It’s all but certain that City Council will betray Richmond taxpayers tonight by greenlighting VAPAF/RPAC/Arbusto’s takeover of the Landmark Theater — giving defacto ownership to a private Foundation with a sordid past that intends to hand over the Landmark’s management rights to a firm (SMG) with a less-than-stellar record both locally and nationally — but Snoopy at River City Rapids points out in an excellent post today that this deal is far worse than originally thought.
Excerpts below [emphasis mine]:
…SMG is traditionally an arena and convention center operator and does not have extensive experience or a great track record in proactively running theaters. I have been told that RPAC reviewed several theater operators but also know for a fact they did not even call or talk to the largest and arguably the most successful theater promoter and operator in the country.
A representative of Live Nation said they were never even contacted and he promoted two shows at the Landmark in 2007. He never even got a phone call. Live Nation won the bid for a new season in Norfolk and the city shopped around for bids and in Richmond we let a group select “from a list” that does not include one of the best but one group we already have ties with.
Yes, Richmond City Council (contact them here) has been made aware of this astonishing fact. And since this plan to allow VAPAF/RPAC/Arbusto to take over and “oversee” the Landmark was OK’d by the Mayor, he obviously knows about it too.
This insider deal between City officials, VAPAF and SMG also brings up some interesting questions about SMG’s regional conflicts-of-interest, as this thought-provoking post from The804.com Blog points out:
The potential conflict of interest I’ve always seen with SMG is that they book shows for BOTH the Richmond Coliseum and the John Paul Jones in Charlottesville. Two competing markets?! I have been watching in disgust as artists have bypassed the 804 for the 434, a city 1/5th the size: Rolling Stones, Clapton, The Police, Justin Timberlake/Timbland, Van Halen (played in Richmond back in the 1984 tour), Dave Matthews Band, etc.
Sure, the JPJ is a much nicer venue, but it really makes me wonder whether SMG is actually “steering” productions to them over Richmond. If another firm was competing for these concerts, would Richmond book more shows?
Unfortunately, that’s not all that smells about this sweetheart deal. It gets worse.
Snoopy at RCR fills us in:
The aiming for middle of the road expectations is one thing, but the real big problem in the ordinance is in Section 4.1 on page 6 of the document. It states only authorized city officials will be allowed to view RPAC’s records, even though the city is paying $25 million to rebuild the Carpenter Center, $3 million for Landmark improvements, as well as provide a $500,000 annual operating subsidy.
If you are a member of the public, forget about even filing a Freedom of Information Act request to see if everything is on the up and up. Section 4.1b discusses public disclosure - or should I say the lack thereof. It says:
“procurement records shall not be interpreted to include…(ii)financial records including balance sheets or financial statements of a private entity that are not generally available to the public through regulatory disclosure. For purposes of this subdivision, the term private entity means RPAC.
So the entity known as RPAC established by the city and the Performing Arts Foundation to take advantage of the tax credits and hire operators for the facilities will not have to tell you one iota of how they are spending their money or what they spend it on. They could hire high priced consultants for $10,000 a month and no one outside for a few select city officials can ask “what are we getting for that?”
It reiterates the clampdown in Section 4.2b: “Pursuant to VA Code 56.575.17(D) and Section 4.1(B)(2) of this Agreement, financial statements submitted as required by this subsection will not be subject to public disclosure.”
So under no circumstances are you to know how the Landmark Theater is being run, how much money it makes or loses, or review anything financial about a “private entity” that receives so much public largesse.
RPAC is supposed to receive $500,000 from Richmond Center Stage before the city ponies up it’s $500,000 but how will we be able to discern that for ourselves? We can’t.
And if you say there is nothing to worry about, take a look at the agreement the city made with the CDA in which we agreed to pay $250,000 annually but this year will cost us $1 million and up to $3 million total because some supposed experts miscalculated finances and the number of parking spaced and knew ultimately that the city would bail it out because it was too important a project.
We heard the same thing about the subsidy for 6th St. Marketplace and that the city would only have to pay so much but in reality it was a bottomless pit because the “symbol” was too important to let go.
So, in this case, we get to watch Council and the Mayor yet again give it up to the business elite that operate RPAC and the Center Stage Foundation because everyone is running for Mayor and bruised toes lead to empty coffers.
Can you imagine how our not-terribly-consistent Hizzoner would react if the Richmond School Board entered into a sweetheart contract like this without ever collecting bids from nationally-recognized firms… instead rewarding it to a company that a previous city auditor determined had bilked the city out of millions and failed to even maintain adequate services in return? You don’t have to respond to that — you know the answer.
Richmonders are supposed to be happy over this shady “arrangement” because the Landmark will be finally able to serve beer and wine under the proposed agreement.
But you’d have to be commode-hugging drunk to think this deal is good for Richmond.