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The Answers From CenterStage

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Don here. When Eagle Eyes and I submitted our “Twenty Questions” to CenterStage earlier in the summer, I thought we were being very easy on them.

We didn’t ask about an artists endowment — there isn’t one — or the rumors that ticket sales for the CenterStage grand opening weekend have been slow. And we didn’t ask why there is so little of substance announced on the initial event schedule (BTW: Bringing in The Oak Ridge Boys is actually a good idea. In the context of a full and diverse schedule of events, that is. So where’s the rest? Or is this it?)

We didn’t ask about the parking situation, although there seems to be some problems there too. And we didn’t press too hard on how the Foundation intends to respect the history (ahem!) of the historic Richmond theatres they’ve been handed the keys to, and given considerable public subsidy to oversee and to safeguard. Perhaps, in light of recent events, we should have.

[Incidentally, it's always worth reminding people that this project is, was and will be funded by public tax dollars. So anyone who tries to tell you that CenterStage, or RPAC, or VAPAF — whatever you want to call them — should be able to do with its "history" what it wants — like a private company reworking a new sales brochure — has an awfully broad and somewhat shitty view of both history and what it means to be a leader in the public trust.]

No, we didn’t press Jeff and Jay at Capital Results PR (who officially handled our inquiries about the project — thanks guys!) about such things as the lack of an artistic director — we assumed there would be one. After all, wasn’t there a guy named Joel Katz? And didn’t he run the Carpenter Center successfully for ten years with very little city subsidy? He was fired for truth-telling too.

Why does having an artistic director — a “vision” — matter? Let’s take a look at a reputable arts venue named CenterStage — Baltimore’s CenterStage — which does not take city tax dollars and is overseen by a staff that includes a seasoned artistic director. If you want a good example closer to home, take a look at the diverse international arts programs that the director of The American Theatre in Hampton, Michael Curry, brings to Tidewater each season in a former second-run movie house (click here for the 2009-10 schedule).

Gee, let’s get even closer than that. Think of Kathy Panoff and what she accomplished in building UR’s Modlin Center.

Make no mistake, folks. This stuff matters. You can’t pass your programming and your artistic direction off to a hockey arena promoter (in this case, SMG) and expect to have a “world class performing arts center.” It just doesn’t compute.

Anyway, we promised the boys at Capital Results that we would print their official answers “as is” with a very minimum of linking and editorializing. But forgive us for pointing out facts when the answers fail to do so, and please allow us the opportunity to tell you why some of these questions might just be a wee bit important, and especially to those people who say they support this thing and want it to work.

There was also one “followup” question that we are still a little unclear about.

But you’ll read all about it… as you wade through…

[Cue trumpets, or "Elvira" — your pick] …

The Answers From CenterStage.

And for those of you coming in late to the CenterStage / Virginia Performing Arts Center story, feel free to plunder our archives. And start asking your own questions. After all, you are paying for this particular “serious fun,” whether you like it or not.

Posted in Catharsis, Richmond Arts Flashback, Richmond in the news, Uncategorized, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., fun with bribery, holy cannoli, life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, our social betters, politricks, sheer terror, shell game, something smells funny in here, techmology, the free press, the inexplicably employed, whiners with websites | No Comments »

It All Comes Down To This

Monday, July 27th, 2009

July 13, 2009 - Jewell supports what the Attorney from Echo Harbor Said from Silver Persinger on Vimeo.

“The people are ready, the leaders are not.” — James Crupi

Richmond City Council is slated to vote — no, has to vote (by state mandate) — on a final amendment to the Downtown Master Plan tonight in City Council chambers.

Pre-game coverage starts at 6PM on WCVE, sponsored by Harris-Teeter. Looks like it’s going to be another bruiser… wait, have we been here before?

Yep, once again City Council wants to emasculate “The People’s Plan.” What started as the most inclusive and forward-thinking public document that Richmond has ever produced could be gutted at the very last minute by an amendment that basically favors development over protecting green space — hardly a plank of the document.

To see “highlights” of the last council session, and see YOUR council in all its glory, click onto Silver Persinger’s excellent Richmond City Council Reporter blog for web video. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll inevitably ask, “That’s a city councilperson?”

If you are coming in late — very late — to the story, check out John Sarvay’s excellent coverage of the Downtown Master Plan — from optimistic start to (now) woeful finish.

If you think you understand the politics and the process behind Richmond’s DMP, go ahead and take Save Richmond’s E-Z 2 Love the Downtown Plan quiz. And then, because this is Richmond’s Downtown Plan, you can amuse yourself with Save Richmond’s amendment to that quiz.

In a nutshell, this is all about Echo Harbour. And whether or not one deep-pocketed developer should decide what a key and historic view of the James River looks like. But it’s also a story about vision, or lack of it. And, unfortunately, it’s also a story about conflict-of-interest and blatant patronage politics. It’s a Richmond story.

But here’s the thing to warm your cockles — the tale is peopled with folks who have been telling the city, again and again, at charettes and public hearings, at committee meetings and mayor’s forums, exactly they want. Unfortunately, this city council and mayor continue to shuffle their feet, mumble some platitudes and take another call.

People wonder why we’re not more optimistic about city leadership at Save Richmond. I give you Exhibit A: The fate of our Downtown Master Plan.

The final days of this document are a textbook example of how communities can lose their nerve, and how they can give away their most valuable assets, hastening their obsolescence. This car crash finale is also a signal to citizens about what future inclusive documents can expect from the “process.” Already compromised all to Hell, and pushed to the very last minute by indecisiveness, one of the DMP’s central tenets may just be cast aside tonight.

Business as usual.

And, to paraphrase Yoda, “That is why we fail.”

Posted in life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, politricks, sheer terror, something smells funny in here, the inexplicably employed, whiners with websites | No Comments »

Not On Our Block

Friday, July 24th, 2009

Bill Goodwin and “Booty” Armstrong to award-winning VCU School of the Arts:

Take your modernistic science fiction nuclear arts reactor somewhere else!

Amy Biegelsen reports in the latest Style that the original site for the school’s new art gallery was nixed recently by Goodwin and Armstrong, who just so happen to own the swanky historic Jefferson Hotel across the street from where the new VCU facility was to be built.

I guess that Bill and “Booty” can well remember the example set by the three little pigs. They’d prefer something made out of brick, thanks.

Biegelsen reports:

Originally planned for a parcel across the street from the Jefferson Hotel next to the new Brandcenter headquarters, architects are redesigning for a location at the southwest corner of Broad and Belvidere streets.

