The Canton Papertown Association Board of Directors was slated to discuss the organization’s future at a Tuesday night meeting (after this edition went to press).

The board was expected to debate whether it is worth trying to rebuild the group’s reputation or allow another group to emerge as the lead business association in Canton.

The scenario with Steve Banks (see related story) is the second black eye for Canton Papertown Association, a chamber of commerce organization in Canton whose former executive director, Gail Guy, is still under investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation for allegedly misappropriating public funds.

“Right now, the future of Papertown is in question,” said Jim Weatherman, chairman of the Papertown Board.

Other board members have also questioned whether the time and energy it will take to rebuild trust in Papertown is worth the effort. Some business owners say it would make more sense to channel that energy into FOCUS, a merchant’s group that formed one year ago in response to Papertown’s dwindling activity.

The members of FOCUS felt Papertown was an absentee organization that was doing nothing to promote downtown despite the ten of thousands in town tax dollars given to Guy each year. Guy later came under investigation for her activities.

Many town merchants thought Papertown should be dissolved following last year’s scandal and FOCUS should become the lead chamber of commerce group for Canton, but Mayor Pat Smathers led the drive to reorganize Papertown and supported the appointment of Banks as executive director.

Arun Krishnan, owner of No. 81 Main Street, is a member of both FOCUS and Papertown.

“I don’t care if it is FOCUS or Papertown or the man down the street, I’m going to support it if they are working for the business community,” Krishnan said. “To be perfectly honest, there’s a lot of people that don’t trust Papertown because of things that happened before.”