The LCCCA is making a heroic effort to keep its expenses under control. Unfortunately, there are major situations which the LCCCA has little or no control over:
– Cooper-Carry designed a facility so elaborate and so grandiose that large parts of the “integrated facility” cannot have their energy costs significantly reduced. From the Vine Street lobby on the lowest level, to the second-floor balcony, to the hotel lobby and the hotel restaurant along East King Street, there is an massive open space a city block long and up to four stories high. A large part of this area has exterior walls that include immense plate glass windows. Heating and air conditioning costs for this space are proportionately shared between the hotel and convention center; however, the vast majority of this cavernous space is the responsibility of the LCCCA, and because of its configuration it must be kept at a comfortable temperature even when the main convention hall is empty – which is the vast majority of the time. (The LCCCA is in the process of installing thermal film on many of the plate glass windows.)
– The LCCCA is responsible for providing and maintaining large areas which primarily profit the hotel. This includes all meeting rooms on the third and fourth floor (including the 9,700 sq. ft. Heritage Ballroom), 50% of the hotel lobby, 100% of the connecting bridge between the parking garage and hotel lobby, and 100% of the hotel kitchen, along with other parts of the “integrated facility”. This places a significant financial burden on the LCCCA without producing a significant amount of revenue.
Taxpayers – represented by the LCCCA – are securely bound to an “integrated facility” and iron-clad agreements from which there may be no practical means of relief.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I cannot imagine who this LCCCA apologist is? Jim Pickard’s sister? Ted Darcus’ daughter? Art Morris? If not someone trying to cover their own tracks or the tracks of a loved one, they must simply be misinformed about how we got to where we are.
Don’t get me wrong, PSP has stuck it to the LCCCA and the public and they are laughing all the way to the bank. That said, the LCCCA signed off on it all. They took every ridiculous agreement put in front of them by John Esbenshade, and they approved it, with little or no question. They made pariahs of everyone who attempted to question this project and steamrolled anyone or anything that got in their way. They have no one to blame but themselves.
It kind of reminds me of the father of a 17 year old girl that has consensual relations with her boyfriend and then gets pregnant. While there may be degrees of responsibility, unless it was forceable rape, that responsibility is shared and some of it must fall on her. As the old saying goes…it takes two to tango. In this case, the two are PSP and the LCCCA. The LCCCA is was not forceably raped and is very pregnant, WITH TWINS, and they have no one to blame but themselves for making POOR CHOICES.
The current LCCCA is not the same organization that dragged us into this fiscal folly. What you say is 100% true of the LCCCA before the tenure of Art Morris, but today only two of the original group remain: Ted Darcus, who is no longer in a position of influence, and R.B. Campbell, one of the few LCCCA board members who had the audacity to ask real questions. Even Stevens & Lee is no longer involved.
History will show that the LCCCA board and directors before mid-2007 (aided and encouraged by Stevens & Lee) sold out generations of local taxpayers to powerful people. Today’s LCCCA is practically powerless, which is EXACTLY what their predecessors planned for.
MAYBE IT’S TIME TO GET THE COURTS INVOLVED….OH. I ALMOST FORGOT; THE COURTS ARE ALREADY IN PSP’S BACKPOCKET!!!!
I don’t care who sits on that board now….the horses have left the stable. The LCCCA is currently powerless. Any board member not seeking a remedy against PSP in the courts, and I have yet to hear anyone on the LCCCA suggest that, is simply wasting their time and making themselves look like fools. This CC was about as dumb an idea as 98% of the others, with or without a Faustian partner like PSP. The only real leadership to date was shown by Shellenberger and Henderson and we saw how PSP dispatched them.