“Somebody in my office likened [the design] to a nuclear plant,” says Beverley W. “Booty” Armstrong, part-owner of the Jefferson. He and William H. Goodwin Jr. own the hotel and have donated land in the immediate neighborhood to the school, including the locations where the new engineering, business and advertising buildings are, and where the gallery would have been.

Armstrong can appreciate the design — just not at that address. As a condition of the land donations, Armstrong and Goodwin reserved the right to review the architecture of the buildings that went up there.

First of all, let’s stand and applaud Armstrong and Goodwin for donating the land to VCU in the first place. But this doesn’t seem to be what they had in mind. Modernist design akin to George Clinton’s Mothership… an edgy New York architect… an arts complex run by a nationally-ranked educational program that will have actual arts educators and administrators in charge … Yeah. I can see where something like this moving in across the street would spook a coupla old-school Republican business dudes like Goodwin and Armstrong. Might be homosexuals involved too — perhaps even NEA-funded pornography and lefty political statements. Not on our block, artsy-fartsy types.

At the very least, this episode gives us some insight into the artistic sensibilities of the business community’s self-appointed gatekeepers of the arts.

Art is just fine… in its place.

No, this is really only news because Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Armstrong have been two of the main backers of a performing arts center a couple blocks away from the area in question. Since this arts center (CenterStage a.k.a “The Boondoggle”) will have no artistic director to guide its mission, one can only assume that board members and big donors like Bill and “Booty” will have a big say on what happens on stage there. If so, I’m sure that we can expect a lot of, er, challenging work in the years to come.

To my mind, this is a huge opportunity lost. Just imagine... a distinguished downtown neighborhood that visually reflects both the Richmond of the past and the Richmond of the future — our complex history on one side, the mysteries of the modern world on the other. What a signal this pairing could have sent to visitors and city residents alike. It would have shown that we can actually hold two different thoughts in our heads at the same time — on a single city block — and not be confused, frightened or intimidated.

This is Richmond, of course. Screw that noise.

But, beyond a lack of vision and inclusion, what is really happening here? I can’t help but wonder if there might be another reason why these two wily lords of commerce would rather have a new state-of-the-art VCU School of the Arts building somewhere other than near their designated snatch of downtown; after all, this distinctive facility would have been near certain publicly-funded arts venues that they control. Now it has been pushed closer to the Fan.

Hmmm… I’m thinking, I’m thinking.

Back to Style [emphasis mine]:

The current design envisions 8,000 to 9,000 square feet of space for visiting exhibits and shows from the gallery’s permanent collection and a 200-seat auditorium designed to handle things as varied as film festivals, chamber music concerts, and dance and theater performances.

Oh. Wait.

Posted in Richmond Arts Flashback, Richmond in the news, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., holy cannoli, our social betters, something smells funny in here | No Comments »

Save Richmond: Six Years Later

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Save Richmond didn’t start out as a blog. No, this web address was originally snagged so that its founders could circulate an “Open Letter” that asked for Richmond’s leaders to reconsider the city’s toxic relationship with its creative community.

That happened almost exactly six years ago. But it might as well have been six days ago.

Among the things we asked for in the letter:

- A reduction in the city’s admissions tax.

- No hike in the city’s meals tax.

- Assurance that an independent feasibility study would be commissioned of a proposed downtown arts center… and that oversight of this facility would be governed by proven local arts administrators, including representatives from the city’s grassroots arts scene.

- Increased support for the city’s grassroots arts scene, including First Fridays, with less resources spent on publicly-funded downtown rehab projects.

- An end to restrictive ordinances and restrictions that served as financial and regulatory drains on nightclub and restaurant owners.

An editorial that I wrote for Style Weekly further explained the absurdity of the city’s stance towards its “creative class,” emphasizing the then-recent eviction of artists from the Shockoe Bottom Arts Center (these Richmond artists eventually found a home in Petersburg, which offered them sanctuary — our own town fathers did nothing to keep them here).

Other issues such as tolerance, inclusion and accountability were also addressed in Save Richmond’s “Open Letter.” And hundreds of people ended up signing it — from well-known musicians to respected visual artists, from soccer moms to advertising execs, all of them fed up with the city’s clueless and often thoughtless dealings when it came to Richmond’s burgeoning creative community.

While our message got some play in the local press, the letter and its contents were completely ignored by city movers and shakers — we might as well have been pissing in the wind.

In response to those who thought we were being too negative in our assessment of the situation, we gathered up much of what our signees had to say, noted what other communities were doing, and fashioned a general policy paper of arts-based solutions in late 2003 based on the problems outlined in the Open Letter. It was called “Boats Against the Current.”

Around the same time, Church Hill artist Lisa Taranto began lobbying then-councilman Bill Pantele to hold a series of meetings that included city planners and representatives from the arts and music scene, from gallery owners to rock drummers to sculptors. The objective was to brainstorm solutions to many of the arts-based issues Save Richmond (and others) had been writing about. Alas, despite a well-rounded plan of action, nothing ever happened with any of these proposals, devised charrette-style by a diverse crossection of Richmond’s indigenous arts community. Bill Pantele soon turned his attention to other urgent artistic endeavors — like funding a censorious war on fun through “the Party Patrol.”

I often stop to think where we might be if the city had listened back in 2003.

Six years and two mayors later, these same issues — from draconian city codes to high taxes to conservative censorship — are still with us. Many of them have reached a boiling point.

The Admissions tax remains, but…

As Terry Rea reports at SlantBlog, there is finally some movement on an ordinance that would abolish or severely lower the city’s crippling admissions tax. But it may come too late for some. At this writing, this tax may be directly responsible for the closing of one of Richmond’s true arts success stories, Gallery5. Read more about that here.

The city’s meals tax rate remains one of the highest in the region.

This, despite assurances from City Council in 2003 that the rise in the meals tax would be a “temporary” hike. The money from this regressive tax — which disproporately affects low-to-middle income people — went to fund a performing arts foundation that used the money to fund a multi-million dollar hole in the ground. A city auditor later determined that city council basically wrote the private foundation a blank check, and did not adequately define how it could spend the people’s money.

The performing arts center has still not been independently studied or treated to a single officially-sponsored public meeting.

Contrast this with the reams of paper and face time allotted to the recent Shockoe Stadium proposal and ask yourself why. Worse, the arts foundation has cited statistics and projections for their project that they can’t provide proof for — and that supportive city politicians have never adequately explained to their constituents.

Local arts voices are still shut out… along with the larger community.

