How well do YOU know Richmond’s longest-running downtown boondoggle? Do you have any idea where $8 million dollars in meals tax money went? Care to guess why it cost more than $20 million to tear down a building, leave a gigantic hole and then fill up the hole? Have you any clue where an additional $23 million of your tax dollars will soon be headed?
Yes, I’m talking to you again.
And since you appear to be awake, I’m sure you won’t mind taking the following “EZ 2 Love That Ongoing Downtown Boondoggle” quiz in order to find out the depth of YOUR knowledge of such things as squandered operating endowments, rigged performing arts committee meetings, music hall shells, expensive PR events and shuttered, boarded-up historic theaters. Right?
C’mon! Have some “serious fun” with this civic quiz. And make sure you turn all final answers in to your City Council member and the Mayor’s office and get them to grade your work — and theirs!
1. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s new website has a “Frequently Asked Questions” section that claims to address all of the concerns behind the $23 million in public money the Foundation (a.k.a VAPAF) will soon receive for the revamped “CenterStage” arts center. Which of the following “minor” questions are not addressed in this F.A.Q.?
a. How private fundraising pledges for the project will be verified by the city.
b. Who will pay for the project’s cost overruns - Richmond taxpayers or the private and secretive VAPAF.
c. Who is footing the bill for CenterStage’s much-hyped June 1st groundbreaking.
d. How a June 1 groundbreaking can even be planned since construction bids are due June 15th, and have to be evaluated before construction contracts are awarded.
e. How the city can allow VAPAF to control the center under a long term lease agreement given the fact that the Foundation has no tangible experience, or expertise, in running a performing arts venue.
f. Whether taxpayers will get to see a monthly cash flow statement on construction expenditures for the project.
g. Why there is no mention at all of the oversight committees that were supposed to be put into place to ensure community involvement, diversity and accountability.
h. The exact date that the Carpenter Center’s title will be transferred from the Foundation to the city, as was the original agreement.
i. None of these are addressed on the new website.
2. Which of the following statements were NOT made when Richmond City Council voted in 2003 to raise the city’s meals tax rate to pay for the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s privately-run arts center.
a. “City staff has put together a really smart structure for this funding — it splits it into phases and holds the performing arts foundation’s feet to the fire - to raise the rest of the money that we say we’re going to raise. We don’t raise the money, the city is limited as to what it has to provide.” — Brad Armstrong, Then-President of the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation
b. “This isn’t a 1% 20-year or 30-year tax that gets imposed whether it goes or not… it’s going to last until June, 2005. At which point the other elements of the financing need to be in place. And I think that’s wise.” — Councilman Bill Pantele
c. “I also like… the stipulation that was put in that if the performing arts foundation didn’t demonstrate that they could fully fund this project by a certain time, then the resources would also be withdrawn from them… so that doesn’t leave us hanging out there. It puts responsibility and accountability on everyone that’s involved.” — Councilwoman Delores McQuinn
d. “We were never as a restaurant industry contacted when this meals tax [hike] came to light. The performing arts center never called us and said, ‘Hey guys, we have this idea … let’s talk about it and see if we can work something out.’ That never happened.” — Rhoda Elliot, then President of the Richmond Restaurant Association
e. “The anticipation, as I understand it, is that some of the funds — maybe at least 50% — would go toward public education… that’s what I understand.” — Then-Interim councilman Walter Kinney
f. “I oppose this center on moral grounds. I don’t have time for niceties - this is a moral vote.” — Ordinary citizen (at the time) Marty Jewell
g. All of the above quotes were given.
3. In Summer 2005, the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation went back to city council asking for a deadline extension because they were unable to fulfill the obligations necessary to retain city funding. What happened next?
a. Feet were held to the fire.
b. The “temporary” meals tax hike was revoked.
c. Resources were immediately withdrawn from VAPAF.
d. VAPAF finally sat down and talked with local restaurant owners.
e. 50% of the Meals tax hike was immediately funneled into the school system.
f. Newly-elected City Councilman Marty Jewell voted not to extend VAPAF’s deadline on “moral” grounds.
g. None of these things happened.
4. Last year, Mayor Wilder and his city staff contemplated the dismantling of the city’s Industrial Development Authority because the IDA could not account for more than a quarter million in lost city funds. Meanwhile, the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation frittered away $8 million in meals tax money and left a huge hole on Broad Street as it contemplated building an empty “shell” of an arts center. What happened next?
a. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation squandered the Carpenter Center’s $3 million endowment and left the historic theatre a boarded-up, shuttered fire trap for more than two years.
b. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation controlled the agenda of — and wrote the reports for a special mayoral committee that was formed to investigate the situation.
c. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation, under the guise of the special committee, brokered a sweetheart deal with the mayor to control the lease of the Carpenter Center until the VAPAF chairman’s grandchildren were old and gray.
d. The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation held tight to all of the surrounding downtown property its board of directors own, while simultaneously lamenting the stagnant nature of downtown, as they finalized details of the above sweetheart deal.
e. All of it happened.
5. Which of the following things did the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation NOT do when planning its arts center with millions in city money?
a. They never commissioned a single independent feasibility study — and still have not commissioned one.
b. They refused to include any local performing arts professionals or performing artists on their board of directors.
c. They fired the longtime head of the Carpenter Center — the only one on board with arts promotion experience — because he criticized their plan.
d. They never once advertised their executive job openings to the local or regional performing arts community.
e. They never once asked for genuine input from the actual artists who were to use the center.
f. They refused to provide basic data to reporters after insisting that they had “reams and reams of documentation” to support their glowing projections and hazy fundraising figures.
g. All of the above.
