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Archive for May, 2009

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.

Posted in armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., fun with bribery, holy cannoli, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, politricks, shell game, something smells funny in here | No Comments »

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 »

Gary

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

garyga12

I remember making a quick phone call after I got out of my first National Folk Festival programming committee meeting a few years ago. I rang my friend Brent Hosier — a Richmond music historian of the first rank — and pleaded with him in an exasperated tone of voice (as if some big secret had been kept from me all these years):

“Alright, tell me all about Gary Gerloff.”

Gary Gerloff, who passed away Saturday morning, made an indelible impression on me from the moment I met him. I’m told he specialized in that sort of thing. The longtime local musician — who performed a type of Americana music that he referred to as “Psychedelic Dixieland” — continued to be a distinctive and unavoidable presence at those committee meetings. With a build and a beard not unlike Jerry Garcia, Richmond’s own “Captain Trips” was kind of like the precocious class clown who kept wanting to start his own discussion groups at the expense of the lesson plan.

Ah, but who would usually be the first among the group to bring up a topic nobody wanted to discuss, or to suggest an artist/genre/aesthetic that was somewhat provocative? Who was sure to get the discussion flowing with a thought or an argument that no one else anticipated? It was Gary, who could quickly become as serious, insistent and persuasive as a prosecutor when it suited his fancy. This guy was no clown — he was as sharp as they come.

According to his pal Todd Ranson, viewing arrangements are currently being finalized and “a full Catholic funeral is planned.” Reading this fine essay on Gary over at Mike Welton’s Cool Stretch of Highway blog, I wished I had known him better… a lot better. I’m proud to have known him at all.

An excerpt:

He’s never left his hometown for more than a month. And if the former capital of the Confederacy, an aloof and well-mannered place, never will be considered a musical Mecca, it does hold special appeal for him.

“I just love the dignity of living in a once-defeated city,” he says. “A great deal of pride once carried us here. It gave us a noble cloak, and adorned us with the air of some ancient Greek city-state. Richmond is like some old whore or piece of architecture. She’s been around forever, it seems. But when you notice her in a certain light, why, there’s a real charm to behold.”

He’s talking in his basement over a 20-foot bar with three sinks. (“One to wash your hands. One to wash your face. And one to throw up in.”) Behind the bar are display cases jam-packed with the things he holds precious: bobble-head dolls of Satchel Paige, Grady Little and Keith Richards; miniature ceramic hand-painted jazz ensembles from New Orleans; an autograph from Hunter S. Thompson; a collection of Three Stooges shot glasses; an English nose whistle; two James Brown posters from concerts at The Arena; a stuffed and mounted bear’s head casually draped in a feathered Mardi Gras mask and beads; and a 1970s photograph of his late brother Peter, arm-in-arm with the family’s maid.

Behind him, on a 9-foot Brunswick regulation pool table, lie seven bamboo fly rods, an assortment of air horns, one birdhouse in the form of the Parthenon and two Halicrafter short wave radios. Behind the pool table stand 15 vintage guitars and six worn-out, antique tube amplifiers.

He says he’s tempted to call his 1960s split level, with its 1400 sq. ft. terraced deck, “a tumbled-down shack in BigFoot country,” but instead refers to it as his roost, his outpost and his thinking line of defense. He lives here on a densely wooded hill a half-mile from the James River with his wife who’s an accomplished pianist, his 11-year-old daughter who’s an aspiring writer, and his seven-year-old son, whom he tags a “yellow-haired monkey.”

All are unimpressed with his musical persona, one that plumbs the depths of American music and its attendant emotions.

Known to his fans as “Gary Garcia” because of a likeness for the late leader of the Dead, he labels himself a relic from another era – a living fossil. “I see myself as a bluesman first. Second, I am a champion of heartfelt emotions. I like awkward displays of love. I am an encourager of dreams,” he says.