Aside from those 2003 meetings initiated by Lisa Taranto, there has still yet to be a single official public meeting that invites artists, taxpayers and city officials to discuss arts-based problems and issues, including what kind of an arts center we want to have built with our tax money. Instead, we’ve been treated to a few “limited seating,” “exclusive,” “invitation-only” discussions that normally bring together the same old voices spouting the same old meaningless platitudes. This is not how you have a community dialog, this is how you throw a Tupperware party.

Six years ago, the Carpenter Center had a director (Joel Katz) with arts administration experience. He was eventually fired for disagreeing with the arts foundation. His real crime was in reaching out to groups like Save Richmond. Six years ago, under his management, the Carpenter required no public subsidy. Today, the planned Carpenter Theatre (CenterStage) will have no artistic director, will have very minimal representation from area arts authorities, will delegate programming to an out-of-town entity, and will cost taxpayers up to $500,000 a year.

So, in short, the future of Richmond’s performing arts scene will consist of theatres operated by people who have no experience in the field of the performing arts, and managed by a firm (SMG) that has been accused in the past of over-charging the city and gaining sweetheart city contracts over more capable competitors; a company that mainly manages hockey arenas and convention centers, not performing arts facilities.

Contrast this with another CenterStage — Baltimore’s premier performing arts center. It not only has an experienced artistic director guiding its creative mission, it requires no funding at all from the city of Baltimore. Baltimore’s arts patrons also didn’t need to hire an expensive consultant to steal someone else’s name.

No support for what works — grassroots arts and culture

After decades of failed “build it and they will come” projects — dependent on public financing and pushed by county dwellers in the metro business community — downtown is in the process of revitalizing itself. For that, you can largely thank the city’s grassroots arts and music scene.

But, despite this success, the city and its satellite business consortiums continue to do little or nothing for Curated Culture’s “First Fridays” — which has now been forced to close its downtown office because of a lack of money. Ah, but you’ll notice that these same folks have no problem touting the success of this monthly artwalk and the city’s resulting downtown renaissance on the city website and in promotional materials. What’s wrong with this picture?

Our city’s war on nightlife has, if anything, intensified.

New burdensome fees for nightclubs, midnight curfews and suspicious feuds with “undesirable” venue owners are why Richmond has earned the monicker, “The City That Fun Forgot.”

The recent busts by the city’s Community Assisted Public Safety (CAPS) program comprise yet another chapter in Richmond’s unfair targeting of music and cultural attractions. See the aggregated coverage of that here.

But all you really need to know about the bureaucratic arrogance of CAPS and its overseers can be found in this highly revealing Style Weekly report of a July 9 CAPS community meeting at the Visual Arts Center. An excerpt:

The Visual Arts Center of Richmond on Main Street seemed an ideal neutral setting for a meeting between Richmond’s arts community and the city’s Community Assisted Public Safety program.

The pristine, nonprofit facility was newly renovated with modern, brushed-metal interior architecture. It’s a friendly place for local gallery owners, and had passed its recent city construction and occupancy inspections with flying colors.

So it was no surprise to see the shudder that went through the meeting’s organizer, Curated Culture director Christina Newton, when one of the city officials in attendance stood up to call attention to a lack of marked exits in the second-floor conference room where the July 9 meeting was held.

“Tomorrow I’m going to send my inspector over,” said A.R. Abbasi, the city’s acting building commissioner — a half-serious joke that earned uneasy laughs from the already-nervous assembly of about a dozen and a half arts community leaders.

The group was gathered to seek answers about what many people perceive as a crackdown on code enforcement targeting the city’s arts and culture venues, including the Broad Street galleries that make First Fridays happen each month.

The punchline of the article comes from Mayor Dwight Jones:

“We’re going to take a look at it and see what’s going on with CAPS… I’m thinking there are some more serious issues that might [need] our attention.”

No offense, Mr. Mayor, but considering your administration’s decidedly mixed record of supporting the city’s arts and music scene, we won’t be holding our breath.

When we started Save Richmond six years ago, I was confident that town fathers and elected politicans could be reasoned with on the subject of the arts. That all one would need to do is identify the obvious problems, to document the inequalities and to present the evidence to the proper authorities, and our leaders would be only too happy to help the quite visible creative renaissance occurring under their noses. After all, it is only in their best interest. Right?

More than a half-decade later, I’m now disabused of that notion. As the last lap of the Downtown Master Plan process has shown, the powers-that-be in Richmond are utterly disinterested in the will of the people.

And this especially includes the artists and musicians that have made up one of the city’s few genuine success stories in recent years. As SR pointed out in our “Richmond Arts Flashback” series, this is nothing new — Richmond politicians and business community has traditionally shown little but contempt for its artistic community.

Gallery5’s Amanda Robinson is currently soliciting feedback from citizens that she wants to incorporate into her own contemporary “Boats Against the Current” document. She hopes to submit it to city council in the near future. We wish her luck but hope she has a lot of patience and a strong stomach. Go and share your thoughts with her here.

And — surprise, surprise — we are about to be treated to yet another “private” discussion about the arts. This one on Tuesday night at Morton’s Steakhouse. [Side note: With all due respect to the distinguished and noteworthy participants who will be involved in this discussion, having a conversation about the arts in such a conservative bastion is not unlike holding a vegetarian convention at Fuddruckers.]

At what point are we going to realize that we are talking in a vacuum? The problem isn’t that people in the arts and music communities haven’t been making suggestions and acting in good faith to brainstorm answers and offer up compromises and solutions. The problem lies in our leaders, who seem utterly disinterested in listening. All they have to offer up is empty lip service and sick jokes.

It’s pretty obvious that, six years later, our city is as clueless as ever when it comes to the arts. Sadly, for all of the “progress” made, Richmond’s creative community might still just as well be contemplating Petersburg.

Posted in armchair philosophizin', life is filled with sadness and disappointment, shell game, something smells funny in here | No Comments »

Door Hangings vs. Reality

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009

Thinking about thinking about changing. That’s Richmond.

How many years have we been talking about the Richmond school administration’s wasteful and potentially corrupt procurement division? It’s been compared to everything from a cesspool to a black hole. Now another audit, this one conducted by the school board’s own auditor, confirms (one more time) the waste and abuse by the department, and the serious lack of oversight by high-ranking school officials.

In short, if this is a “re-do,” it looks like Richmond Public Schools has failed the test again.

