I was confused when several council members commented during the most recent council meeting on how glad they were that they didn’t spend city money on a giant million-dollar movie multiplex several years ago when they had the chance to.

But then Mayor George Evans announced in the meeting that the Selma Walton Theater would soon be up for a contract renewal with the city. The city hopes to renew it, but according to Evans the attendance is down at the Selma Walton.

The attendance is down so much that they were not able to get the release of the new Denzel Washington movie, “Flight.”

Movie production companies and agencies release movies to areas where they know attendance will be high and supportive of the film to ensure better box office ratings, thus making their movie release look better by the numbers. If they release movies to our theater in town, it may make their numbers look bad because of our poor attendance.

Our attendance should not even be an issue. A movie theater is something many asked for, and now these wishes have come true. We not only have a movie theater but we have a great one with excellent refreshments and great movies. I also want to praise the Walton Theater for their excellent online presence that allows the community to know when and what movies will be showing.

I have seen two movies there including the Whitney Houston movie, “Sparkle” and “Taken 2” featuring Liam Neeson.

I was happily surprised that the Walton Theater was comfortable and the movie attendants will bring your popcorn to you in the movie if you would like. What other theater can you get that kind of service?

A.C. Reeves with the Real Estate Gallery is a huge advocate for supporting all things local. She mentioned to me that her civic duties include going to see movies every week, eating local ice cream and shopping for clothes at the local boutiques. Civic duty does not get any easier than that.

Being negative about how businesses prevail in Selma will get us nowhere. We cannot have negative attitudes but yet plead that businesses will come our way. There are some commodities we do not have here, but the theater is something we do have and if we do not go and attend movies, we will surely miss out.

I am looking forward to seeing “Lincoln,” and “Argo” in November and I will be sitting back munching on popcorn to do my part for the community. I hope you will come out as well. If you want to be a nay-sayer and list all of the things Selma does not have, then go ahead. If you want to keep complaining that there is nothing to do on the weekends be my guest. But I am going to prove to Hollywood that folks in Selma love to watch movies and support local venues.