The Missouri Tourism Commission, headed by Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder meets at 2 p.m. today to discuss cutting $1.5 million  to the tourism budget, in an effort to spare the Tour of Missouri.

Cutting the Tour of Missouri’s funding was recommended in a memo from Linda Martinez on Monday, part of $10 million from the budget at the department of development and $325 million from the state that Gov. Jay Nixon froze because of projected shortfalls in revenue. We wrote about it today in the Post-Dispatch.

Worth pointing out again that cycling lovers have started a grassroots web site and twitter site.

In one way, time is on the race’s side. The organizers haven’t crunched the numbers, but all of them noted that so many contracts have been signed that canceling the Tour at this point could cost the state more in legal fees and refunds for breached contracts than it would cost to put on the race.