If you’ll recall, “Auditors were denied access to detailed procurement records” during a 2007 investigation of the schools. Despite the in-house stonewalling, the final version of this report by the City Auditor detailed a system where fund allocation was largely unsupervised (that’s your money, by the way). It also made numerous recommendations for change.

More than a year later, after much teeth-mashing, the city finally released a full audit of the Procurement and Accounts Payable division. As was predicted by many, the April 2008 report uncovered a host of irregularities and outright scandals.

First of all, the auditor was kind enough to explain why examining and closely monitoring school procurement practices is necessary:

Traditionally, procurement and accounts payable functions are targets for fraudulent activities. According to the Association of Fraud Examiners, 71.4% of the total number of instances of occupational fraud committed involved billing, expense reimbursement, check tampering and wire transfer frauds.

Looking at the school’s procurement policies and performance, the report found:

- The internal controls for following procedure and ensuring lawful practices in the procurement and accounts payable processes were “significantly weak.”

- There were “significant non-compliance with RPS policies and the Virginia Public Procurement Act provisions.”

- School officials paid $18 million for purchase orders that were not authorized.

- Richmond Public Schools buys more textbooks than it has students [this will be news to teachers in several city schools who complain about not having enough books to go around]. Moreover, RPS has higher textbook costs per student than localities with more students, such as Henrico. It also has no record of what is done with used textbooks, who sells them and for how much.

- The RPS staff may have skirted regulations for emergency and single-source purchases. Moreover, the School Board’s approvals for most of the emergency purchases were not obtained as required by the School Board bylaws.

- Looking at 52 competitively bid purchases, 96 percent did not comply with such requirements as documenting bids. The purchases were for more than $1 million.

- School officials awarded a $104,000 contract to a firm barred from doing business with the federal and state governments because of unethical business practices.

- Two RPS employees were related to contractors who provided services to RPS. One was a purchasing officer responsible for construction procurement. The Auditor’s office identified that “one of the construction firms utilized by RPS is owned by a family member of this purchasing officer. And a Plant Services employee’s immediate family member performed construction services for RPS. This is of concern since construction projects are handled by Plant Services. During the audit scope, both contractors received a combined total of approximately $357,000 from RPS.”

- “On at least two occasions, staff members were instructed to backdate contracts.”

- RPS has no little control over its vendor data input. “Staff could add, change and delete vendors without any supporting documentation.”

- There were approx. 300 vendors that had duplicate names in the RPS database. Little wonder that Dalal and his staff found duplicate payments on 59 invoices totaling $121,073.

- RPS balances its bank account haphazardly. “Basically, RPS personnel reconcile the bank balance with outstanding checks and relevant adjustments. This means that, as long as the list of outstanding checks reconciles with the bank balance, any errors in the general ledger balance will not be detected by this process.”

- There was no proper documentation concerning expenses charged to credit cards issued to RPS management and former School Board members. “The charges on two former School Board members’ credit cards included the following: $485 in gasoline purchases in the Richmond area with no receipts or explanations. The business purpose of these charges is unknown… $10 for one on-line charge to an inappropriate website…. $175 for a Western Union money order. The payee and the reason for issuing the money order are not known.”

- Two interactive, computerized classroom projection systems are missing. These cost a total of $7,000.

There’s more, a lot more. This devastating report, which came complete with detailed recommendations for improving the department, should have been enough to get the school administration cracking down on their procurement policies immediately.

But, no, Richmond schools had to wait one more year, and endure one more embarrassing procurement scandal — a $291,000 school elevator job awarded without proper bidding— before the school board began its own audit of the school’s accounts payable division.

In other words, RPS began thinking about thinking about doing something.

Now this latest study has arrived. And surprise, surprise… there are problems within RPS’ Accounts Payable and Procurement Department!

From the Times-Dispatch:

The Richmond school system’s payroll department is overstaffed but has been unable to detect overpayments, accurately track time off or collect money it is owed by employees, according to a report released yesterday by the schools’ internal auditor.

In addition, an audit of the system’s human resources department, also released yesterday, showed a department operating on the fringe, with out-of-date policies and procedures and ineffective management. Neither department has seen updated guidelines since the mid-1990s.

“We have a lot of concerns with policies and procedures,” internal auditor Debora R. Johns told the School Board’s Audit Committee.

Her review of payroll information, covering the period from July 1, 2006, to May 31 of this year found a number of problems, including:

* Overpayments to 19 employees, totaling $50,356.96. The biggest was $10,050 to an employee who was paid while on education leave. While that employee has agreed to repay the money — in $50 increments over 201 pay periods — four other employees may have gotten away with keeping $1,710.64 in overpayments, according to the report.

* Employees taking off time but not recording it, leaving time off on the books that had been used. There were also problems with the awarding, tracking and use of compensatory time off, with no single way of recording such time.

* Sloppy record-keeping. A spot review of 30 employee files became a review of 29 files when one employee’s file couldn’t be found. Of those files in place, all were missing certain forms, including copies of photo identification, Social Security cards and internal paperwork used to prove job status.

“It’s deja vu all over again,” as Yogi Berra might say.

So what is RPS’ response to this latest latest audit? Immediate adoption of the report’s recommendations? A tearful mea culpa for ignoring the last audit’s recommendations (and the one before that)? A pledge to begin a campaign of no-excuse housecleaning? A concentrated bout of unequivocal fat-trimming?

Girlfriend, please. [Emphasis mine]:

“This is the cumulative effect of long-term problems,” said Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon. “These are bigger issues than any one person.”

The payroll department has nine employees, and the audit recommended eliminating two positions. While Brandon agreed with most of Johns’ findings, she balked at the idea of cutting two of the payroll employees.

She did, however, agree to an aggressive time frame for correcting the problems, with a September target for fixing many of the problems. “We can’t afford to wait,” she said. “Even if we don’t hit the target on all of them, we can’t wait to start.

“I welcome audits. They help us identify strategies toward improving.”

Uh-huh.

I’m happy to hear that there will be “aggressive” action taken. Problem is: RPS has “waited to start” for years. They have disregarded and thrown excuses at previous studies that either hinted at, or pointed directly to, the same kind of findings. Now, as she “welcomes” the latest findings, the superintendent of schools is appearing to resist common sense remedies that would help to improve and streamline the department.

See you in September, as they say.

Let’s not kid ourselves about the message that all of this sends. These latest revelations (and the superintendent’s less-than-definitive response to them) will resonate with area parents more than any glossy door hanging or slick advertising slogan. Yeah, it’s all well and good to initiate expensive public relations campaigns designed to convince people that everything is OK at Richmond Public Schools. But wouldn’t it have been more beneficial and honest to work on the reality first?