Richmond musician Johnny Hott has played with Gerloff for 15 years. “His fans are about 30 years old and up. There’s this jam-band, Grateful Dead tie-in,” he says. “We were opening once for the Jerry Garcia Band after Jerry had died. There was this one guy in a tie-dyed T-shirt who was walking slowly to the stage from the back of the crowd, getting bigger and bigger, and he was chanting to Gerloff in a trance: ‘Jerry…Jerry…Jerry…” totally transfixed on him.”

Gerloff picked up his first guitar at age 12, and promptly abandoned all other ambitions; music became his life.

There will be a lot said about Gary Gerloff in the coming days. But his buddy Tim Timberlake passed along a couple of quotes from a Times-Dispatch article on Gary from 2001 (written by Jim O’Brien) that helps us to get a grip on what a special dude that he was. [Say what you want about the man — he gave great interview. Here is another revealing Q&A, from Plan 9's 9X Magazine.]

Let’s let this beloved “force of nature” — who could always speak for himself very well — speak for himself:

On new music:

“I may not understand it but I don’t fear it,” Gerloff said. “When I go by Twisters or some place and I hear sounds like the end of the world Parts 1 through 4, I encourage every bit of that. You want to know why? That’s the launching pad and kids are going to develop and their final twist after I’m done and gone will incorporate everything we’ve been through.”

On how he would like to be remembered:

“Well I’ve been described as a force of nature and I don’t know whether I like hearing that or not. But if I’m going to be viewed, I want to be viewed as somebody who cared about other people and the impact music can have. I want to be viewed as someone who made a stand for what I consider to be important music.”

And that you are, my friend. That you are.

Update: Visitation will be held Wednesday from 4PM - 6PM at St. Edward Catholic Church. There will be a mass at 7PM. Following that, there will be a reception at Positive Vibe Café. Thanks to Mike Welton and Lisa Sims for the info.

Posted in Richmond in the news, armchair philosophizin', life is filled with sadness and disappointment | No Comments »

Who Owns the CDA Bonds?

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

While we all sit around and debate the pros and cons of a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom, we can observe the death throes of a similarly structured public/private development project currently playing out in real time, and just right down the street. From the RT-D’s Mike Martz:

The city advanced more than $655,000 yesterday to the Broad Street Community Development Authority to make up a shortfall in the debt payment due June 1 on bonds that were sold six years ago to pay for new parking, demolition of Sixth Street Marketplace and public improvements to the declining downtown retail corridor…

The authority already expects to face a shortfall of $1.58 million in debt service over the next year in the budget it adopted Thursday. Richmond is obligated to pay up to $3 million a year in debt service on the bonds if there isn’t enough money from parking revenues to pay the bill…

The parking authority hasn’t been able to generate the revenue that had been projected to finance $67.5 million in bonds issued in 2003 to spruce up the Broad and Grace street corridors in anticipation of a new performing arts center and hotel that were much slower to be built than expected then. As a result, the authority can’t afford to build garages on two surface parking lots, or complete the renovation of three floors on an existing parking garage.

We should all be shocked (shocked!) to see a deal that private investors wouldn’t touch without a city guarantee unfold so gloriously - actual revenues have come in at about 50% of what was projected. And the city already contributes, either directly or through the RRHA, nearly one quarter of the CDA’s funds. So, even before this bailout, in no way has this project ever been “free” as advertised.

So I think this provides the appropriate context in which to view the proposed stadium. And for the record, I am a huge baseball fan and would love to see something like this built downtown. I would also like to be 2 inches taller, 10 lbs lighter and offer the citizenry free ice cream on Fridays in the summer. Maybe once it gets built we could even work out a publicly-funded “Free Lapdance Night” with Sam Moore across the street at Club Velvet. Now that is a proposal I could get behind. But, I digress.

The common thread throughout all of these public/private deals is that the profits are privatized while the risks are socialized. In most cases it is even worse than a “heads they win tails we lose” situation. Instead it is a “heads they win and tails they still win and we lose” setup. Consider all of the fees and reimbursements paid to the developer, ECI Investment Advisors, LLC for their sterling management of the project. Oh, and we gave them the Miller and Rhoads property too. They did rehab it into condos (which we so desperately need more of) and a hotel, but it looks like they received zillions of tax credits and other subsidies to mostly pay for that.

