Bureau on a proposal in which that agency would become the theater advisory panel. He said Councilman Ed Liverman and tourism President Lori Medlin are expected to meet to discuss the issue next week as the city waits for the tourism board to meet.

The mayor said he believes shows should be held at the theater. “That's what's so frustrating to me, if I were to put on a show now it would be like an act of congress. There's nothing going on right now.”

Doughtie said he wants the city manager to take a more active role in in trying to market the theater for sale both nationally and internationally.

He also believes there should be a push to solicit businesses in the area to sponsor shows, five or six businesses which would be willing to put up $1,000 to $2,000 each to get acts in the venue in exchange for box seats and repayment of their investment. “If you had shows that would be good publicity for the theater. Old Crow Medicine Show, there were a lot of good comments about that.”

A business partnership, the mayor said, “Could jump start us.”