This latest audit of RPS is scandalous stuff, sure. But it is hardly surprising and it’s certainly not breaking news.

Posted in Richmond in the news, armchair philosophizin', holy cannoli, number-crunching, sheer terror, shell game, something smells funny in here, the free press | No Comments »

Quick Thoughts

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Mark Holmberg at Channel 6 weighs in on the city government’s ongoing war with the grassroots music and art community. Save Richmond has had disagreements with Mark in the past, but on this one, all we can say is: “Go Slim Go!”

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There are philanthropists who give money to things and then there are genuine community heroes. Retired real estate developer W.E. Singleton, a huge fan of Richmond’s underappreciated Parks and Recreation Department, has offered to pay for the restoration of the burned playground at George Mason Elementary all by himself. We salute you, Mr. Singleton. If we had ten more like you around here, Richmond might actually be going somewhere.

********

Councilwoman Ellen Robertson’s “standards” never cease to amaze. We’ll just leave it at that.

********

The emails are still coming in to SR H.Q. about this. We can’t explain it, except to say that it is further evidence of the impending apocalypse. For the record, “Eagle Eyes,” who wrote the cited Save Richmond post, had this to say: “I guess it is just cranks that read our site.”

********

I hope all of you who came out to Broad Appétit on Sunday had a great time stuffing your faces. I know I did. And I hope everyone enjoyed those CenterStage hand fans that were being passed out. Just to remind: Three months away from its grand “gala” — on September 11th!! — the performing arts center still doesn’t have an artistic director, or a complete calendar of events. What has been announced on the schedule are programs that would have played the Modlin Center For the Arts if there had been no Centerstage. (Think about that for a minute). So enjoy those fans, folks — they may be the only windfall that Richmonders ever get out of the city’s ongoing boondoggle.

Posted in Richmond in the news, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., holy cannoli, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, our social betters, politricks, sheer terror, shell game, something smells funny in here, techmology, the free press, the inexplicably employed | No Comments »

Memphis Stadium Bonds Default

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Eagle Eyes here. From Bloomberg comes news that the Memphis Redbirds Foundation has defaulted on the bonds it issued in 1998 to build Autozone Park:

Among the latest to default: the Memphis Redbirds Foundation, which in 1998 sold $72 million in sports facility revenue bonds to help pay for a minor-league baseball franchise and a 14,000-seat stadium in downtown Memphis.

All over the country, boosters of ballpark developments have repeatedly used Memphis, as well as Louisville, to justify their case. In both instances the ballparks spurred some ancillary development, making Chambers of Commerce drool. This default does not necessarily diminish this progress, although some return should be expected from spending so much money in these areas.

This news does put one more nail in the coffin of the idea that such projects are ever “free.” Clearly, in Memphis’s case, the project was not even close to being economical or self-sustaining: revenue generated by the ballpark was not nearly sufficient to pay for its construction and operation. And although attendence has fallen the last three years, the Redbirds are still the highest grossing team in minor league baseball. Read that last sentence again. So, if they can’t make it work…

The takeaway from this lesson is that the developers of projects in and around these stadiums receive a form of subsidy, and a pretty significant one at that, from whatever entity pays for the ballpark contruction. It’s pretty easy to see in the Memphis example that there has been a direct transfer of wealth from the bond investors to the developers and property owners. And, while the details of these deals (especially the financing structure) can be slightly different from case to case, I think this remains the universal truth. The developers will not proceed with their projects without the ballpark, and they ain’t paying for the ballpark. You think the bond investors, who just took one in the solar plexus, want another? Count on Richmond’s ballpark to need big, and ongoing, taxpayer support.

So now we are left with the honest debate: do we think this is the highest and best use for $60 million of our tax dollars? Are there things we could do with this money, other than economic development, that would provide greater benefit to the city? If we like economic development, is this the best project? I will be charitable with the purveyors of stadiums and performing arts centers when I say that the jury is still out as to whether these projects actually have a positive economic impact, net of their enormous costs. The legitimate evidence and studies suggest that, in most cases, they do not. So to the questions above, I will add one more: do we care that our tax money will be providing a subsidy that will enrich Highwoods (and all of the other remoras up and down the foodchain of this project) with perhaps no net measurable benefit to the city?

It continues to confound me that Richmond is always the last stop for each of these pied pipers’ tours. Whether its baseball stadiums, convention centers, performing arts facilities or festival marketplaces, there isn’t a hair-brained development scheme we haven’t bought. And we always seem to jump in just as evidence is mounting that the idea is bunk. We’re like that poor kid in junior high that wore O.P.’s or jorts one season too long.

Finally, as I’ve said before, I am partial to the baseball stadium (vs other screwy economic development schemes) because of my love of the game, not because I think there is anything magical about the project. I had Sunday season tickets for the Braves, and I would hope to do the same wherever the new team plays. It seems to me that there will be more to do in and around the stadium, and sooner, if it’s in Shockoe. So if the city is bound and determined to spend itself into oblivion, at least they can build something I’ll use.

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Cultural Sanity in Richmond

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Along with other arts-friendly bloggers, I was invited to a lunch meeting last week by John Bryan, the president of the new Arts Council of Richmond (soon to be renamed “CultureWorks”). The discussion was wide-ranging, and centered on what kind of advocacy role that CultureWorks should take as it refreshes its mission to be the focal organization for arts and culture in the Metro Richmond area.

At the meeting, the very personable Bryan challenged the assembled to come up with one main issue that CultureWorks should focus on that would greatly benefit the city’s grassroots arts community. There were some fine ideas passed around — Terry Rea over at SlantBlog had an inspired notion about a billboard art competition (read all about that here), and more than a few folks mentioned the city’s crippling admissions tax on concerts. If you’ll recall, getting rid of the admissions tax was a recommendation of the recent Regional Arts and Cultural Plan.

Why was this meeting, called by John Bryan, such a big deal? Well, the Arts Council of Richmond has heretofore been rather toothless and ineffective. While it has helped to distribute area arts dollars, the non-profit has functioned more or less as a front and a rubber stamp for the region’s richest arts organizations. Up until now, it has not seen advocacy as its true calling, and what happens on the grassroots level has either been ignored or shunted aside.

The net result of the organization’s timidity and ineffectiveness is that there has been no one to represent the arts and cultural community on issues relating to the law, economic development or civic outreach. A dysfunctional arrangement like this can result in, say, a large arts center being built with mostly taxpayer money but without any real input from the artistic community… or our most successful arts-related ventures being ignored when it is time to allocate city resources.