In addition to ECI, there is one more group that is getting a pretty sweet ride as a result of the bailout - the CDA bond holders. They are being paid what amounts to a “junk” bond rate, 7.5% tax free, while having the backstop of a AA-rated major city. And before you poo-poo 7.5%, consider that the interest is exempt from Federal and state income tax (for Virginia residents). That is a taxable equivalent annual yield of about 12.5%. Not too shabby, eh? It’s an even sweeter deal if the bondholders could somehow make sure the city would ride to the rescue when things went south - because without the city this thing would be headed to default and the bonds would be worth about as much as your average subprime mortgage. But if you knew the city would step in, then there really wouldn’t be any risk to it at all - right?

So, who are these intrepid investors? George Soros? John Paulson? the Oracle of Omaha? Well, unfortunately we just don’t know. What we do know is that back in 2003 the CDA tried and failed to sell the bonds without a city guarantee. As the project looked like it would collapse, the city caved and gave its “moral obligation” and boosted the bonds’ interest rate. The bonds finally sold, and thanks to Silver Persinger, keeper of RT-D archives, we know that:

…Legg Mason declined to name the investors but said six were institutions such as insurance companies and mutual funds and five were individuals.

Since city taxpayers are now on the hook for this thing, I think it is time to unmask these fine fellows. I think it’s important to see if some of these individuals are the same people that foisted this project upon us in the first place. Then maybe we can have an honest discussion as to whether they should be bailed out. And as for the identity of the five “individual” CDA bondholders, it’s just a guess, but the smart money is betting that one of them is this guy…

Posted in armchair philosophizin', come the revolution..., fun with bribery, life is filled with sadness and disappointment, moments of civic brilliance, number-crunching, shell game | No Comments »

The Whole Damn Combo Meal

Saturday, May 16th, 2009

Today, I like Paul Goldman more than ever… but I will never understand him.

L. Douglas Wilder’s former policy analyst, a perennial office seeker, is certainly unpredictable. Just when you think you’ve got Paul pegged as an opportunist/dreamer/kingmaker/crank/visionary (take your pick), he adds a new wrinkle to your impression of him.

Today, in a blog post (with a headline that is only slightly less funny than “SaveRichmond.com Editor Up In Arms Over His Chicken Alfredo”), he takes me to the woodshed over Save Richmond’s recent letter to his friend, Mayor Dwight Jones.

Say what you want about Paul — he’s a loyal dude and protective of his political friends. His formerly-estranged pal Jones was being “attacked” by some whiner with a website and Goldman instinctively rode off to the rescue. (It should be noted that Paul and I are also friendly acquaintances — and none of this is personal.)

Paul’s knee-jerk defense of Mayor Jones is admirable stuff considering that the underlying viewpoint of today’s blog post— that Richmond needs a weak mayor who simply “goes along” with city council — runs counter to just about everything that Goldman has worked and argued for since he gathered the signatures that ultimately led to Richmond’s “strong mayor” initiative getting on the ballot. It is noteworthy that 80% of Richmond voters voted yes to that particular proposition, and it is also worth a reminder that our current mayor only just managed to squeak out a victory in last November’s election.

Most folks got the point of the satirical letter we wrote to Dwight Jones, and we have to assume that Paul did as well: Richmond’s new Mayor Jones is being anything but a strong mayor. He, in fact, seems to be taking us back to the days when “going along” and political patronage and sweetheart backroom deals were the business models of choice for City Hall.

Even if we factor in Doug Wilder’s rocky and imperious rule, is there anyone out there (Paul included) who is ready to make the argument that Richmond was better off under the old system?

