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Civic Center Deficit News Conference
- Wishneff for Council News Conference – Roanoke Civic Center – 4/23/08 253% Increase in Civic Center Deficit
- “White Elephant causes growing deficit”
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- As I have said many times during the campaign, this election should be about the business judgment of our current Mayor and City Council Majority and the results of that judgment. Specifically, I have wanted to point out those big projects and issues where my judgment has differed from theirs.
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- Nowhere is that more evident than the Roanoke Civic Center. Every year since the Civic Center was built, City General Fund has had to subsidize the Civic Center. Generally, that subsidy has ranged from $500,000-$1,000,000. Given the spin-off spending from visitors and the improvement in the quality of life the citizens of Roanoke receive from the Civic Center, that level of subsidy has been one the community can and should accept.
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- In FY99-2000, the year before the current City Manager took her job in Roanoke, the General Fund subsidy for the Civic Center was $958,403. 4-fiscal years later, FY03-2004, the year before Mayor Harris took office, the General Fund subsidy had grown 17% to $1,118,135.
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- What has happened since Mayor Harris and the current majority of Council took office? In FY06-2007, the General Fund subsidy grew to $3,374,490 or a 302% increase in the General Fund subsidy to the Civic Center. The latest estimate from the City of Roanoke’s Finance Department is that the City’s General Fund subsidy for our Civic Center for this fiscal year, FY07-2008 will be $2,826,452 or an increase in subsidy of some 253% since Mayor Harris and the current majority on Council took office. Let me repeat that, since our Mayor and current majority on Council took office, the General Fund subsidy for the Civic Center has grown by 253% or almost $2 million. And sadly, it appears that the nearly $2 million increase will remain every year for the foreseeable future. This is not a knock on the Civic Center staff as they have been dealt a very difficult hand.
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- Imagine what we could have done with that almost $2 million each and every year? One example of a use for this money would be to fund annual teacher pay increases and City employee pay increases. What happened? Why a 253% increase? In a few words it is called “debt-service and operating loses for the new Roanoke Special Events Center building.” That building cost the City $16 million. $16,000,000
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- Again, can you imagine the capital improvements to our parks? In our neighborhoods? In parking garages downtown? And on and on had we not built that project. I opposed and voted against the project. Why? Because in the early 1980’s over 25 years ago when I was City Economic Development Director, I was asked by then City Manger Bern Ewert to evaluate a similar concept. From my review of similar projects I learned a stark and important reality. Stand-alone convention centers are economic “white elephants”. They lose lots of money. Without exception successful convention centers are tied to a hotel. Meeting planners want and demand such centers be tied to a hotel.
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- Thus, was born the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center project. Contrast the City-owned Hotel Roanoke Conference Center which operates in the Black to the Civic Center with an almost $3 million subsidy from the City General Fund. Over 25-years ago we learned through doing our homework that you do not build stand-alone convention centers. How did Roanoke City come to make such a big mistake in judgment on something the city development world learned 25-years earlier? Poor judgment by Mayor Harris, the majority of council and the City Manager. Had they only bothered to ask someone at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center, they would have quickly learned what a white elephant they were getting ready to build.
- Having been the one who was there 25-years ago, I thought, clearly they would listen. They did not. Not only do we have an almost $3 million subsidy of the Civic Center, but we wasted $16 million on a facility that has the wrong design, the wrong location and an unfinished kitchen. This facility should have been next to the Hotel Roanoke as an extension of this successful project. Plus, we have made an already bad parking situation at the Civic Center even worse.
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- Now fast-forward to April 23, 2008. The same group, Mayor Harris, the majority of Council and the City Manager, wants to bring us an outdoor amphitheater at the river. Another financial white elephant for the City. All 6 promoters who responded to the amphitheater RFP at the river predicated this facility would have yet another operating subsidy. Again, contrast that with a conference center owned by the City of Roanoke attached to the Hotel Roanoke that operates in the black. I ask you whose judgment do you trust? The group that brought you an almost $3 million annual subsidy in large part because of a new Roanoke Special Events building built in the wrong location with wrong design that the rest of America learned over 20-years ago was a bad idea? Or me, the person who worked on the conference center at the Hotel Roanoke and who opposed the new $16 million civic center building?
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- We cannot afford their poor judgment anymore.
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- Brian Wishneff, Roanoke City Council member
- www.wishneffforcouncil.com
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