For me, the answer to the challenge is as simple as today’s headlines. I believe John Bryan is sincere when he asks for feedback, but if CultureWorks is really going to be relevant and helpful, it needs to get tough and play a strong advocacy role in the affairs of Richmond’s beleaguered arts and music scene.

It needs to start a campaign that promotes and argues for Cultural Sanity in our city.

And it needs to do it now — before the thriving grassroots galleries that fuel Curated Culture’s First Friday Artwalk are buried under a bureaucratic pile of citations, ordinances and heavy-handed “busts”; before yet another established music club is shut down by nervous politicians and new unnecessary restrictions; before we see one more retailer, boutique or bowling alley shut down for holding small-scale music shows inside their business (when a warning letter would do just fine); before the Fan District Association’s censorious “Party Patrol” becomes better-funded than the city’s own police department.

As Chris Dovi spells out in this week’s Style Weekly, there is a war on culture currently being waged by the City of Richmond and its Community Assisted Public Safety (CAPS) program. This will not come as a shock to longtime Save Richmond readers.

CAPS, of course, was set up to do something a bit more serious and substantial than busting small-scale music shows because they weren’t properly “licensed.” But, as Dovi’s article shows, there has been some serious — and rather suspicious — mission creep of late.

As shown [emphasis mine]:

Richmond’s CAPS program originated about eight years ago, an outgrowth of the community policing philosophy that the best way to fight crime is to attack its roots. The idea behind it is simple: that crime requires not just a victim and a criminal, but also a location. The program uses simple tools such as strict enforcement of existing building and fire codes and fines for unpaid taxes or fees to treat criminal infections that, left untreated, could sicken entire neighborhoods.

But over the years, this initial mission of attacking drug dens, boarded-up or abandoned houses, and other festering community eyesores has shifted ever so slightly.

The shift is still community-complaint driven, and still uses code violations to close down or clean up targeted properties. But those targets no longer necessarily harbor the same sort of drug or street crime that some people say was the original target of the program. Today, they might also be churches, art galleries or day-care centers.

It continues:

Even as the program has proven to be a uniquely effective tool in clearing out drug houses, prostitution and all kinds of unsavory activities in some of Richmond’s struggling neighborhoods to the praise of residents and community leaders, some business owners wonder if the help being offered is in their best interest. Or in the interest of someone who doesn’t approve of the city’s current arts and music renaissance.

“CAPS is putting a cap on capitalism,” says Danny Ingram, owner of Community Chest, a concert booking agency. The program’s activities of late seem targeted at small-time local music and arts promotion, he says, even as its enforcements against illegal boarding houses and neglected vacant property continue. Ingram’s business has suffered a handful of canceled shows at venues hit by such enforcements — often on the day the show was to go on.

“They take action during business hours and in front of customers,” he says, pointing to numerous busts before or during performances that helped spell the end of the Artist Underground Cafe, a club once on Monument Avenue. “Christ! Send us a letter in the mail letting us know, or just one person to come speak with us! Then take action if we don’t correct the issues. It’s overkill to send in the cavalry and scare us into submission.”

Submission is literally the intent with the program. By sending in this cavalry, the goal is to interfere so much in the operation of an undesirable activity — like a drug house — as to make the perpetrators give up and move on.

Which is why the arts community sees more bullish enforcement by CAPS as a potential threat to the city’s growing grass-roots arts movement.

“People are getting scared shitless,” Ingram says. “Business owners, we don’t have an extra five or six grand sitting around to pay off these tickets that don’t make any sense.”

The tickets for violations often are for blocked fire exits, inadequate occupancy permits or expired business licenses — often justified, he admits. But targeting a legitimate business and ticketing it for issues that could often be found in any building in the city is over the line, he says. Building and fire code issues are common to almost any building or business in the city, program officials acknowledge.

In the past few months, targets have included Rumors clothing boutique near Virginia Commonwealth University and the Plaza Bowl duckpin bowling alley at Southside Plaza. Both have featured live music shows mostly catering to twenty-something audiences. They’re venues living double lives as concert spaces and a clothing store or bowling alley.

I’m sure you are wondering how these CAPS folks pick out their targets. You might guess that they would be focusing on the biggest law-breakers, the most heinous safety violators. You would be wrong. Actually, they pick the easiest places that they can bust.

“We’d like to thank Style magazine,” says Michael Gleason, chief of tax enforcement with the city’s Department of Finance, also a member of the 4th Precinct team, referring to coverage of the local arts and culture community. He also credits the Richmond Times-Dispatch and a variety of alternative publications in the city for providing a convenient directory of potential violators among the arts and music scene.

Social networking sites, too, have made it easy to track people being overly creative with the use of their retail or commercial space, says Lt. William Andrews, an assistant fire marshal.

“When they start advertising one way or another, it makes it very easy,” Andrews says, calling bands playing in retail stores a red flag. “You hear about something and it sounds a little different — you check it out and see if there’s any issues.”

Andrews says his initiation of an enforcement action against Plaza Bowl came after reading about bands playing there as part of Style Weekly’s recent Music Issue, an annual feature that pays special attention to local bands, venues and musicians.

“If he’d applied for a permit for the stage … that’s working in the right direction,” Andrews says of Plaza Bowl’s business owner, Jim Szilagyi. “If he started using the stage [without a permit], that’s a problem.”

In fact, that was exactly the problem at Plaza Bowl. When Szilagyi bought the struggling bowling alley, music became his financial salvation, inspiring him to tear up a few lanes in October and replace them with a raised stage area. He did it all without a permit, a situation he’s trying to rectify.

My favorite part of these kinds of articles is when some lazy bureaucrat starts telling you that, no, really, despite the conspicuous chokehold being applied to area culture, he’s actually a big supporter of the arts.

“Arts and music is a big part of Richmond,” says tax man Gleason, a lifelong Richmonder with a love for the community’s rich history and diversity of arts culture, pointing to the current success of the arts community in promoting itself to the betterment of downtown: “That’s the best thing that’s happened to Richmond is the blossoming. … we want to encourage it. We want to have more venues; we only want to make sure that they do it correctly.”

Szilagyi says he’s trying, even as he works to save what likely is the 50-year-old Southside Plaza’s only remaining original tenant.

“I think the city’s been pretty reasonable with me,” he says, though he expressed reservations about talking because of concerns that his efforts to make amends might be stymied. “I didn’t like it at first, but I understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

But what he didn’t understand was the afternoon when city officials showed up on his door and didn’t ask for bowling shoes and pitchers of Miller Lite.