A 2005 article in Virginia Business described how that kind of “cooperative” system worked out for Richmond:

Between 1999 and 2004, three council members were packed off to federal prison. They include Councilman and former Mayor Leonidas B. Young, who pleaded guilty to fraud, obstruction of justice and tax evasion in 1999; Councilman Sa’ad Al-Amin, who was found guilty of several felony tax-related charges; and Councilwoman Gwen C. Hedge-peth, who was found guilty by a federal jury of three bribery charges and one count of lying to the FBI, all felonies. Moreover, federal probes into city financing uncovered graft that resulted in convictions of three other city officials. In one case, an assistant in the city manager’s office managed to steal a million dollars from the city.

Is Paul advocating a return to those good ol’ days?

If not, I have to throw Goldman’s favorite rhetorical catchphrase back at him: Where’s the beef?

Today’s Paul Goldman wonders why details matter — and asks why calling out the council and mayor on their respective budgets is so important.

But, once, there was another Paul Goldman, who said this on the campaign trail last year:

“The failure of the Wilder-led Administration and the Pantele-led Council to be straight with the people of Richmond about their failed budget and financial policies is one thing: but the failure of the local media to understand the importance of these matters as to their impact on the next Mayor is quite another.”

And

“As I have been saying for months, Wilder’s led City Hall and Pantele’s led
City Council need to stop wasting money on the most expensive City Hall and City Council in the state, and start cutting their expenses and government expenses, big time.”

And

“The more City Hall and City Council waste in spending that we can’t afford, the more in the end they will hurt the people of Richmond, especially the most vulnerable among us.”

How odd that today’s Paul Goldman suggests that it is foolish for anyone to point out such things as city council’s $91,000 appropriation for a “Council Policy Analyst” or the increased funding for a private “Party Patrol” at the expense of police and firefighting services. Today’s Paul Goldman says it is improper to condemn the hundreds of thousands that the mayor earmarked for the Sixth Street Marketplace. Save Richmond’s letter to the mayor was actually a bit too kind — it didn’t even mention things like council’s proposal to fund another expensive study of Shockoe Bottom, a piece of bloat that would come at the same time the city would cut thousands of dollars from Parks and Recreation programs.

The Paul Goldman of Yesterday was a master at pointing out such details and speaking out on why they matter. If yesterday’s Paul Goldman were looking at these 2009-2010 budget proposals, what would he say?

Something like this?

“There is not going to be any such double or near-double digit increase to pay for the bloated and expanded permanent city government they have now created. For too long, instead of making the hard decisions needed to expand our job base and thus our revenue base, and rein in the most expensive city hall, city council and city school bureaucracy in the state, city elected leaders and their fiscal teams have been authorizing spending at a rate that the people of Richmond can not afford.”

And I can only assume that today’s Paul (can we call him the “Paul Goldman of Earth Two”?) wrote his post denouncing Save Richmond’s letter before Mayor Jones gave his “State of the City” speech on Thursday. Standing before the Richmond Chamber, Jones all but confirmed the gist of Save Richmond’s concerns. He even admitted that, um, he had no idea what the state of the city was.

“It’s hard to do when you’ve been in office just 134 days.”

In lieu of hard details, Jones instead painted himself as a “Richmond’s biggest cheerleader” and gave essentially the same booster stump speech he’s been giving to 4-H Clubs since he took office. You know the one — where cooperation is mentioned way more times than leadership.

And now people know why we asked about the balls.

Jones also told the assembled Business Community throng that the Downtown Master Plan was subject to “negotiation” — nevermind that the document has already been heavily vetted and watered down by both the city planning commission and city council. If you were looking for a sign on Thursday that our new mayor was going to press the issue of Echo Harbour, and advocate strongly in favor of Planning Director Rachel Flynn and the transparent public process that gave birth to the DMP, you searched in vain. Instead, we got statements like this:

“It’s a plan. A plan is a guide, and that means there will be some negotiation along the way… I want to find a balance between preservation and economic development.”

Cooperation or capitulation?

