And once the Performance Center is finished, the facilities should be used as a day performance school for high school students since we were unable to use the money towards building new schools. This is a complete shame -wealthy folk flushing money down the toilet while kids fear for their lives everyday they enter places like Armstrong or schools making do with substitute teachers because of budget cuts, or siblings going to different schools because the neighborhood school doesn’t have a ramp for wheelchairs. Good grief people!!!!!

People move to the suburbs because of great schools not because they love plaza after plaza of shitty architecture housing chain restaurants and stores. They miss the arts and culture of Richmond and the sidewalks and their fellow democrats. Great schools more so than Center Stages, River views, and stadiums will attract people to settle in the city.

“Interestingly, the $25 million the City kicked in for the VaPAF is roughly the same amount RPS estimates is needed to improve our buildings to meet the requirements of ADA law.”

Yeah, I understand with school closings and other school admin wrangling, maybe the full $25 million should not have been spent on school buildings, and I also understand the need for SOME dowtnown investment. But the overall picture is that schools keep getting left behind while wasteful downtown projects get pushed ahead. It goes back to previous discussions on this blog and elsewhere about City priorities.

I think one of the biggest injustices connected to the VAPAF debacle was that a great professional, Joel Katz, was fired from his position as head of the Carpenter Center for simply stating the truth. The fact that VAPAF/CenterStage still refuses to put arts professionals in positions of real authority says it all.

The best overview article on VAPAF — the one that will really open your eyes about how business was done — is this excellent piece by Scott Bass in Style Weekly. It’s worth reading in order to understand all aspects of the story, and it debunks quite a few myths surrounding the project. Please note how the Foundation refused to show Style the data that they claimed existed that justified their project. Reading this, you can make up your own mind about whether or not this project should represent the future of Richmond:

http://www.styleweekly.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=9E32C97D1FFB4985B06DFBC8AAA0E86E

And let’s not forget the $500k of annual subsidy the City has pledged and will have to finance too.

Given the lack of transparency, the private funds spent/wasted cannot be calculated. Easily tens of millions on the concert hall design, administrative expense, consultants (mostly wasted for for ticket system study, arts education, branding, board development, food & drink plan,
comparative arts center study, landscaping plan, etc, etc., etc.)

Robert Grey is a noble man who spent hours with me trying to gain an understanding of my ten years of involvement. He is on the RPAC Board. John Gerner is a very smart man and he also quizzed me for many hours and was Wilder’s volunteer consultant tasked with brokering a deal (which he did whether we like the outcome or not). He should have been placed on the RPAC Board but was not.

We assume the construction project is on time & on budget but no reports are public. We assume SMG will run the facilities professionally but no plan or contract is public.

I fear the deep recession will still be in full bloom come next fall when this opens. I fear small audiences and the standard brand of programming from the opera, ballet & symphony. No disrespect but these are not barn burners at the box office. No Broadway shows are on this year’s schedule and, given the economy, none may show up next year. The profits that high quality popular programming brought in during my tenure may not be realized so more pressure to keep, or increase, the City subsidy is possible. Or, SMG can raise rates for the local not-for-profits and increase their need for subsidy.

Folks, my glass has been 1/2 empty for many years but this is not a pretty picture.

Regarding center stage:

How much public money has been spent so far and how much are we expected to pay yearly?

How much private money has been spent?

Exactly what role did Robert Grey have in the center stage project? Was he in charge or overseeing the budget/books? Is he still involved with center stage?

Given that all the mayoral candidates have stated there will be complete transparency of the budget -private and public -how will they differ in how they handle the center stage project as mayor?

How will the average Richmond citizen benefit from this project? What programs are being formed to offer RPS students free of charge?

The Virginia Museum of Fine Art is open daily to the rich and poor, students and seniors -all residents of the city benefit greatly from this institution. How will Center Stage go about forming a diverse group of patrons?

Will the big CEOs interfere with programs, ie censorship, if a performance goes against their beliefs or products or the way inwhich they conduct business?

We had a great turn-out for the “meet-and-greet” yesterday and I remain convinced that Grey is the best man for the job.

Grey is the consummate professional and is truly concerned for the well-being of the city and region.

We don’t need another four years of drama and histrionics that are the hallmark of career politicians.

Unfortunately, Pantele and Jones (good men) are to the City of Richmond what George Bush and John McCain are to our nation.

Grey’s message is similar to Obama’s — we need a fresh start and the hope that if we all work together we can make real the vision of a nation (and city) that is “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

I think the points Don, Scott, Terry [and others] make about the need for true transparency of the VaPAF/Center Stage Foundation are of critical importance. Secrecy in government has never inspired trust. In fact, it instills quite the opposite response.

Given the success that Robert Grey and consultant John Gerner achieved when they managed to get all parties to table and ultimately found $25 million for the VaPAF/Center Stage project, I am confident that with true transparency and wise fiscal oversight, we would find money not only for the VaPAF/Center Stage, but for the ADA and other much needed projects in our city.

I applaud Grey’s promise of accountability for all and I have high praise for the “CitiStat.” I wish that a ledger sheet showing the amount of monies contributed to the VaPAF “public/private” partnership could simply be posted online.

Grey remains the only candidate who has promised to help our schools and other city buildings comply with the ADA.

As soldiers return from Iraq missing limbs and as boomers continue to age and need increased accessibility, our society will need to be able to accommodate more than just children in our public school buildings and other facilities.

If we ever hope to fill the Convention Center and the various hotels, we need to be able to market Richmond as a “destination” city and show that our city is ADA friendly on multiple levels.

Interestingly, the $25 million the City kicked in for the VaPAF is roughly the same amount RPS estimates is needed to improve our buildings to meet the requirements of ADA law.

Scott makes a very good point, so I hope we are all talking about the same thing here. VAPAF/CenterStage/RPAC is currently designated as a “private” entity because of the Comprehensive Agreement — in other words, thanks to the mayor and city council, working together for the first and last time (lucky us), CitiStat would not currently apply to this project. Or it would only partially apply.

So would a Mayor Grey actually go back and try to change this closed-door deal for the good of the taxpayers… and institute the common sense public accountability that the City Auditor recommended back in 2005?

In tough financial times, Lisa, I think you would agree that it will be in the city’s best advantage not to repeat such howling farces as spending $10 million to dig a big hole in the ground. I do agree that, in a perfect world, the idea of public-private partnerships helping the city would be more than reasonable. But we have some terrible past examples of how the idea hasn’t worked for THIS city. That is what is troubling about Mr. Grey’s position — this inability to acknowledge the past failures of such enterprises.

Sidenote: VAPAF/CenterStage Foundation is currently the area’s lowest-rated, least-trusted charity, according to Charity Navigator. So any future effort by our mayor to make it wholly transparent and trustworthy could actually HELP the organization gain respectability and private dollars.
As stated, the private money that goes into this project will greatly affect the public money that will need to be expended.

So making this project transparent and accountable would do more than just make a bunch of longhaired, sunlight-loving bloggers happy — it could actually make the project more attractive to donors and help city finances. Sounds like a win-win to me…