“It seemed kind of crazy, the type of enforcement,” says Szilagyi, who likens his run-in with CAPS to a raid. He points out his door and across his parking lot to the rest of the long strip mall, filled with boarded-up stores and rent-to-own shops, wondering what authorities might find there. “I don’t understand how they’re not cracking down on these [storefront] churches. If they’re really concerned about safety, they should be going after everybody.”

Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it?

You’d best throw common sense out the window. Here comes a city councilperson.

Plaza Bowl is in the 8th District, home to City Councilwoman Reva Trammell, one of the enforcement program’s earliest proponents nearly a decade ago. In the midst of her first multiterm stint on council — and also in the midst of a crisis in her blighted South Side district — she worked to start an enforcement effort based on similar programs elsewhere.

“If you rode this district,” Trammell says, “I could show you things that would turn your stomach.” The blight problem persists, she says, though greatly improved because of the enforcement efforts. “You look in my district and we’ve tried so hard to clean things up.”

The main offenders in Trammell’s eyes, both then and now, are the city’s serial slum lords — the often out-of-state absentee owners who live beyond reach of state laws. It’s these people, she says, that such enforcements were created to take down.

She hadn’t heard about the enforcement at Plaza Bowl and wonders aloud why Szilagyi hasn’t called her. She struggles to answer whether the program has departed from its earlier mission when it targets a bowling alley with bands.

“I think [Community Development’s CAPS program manager] Cindy Moser would have to answer that,” she says. “I know the city is looking for all the money it can get right now. The city, we’re in a struggle for our life right now.”

Read that last quote again.

“I know the city is looking for all the money it can right now. The City, we’re in a struggle for our life right now.”

You’ll recall, of course, that Ms. Trammell was one of the councilpeople who voted in favor of CenterStage’s recent $25 million bailout from the city — she also voted to give the privately-held arts center $500,000 a year in walking around money.

But, now, the 8th district rep all but admits that the city is aggressively enforcing the code violations of small arts-related events… at the same time that it needs millions to build an expensive opera house downtown that does not enjoy widespread support in the arts community.

There are so many reasons why all of this is wrong. But it looks like those who have visited the comments box over at the Style article are already in the process of listing them. A sampling of public opinion:

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:17:08 PM by sad

i think its a shame when the government has to step in and squash something that’s really helped the city. I remember when plaza bowl had broken lanes, creepy parking lot lurkers, and hardly any customers. Since community chest started booking shows there its become nicer, safer and a destination spot for great music. Without the culture that community chest provides richmond is just another one of those cities who have an unsued/boarded up downtown and no soul. CAPS have way too much time on their hands. i dunno maybe they should be spending their time fighting crime- not tourism and local thriving businesses.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 3:53:18 PM by Anonymous

I have made it out to Plaza Bowl for shows about once a month since last November, that is more than the total of my trips to that area in the past 10 years. It’s a great cheap date, and the bowling is a blast! We don’t need the police to protect us from that!

Shame on Michael Gleason for using Richmond’s cultural scene as fodder for his shameless misuse of city funds.

Stop haggling over weather to spend $650 million on a new ballpark (for what team?), or weather to drive cop cars home, and prioritize: find a better way to protect and serve our community.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:03:43 PM by Moon

Say it ain’t so, Joe (or Dwight). Please tell me the rumors that the sudden rash of art and music venue “raids” throughout Richmond are NOT being coordinated by City Hall in an effort to focus more attention on the often floundering CENTER STAGE project. Dozens of small, independent art galleries are now bringing thousands of visitors to Manchester and the WEST Broad St. “Arts District” on a regular basis, and the success of the restored National Theater is attracting loads of visitors to the EAST Broad St area. Are our city “leaders?” afraid Center Stage is destined to become another soon-to-be-abandoned 6th Street Market fiasco if the competition is not quickly eradicated before its intended opening date?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:22:35 PM by Stuart

“We’d like to thank Style Weekly,” Gleason’s quote says it all. They’re not out to crush music and art, they’re just lazy city officials who’ve become complacent with CAPS enforcement. It’s a lot easier for them to bust shows they read about online or in this paper than it is to sniff out crack houses and absentee slumlords. They need to earn their keep and get back to the original mission of CAPS, which is crime and blight abatement.

This isn’t CAPS mission creep, it is lazy enforcement.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:39:26 AM by Howard Zinn:

I agree Moon, it is hard NOT to make the connection with the CenterStage opening. Maybe, if they bust all of these “venues” for their petty violations, we will have no where else to go BUT CenterStage.
Actually, that is wrong… most of us will not be able to afford the ticket cost to attend events at CenterStage, especially since so much of our tax dollars are going towards BUILDING it. (Much less being able to attend the VMFA) These poor businesses can barely keep their doors open as it is. After being hit with one of these code violations, they are sure to close their doors. With no money coming in from the city to sustain the cultural movement that ALREADY exists, they put our own money into a project destined for failure…a project that 90% of Richmonders were against to begin with. I cannot help but laugh at the way our city has been running for the past 35 years. Their backwards way of solving problems will be, if not always be the demise of so many creative staples that bring (brought) life to Richmond and made a name for us.

Way to go Richmond!

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:30:57 PM by Alex:

What the city is doing isn’t wrong, per say. As mentioned in the article by most of the business owners, the laws ARE on the books and they have every right to enforce it.

However, the obvious problem is that businesses like Rumors aren’t going to get licenses. They do what they do in an effort to help the local music community - they are not profiting from it. In fact, they are losing money on utilities and are donating their time, just to give underground touring bands a place to play. They are not going to pay for licenses yearly and all of that because they just don’t get enough in return.

In the end, the city is not going to make any profit and these businesses will just operate as what they are during the day (bowling pin, clothes store, restaurant, etc) and the music scene here will die. Richmond’s music scene has historically been rich and is a lot of the reason people come to visit (hell, I even moved here for it!) which is way more beneficial than throwing a big deal about the business paying a 7% entertainment tax on $40 in donations for a band who is just trying to get gas money to the next city.

Like I said, as far as law is concerned, they are doing nothing wrong. But going after the arts is just going to turn Richmond back into an unsafe, economically failing city like it was not too long ago.

So what’s the answer? I guess the area’s artists and musicians could all move to Petersburg.

Or we could stand up and fight. And it would be great to have a champion leading the fight. If the new CultureWorks is intent on advocating for arts and culture — and if it needs suggestions on one big issue to trumpet — might I suggest that the newly-rejuvenated Arts Council start a very visible and vocal campaign that lobbies against Richmond’s ongoing war on arts and culture?