Either way you look at it, it is a step backward for the city. I’m glad to see that other folks out there, if not Paul, can clearly see what is happening:

This is the man who had a 45 person transition team start work in November?? It is May and he still doesn’t have a handle on the state of the city?? That is amazing. Richmond got exactly what it wanted, a milquetoast wishy washy mayor who gets along with everyone and sings the city’s praises. No progress, no vision, no sense of direction, but everyone is saying nice things about each other. This is Richmond’s future.

Ouch!

Paul Goldman is a standup guy for speaking up for his friend, the Mayor. I acknowledge his loyalty and I appreciate the kind words he extended to me in passing as he expressed his displeasure with our criticisms of Dwight Jones.

But if Paul can’t see “the beef” here, it’s because he refuses to look under the bun, the tomato, the cheese and the pickles… or even to open up the styrofoam carton. The colloquial language found in our letter to Dwight Jones may have seemed frivolous and crude, but the situation couldn’t be more serious. Richmond’s future is at stake here — our plans and what kind of leaders our citizens want and deserve.

That isn’t just a slice of beef, Paul, that is the whole damn combo meal.

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‘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?

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A Letter to Mayor Dwight C. Jones

Monday, May 11th, 2009

jonesseal To: The Honorable Mayor Dwight C. Jones
City Hall, Richmond, Va.

From: Save Richmond

Dear Mayor Jones:

Congratulations once again on being elected mayor of the City of Richmond.

We trust that, four months after being sworn into office, you’ve finally finished unpacking all of your boxes and have placed all the personal photos and plaques of achievement exactly where you want them. By this time, your secretary should know exactly how you like your coffee, you should have finally figured out the city computer system, and you’re well on your way to memorizing the first names of most of the people who will be working for you in your new position. We are hopeful that, with all the Human Resources stuff out of the way, you are now completely settled in with your pencil sharpened, and that you are now ready to be Richmond’s mayor.

Getting used to a new job with added responsibilities can be a real trial. So we totally understand how it is. And we aren’t pushing or anything.

But we were wondering if you had a timeline in place for when you are finally going to grow some balls?

Beyond recent forays into killing area nightlife and scaring local non-profits — small fry stuff — you’ve been a real non-factor so far. Of course, we realize that you’ve been busy cleaning up a lot of unfinished mess. But other than making citizens aware that hizzoner has added some new material, notably “Kumbaya,” to the ol’ rhetorical repertoire, you seem to be completely missing in action from the bully pulpit.

We don’t know if you’ve been reading the papers but your planning director, Rachel Flynn, is currently under attack from members of city council, who have called for her resignation. Ms. Flynn’s crime? Speaking up for the thousands of citizens who support the Downtown Master Plan, and refusing to buckle under to one particular condo developer who has heretofore gamed the system at every turn. In their version of the budget, the city council even seeks to eliminate your proposal to purchase the land that is at the heart of this dispute with Flynn — it’s a key plank of the Downtown Master Plan, a piece of public policy that you claim to support.

It’s been a week and you’ve said nothing, done nothing, about any of this. People are starting to wonder where you are. Which is why we ask about the balls.

There are a number of different ways to enter a new job, and you have elected to start quietly, some would argue meekly, in your first months. This “dip a toe in the water” method has no doubt been a cosmetic attempt to differentiate yourself from your predecessor, who seemed to employ a highly confrontational style of governance that we’ll call the “Balls-first” approach.

City Hall has indeed been a friendlier, more inviting place of late, and we can attribute at least part of this to your outreach efforts to city council, and to the school administration, and to the governments of the surrounding counties. You wouldn’t want to show your balls too early, or for no good reason, and we respect that.

But no matter what anyone thinks about the idea of “cooperation” (it’s a two-way street), or how Doug Wilder might have defined the city’s executive powers, everyone can agree that checks and balances are key in a Democracy. At times, when forced, a leader who believes in something, and enjoys the support of the people, has to employ the full legislative and persuasive powers of his office to achieve his goals — he needs to grow a set, in other words. This is not “conflict,” this is part of the job of leadership (that’s why they call it a strong mayor).