6. At first, the instigators behind VAPAF’s planned arts center told the press that the project was initiated in order to help the performing arts companies of Richmond. But please choose another reason given by the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation.
a. To help prop up another failed downtown project — the $170 million expanded convention center — pushed by many of the same boosters.
b. To help spur downtown activity.
c. To make sure Richmond looked good during the Queen’s visit, when the eyes of the world would supposedly be on Broad Street.
d. All of these were given.
7. Under the guidance and leadership of the Foundation, the non-profit arts companies aligned with the project…
a. Are forced to share 1/30th of a seat each on VAPAF’s board of directors.
b. Are forbidden to speak critically of the Foundation and its efforts — the penalty is expulsion from the Foundation’s Alliance For the Performing Arts.
c. Have had to beg for charitable handouts from the Community Foundation because they are in danger of going bankrupt.
d. Will seemingly do anything, or agree to any Faustian deal, to receive taxpayer-funded handouts without accompanying oversight.
e. Everything you see above.
8. In 2005, VAPAF Chairman Jim Ukrop claimed that his Foundation had “raised” more than $68 million. In a special city audit of the Foundation’s pledges, a city auditor found…
a. That, at most, the Foundation had only $17 million in verifiable pledges.
b. That approximately 80% of private pledges claimed by the Foundation could not be counted on.
c. That Richmond city council had failed to adequately define spending guidelines for how the Foundation could use public money, resulting in confusion about which of VAPAF’s considerable expenses were allowable and which were illegal.
d. Concluded that “the Foundation did not fully adhere to Ordinance requirements” and recommended that city council insist on a monthly balance sheet from VAPAF.
e. The city auditor found all of the above plus a bag of chips.
9. At the same time that VAPAF was claiming to have “raised” more than $68 million, this blog (Save Richmond) did something that Richmond City Council refused to do. What was it?
a. Invited Dave Brockie and GWAR to headline the arts center’s first show.
b. Hosted an Alliance For the Performing Arts meeting at Chop Suey Books.
c. Challenged Norfolk’s City Council to some really “serious fun” — an intense game of “Winner Takes City” Volleyball.
d. Checked VAPAF’s assertions by obtaining and publishing their financial statements (which showed the Foundation had just slightly more than $1 million in the bank).
10. Around the time that the city council approved their deadline extension, Mayor Doug Wilder was very critical of VAPAF. Which of these is an actual past quote from the mayor about the Foundation’s arts center project?
a. “I am very disappointed in what is taking place and continues to take place in Richmond on these kinds of things. The people of Richmond deserve better, especially when it comes to the priorities we place on the expenditure of city funds, in terms of education, public safety and social services.”
b. “Two years ago, in an unprecedented move without adequate input from the public or adequate due diligence on the part of those heading city government, the Council and the Performing Arts Foundation passed a new tax dedicated to a private entity, and furthermore, gave that entity control over one of the most valuable pieces of land in Richmond.”
c. “This unprecedented move was justified by City Council and the Foundation on this basis: that the people were protected because the ordinance passed by the city contained a July 1, 2005, deadline for the keeping of the promises made to the public and the reversion of the property to the City upon default. This deadline was put into the law to ensure the public that those running the City were not making an open-ended commitment of tens of millions in tax dollars and other city resources to a private entity.”
d. “The Foundation has repeatedly lobbied for more and more public dollars - more taxes, even a new ticket tax under a different name - while falling short on the promised private dollars.”
e. “This was supposedly a privately funded thing. That all you needed was a little seed money from the public. Now you’ll find that two-thirds of the money that will be generated, if they are counting, will be public when you count the federal, when you count the state and the city. [This occurred] without the city or any locality or any of the government officials having any say-so as to what happens. How anything like that could have gotten off the ground in the first instance is beyond me.”
f. All of those statements came out of our mayor’s mouth.
11. Which of the following is an actual recent quote from Mayor Doug Wilder about the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation and its project.
a. “I now believe everything the Foundation says. To prove it, I’m willing to make a donation to CenterStage right here and now. Here’s a personal check for $200,000.”
b. “Ooops. Turns out I was wrong — Jim Ukrop DOES own me.”
c. “I’m convinced with the integrity of the people who are behind this project, [the money] will be there when we need it.”
d. “And you dare ask why I would treat the school board so harshly over their use of city funds and why I would make city employees reapply for their jobs in an attempt to establish accountability, while at the same time allowing the wasteful Virginia Performing Arts Foundation full unfettered reign over millions in taxpayer dollars and a huge patch of valuable downtown land…. I have no clue.”
12. For its hyped June 1st groundbreaking, VAPAF has announced that a New Orleans-styled brass band will accompany a throng of arts center supporters in a parade from the Carpenter Center toward the popular events at Curated Culture’s First Fridays Artwalk. Please choose this ironically-named brass band from the following choices:
a. The Dirty Rotten Scoundrel Ensemble
b. The Trust Us This Time Orchestra
c. The No BS Brass Band
d. The Back Room Deal Brigade
e. The Feet To The Fire Five
13. VAPAF’s new website maintains that “the timing of the groundbreaking fit [sic] in wonderfully with what is already happening in the city to promote and celebrate the arts. Venture Richmond and First Fridays are excited to connect the site of Richmond CenterStage with the existing downtown art walk.”
… And how many times is VAPAF’s June 1st groundbreaking and Brass Band parade actually mentioned on the official event calendar of Curated Culture’s First Fridays art walk?
a. Zero
Answers (and links):
1. i 2. g. 3. g 4. e. 5. g. (And this is worth listening to as well.) 6. d. 7. e. 8. e. 9. d. 10. f. 11. c. 12. c. 13. a.