And if Mr. Bryan takes up the call, he should have plenty to say. After all, the city is about to spend millions on a new ballpark in order to lure more people downtown — at the same time that it is forcing out and aggressively fining the people who are already patronizing and doing business downtown.

Clearly it is time to fight for cultural sanity in Richmond. And for sanity in general.

Everything else is just fish art outside of banks.

Posted in Richmond Arts Flashback, armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, politricks, something smells funny in here, the inexplicably employed, the outside world | No Comments »

‘Nuff Said

Tuesday, May 12th, 2009

This one is for those who might think our letter to Mayor Dwight Jones is a little harsh.

From today’s Times-Dispatch (emphasis mine):

“We worked pretty closely with the mayor,” Councilwoman Ellen F. Robertson said. “I would be absolutely shocked if there was anything that he’d veto.”

Uh-huh.

Forget the Shockoe stadium. How about a “Public Square” on Richmond’s new “weak” mayor?

Posted in armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, politricks, sheer terror, something smells funny in here, the free press, whiners with websites | No Comments »

Richmond’s War on Nightlife (Ongoing…)

Friday, May 1st, 2009

War on Nightlife?

What war on nightlife?

Ross Catrow fills us in on the latest “bust” over at RVANews:

Rumor has it (ha!) that Rumors was shut down by nearly a dozen police and ABC officials tonight. Current word is that the boutique failed to pay income tax on the revenue generated by their off hours shows.

Update:

Firstly, Rumors is still open for business. The show was shut down, not the business.

The officials had seen “flyers” around for the show and noted 5$ admission charges. They showed up and despite the “5$ suggested donation” sign served the owner with a summons.

Amy Biegelsen and Brandon Reynolds give us a little backstory in this week’s Style Weekly music issue:

Rumors, on Harrison Street, started out two years ago as a designer clothing store, but added shows to its standard offerings almost immediately as a result of the constant demand by bands (both touring and local) for places to play.

Sounds like some real heinous lawbreakers.

I love the perceptive commentary developing over at RVANews, including:

I heard we need to tax small independent shows so that Richmond can afford the Performing Arts Hole in the Ground. Is that thing still there, or are we getting our rich person’s venue soon?

****

I one time made 120 dollars from donations while running a show there. None of it went to Rumors because when I tried to give them $20 they refused even that small amount.

****

Dear Richmond Police,
Thank you once again for keeping us safe. Thanks for wasting the tax money that it took to mobilize that many cops against a non-violent issue to secure tax funds that either don’t exist or wouldn’t be enough to pay for that one single mobilization. Thank you for never patrolling my neighborhood where there is REAL crime happening but managing to get my acoustic show at my favorite space canceled. You are so awesome.

Meanwhile, over in Chesterfield County….

Posted in Richmond in the news, come the revolution..., moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, politricks, sheer terror, something smells funny in here | No Comments »

Tick… Tick… Tick…

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Who cares if private fundraising is way, way, way down… ?

and why worry that the place won’t have an executive director until after it opens… ?

and why should local arts groups be concerned about where their promised arts endowment is… ?

Just relax.

The publicity stunt is here.

From a press release:

Artists announced for September 12-13 Grand Opening;
Clock on Broad Street starts ticking away time until doors open

RICHMOND – One-hundred and sixty-five days: The countdown is on to the Grand Opening of Richmond CenterStage, with a brand new clock on Broad Street that will tick away the moments until the September 12th grand opening of the world-class performing arts complex.

“The opening of Richmond CenterStage has been a long time coming, and the cultural impact this facility will bring to the city is within sight,” said Jim Ukrop, Chairman of the CenterStage Foundation, the fundraising arm of the performing arts center. “When CenterStage opens this year, it will become the cornerstone of this up-and-coming arts district in Virginia’s capital city.”

The Countdown Clock and signage measure 8 feet high by 16 feet long, and contain 1,280 digital LED lights. The 120-pound clock, designed by Chester-based Holiday Signs, will stand on the CenterStage construction site until the Grand Opening, 165 days from today. The clock was unveiled by school-age local performers.

Yeah, I hear a ticking sound all right. But it’s not a clock.

UPDATE: Several readers have contacted us with questions about all of this. No, the above is NOT an April Fool’s Joke. As much as it might read like one.

Today’s Richmond Times-Dispatch reveals even more absurdity. The paper reports that CenterStage planners and municipal enablers were comparing downtown Richmond to “Beirut” at their sparsely-attended publicity event yesterday — um, no, actually it’s “Bosnia,” folks — while admitting in public that this is not an arts-first endeavor but a bald-faced attempt by corporate bigwigs to spruce up both their downtown real estate and previous taxpayer-supporting boondoggles they’ve championed.

And — how typical for these dudes — they still don’t get it that the downtown arts community is doing pretty good without their arts center. In fact, they seem to think that an arts center that hasn’t even opened yet (a project that has wasted $11 million in public money on nothing but empty promises) is somehow responsible for the success of Curated Culture’s “First Friday” artwalk — a grassroots arts endeavor which was started eight years ago.

O-o-o-kay!

As for their reference points…

The reformed Lebanese capital of Beirut has had its share of awful times, but today it is actually considered a worldwide destination for the arts and nightlife, and was just named to the top of the list of the world’s “Best Places to Visit” by the New York Times. If you’ll recall, the last time the Times wrote about Richmond, it was to tell the outside world that River City had a crazy mayor and a dysfunctional government.

Yep, those in charge of hyping Richmond’s ongoing “Bridge to Nowhere” have clearly disengaged themselves from reality. In today’s RTD article, CenterStage chairman Jim Ukrop is also quoted telling reporters that this arts center project is one of the reasons why Richmond has a new Federal Courthouse.

I don’t suppose any of the reporters on hand were able to ask followup questions. Someone needed to inform Mr. Ukrop that the Federal Courthouse opened last year. Meanwhile, when it comes to an arts center, all we’ve gotten so far is a Digital time ticker… and not-so-fond memories of a $21 million hole in the ground.

Historical revisionism? Try HYSTERICAL revisionism. And you are paying for it.

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Archive for the ‘something smells funny in here’ Category

It All Comes Down To This

Save Richmond: Six Years Later

Door Hangings vs. Reality

Memphis Stadium Bonds Default

Cultural Sanity in Richmond

‘Nuff Said

Richmond’s War on Nightlife (Ongoing…)

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