With all due respect, your 2010 budget doesn’t always lead by example. $300,000 for Sixth Street Marketplace? Are we in a time warp? And, yes, we realize that you inherited a wicked deficit, but decreasing funds for teenage pregnancy programs in a city with a teen pregnancy rate twice that of the state average makes no sense. Still, the City Council’s alternative budget is worse. While it is heartening to see that you and our citizen legislators can agree on so much — and are discovering new and exciting ways to team up on others — there are a number of things in council’s version of reality that an unemasculated mayor would quickly challenge.

For example, our city council proposes increased funding for the Fan District Association’s “Party Patrol” — which proactively attempts to shut down parties in the Fan area. At the same time that it would fund these weekend snoopers, the council has joined you in calling for a staffing freeze for firefighters, and a decrease in the police budget.

You know where we’re going with this, Mr. Mayor. Would the city really increase the funding of a privately-run, constitutionally-challenged “patrol”… and at the same time reduce the resources of the city departments that would be forced to respond to it? That’s nuts.

If council has its way over your budget, $29,970 will go to the city attorney’s “continuing education.” Anyone who has followed his recent decisions can understand why the CA would need more schoolin’. You can even pinpoint exactly where he needs to do serious remedial work — in the areas of conflict of interest law. But why city taxpayers should have to pay for the council’s lawyer to keep up with the law is another question.

At the same time the council proposes this, it would cut (from your budget, Mr. Mayor) $274,087 in after-school programs for area schoolchildren and $10,000 from Adult Day Care services. It would take away bus discounts for seniors and it would decrease funds for both affordable housing and building conservation.

With all of these proposed cuts, you would think that city council would be ready to tighten its own belt and eat smaller portions. Right, Mr. Mayor?

You must not have met our city council. “We’ve got a lot of things we need to fund that take priority over more parkland,” Council president Kathy Graziano has said. I guess she means the $91,202 that she slotted in for a “City Council Policy Analyst,” an expenditure that all but loudly exclaims, “Boy do we have some balls!!” An unneutered mayor would halt that crap dead in its tracks.

These councilpeople do one thing very well — they reward the business community. In their budget, they propose giving $70,000 more to various business co-ops who have now bandied together as an “Economic Development Consortium.” The EDC is a varied crew of organizations — everything from Sportsbackers to Venture Richmond — many of them highly worthy, some of them with mixed records of achievement. We can tell you from personal experience that, for a coalition that is supposed to spur area commerce, this is not a group that folks at City Hall are very eager to publicize or to talk about. That’s very curious. Wouldn’t a mayor with some cajones at least ask to see results before further funding some of these groups? Wouldn’t he make sure that the public knows exactly what this “EDC” is and what groups are being funded before he allows council to throw any extra money at them?

We know that you want to be a positive guy and make your new friends on council happy — you just learned “Kumbaya” and everything. Believe it or not, there is a middle ground between the “going along” we’ve seen from City Hall in the past — indicted councilpeople, et al. — and the contentious feuding of the Wilder era.

Mayor Jones, it is up to you to find this middle ground.

But in order to do that, you will need to grow some balls. And soon.

Might we suggest sending a sharply-worded message to interested city council members that reafirms your strong support for the Downtown Master Plan? You can doodle a smiley face at the bottom of the press release if you want.

How about mounting a serious and aggressive stand against the Echo Harbor development during budget negotiations? You can do that while flashing a warm smile, can’t you?

And how about standing up for Rachel Flynn in your forthcoming State of the City address, and loudly announcing that she will remain as city planner until the end of your term? That would be a strong signal that you aren’t just some kind of grinning infomercial host — you’re the damn mayor!

No, Richmond didn’t want another L. Douglas Wilder. But we didn’t want another Rudy McCollum either.

We trust you feel comfy in your new plush office chair, and that you like the way the Key to the City feels in your hand, but it’s time for you to step up and be a leader.

For the sake of our city, it is now time for you to grow some balls.

Sincerely and respectfully yours,

The folks at S.R.

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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….

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