Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Barry / Politics Should City Departments Help Propagandize for the Music City Center?
Posted by Bruce Barry on Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 12:12 PM
Pretty straightforward? Really? Let's go to the videotape:
All of the studies came to the same conclusion: Nashville has both the need and the demand for a new convention center....The first of these five claims is not true--see the Fox/CBER report. The second, suggesting that a new convention center will allow the city to rely less on property taxes, lies on the hallucinogenic side of speculation. The third overstates the upper bound of consultants' job-creation projections by hundreds and repeats a $700 million impact number grounded in fantasy assumptions about new visitor traffic. The fourth shades the truth since general revenues inevitably will be needed at least at the margin to support a big new public facility, and the fifth is demonstrably false.
By growing the convention business, Nashville can expand the sales tax revenue from visitors and thus depend less on property taxes from citizens....
A new convention center will...allow Nashville to create approximately 3,600 new jobs and $700 million in additional economic activity.
While some have raised concerns about financing, Mayor Karl Dean has assured the community that funding will be from non-property tax sources....
All of the revenue sources are derived from existing or new visitor spending.
The Metro Codes newsletter article is little more than yet another propaganda piece featuring exaggerated and debunked arguments for the Music City Center project. Is it appropriate for departments of city government to use taxpayer-funded public communication vehicles to advance a factually challenged political argument for a new convention center? The question answers itself.
Comments (45)
Showing 1-45 of 45
The newsletter was produced by a department of the executive branch of government. It promoted a a project that is a major part of the mayor's agenda. The mayor is the head of the executive branch. What's the news?
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I wonder if Bruce will recant if the results prove to be much closer to the proponents than to the naysayers.
In particular, his point that revenues will be derived from existing and new visitor spending is false is itself false. The only way it could be false in the first sense is if the revenues fall short on covering debt service and the reserve has to be tapped to cover the difference. The reserve then would be loaned money from non-property tax revenue in the general fund and repaid once tax revenue returns to appropriate levels. Tax revenue would have to be down substantially in order for the reserve to be tapped. There'd have to be something catastrophic such as another 9/11 maybe for that to happen.
And what if the tax collections do not return to the necessary levels? Or more accurately, return to the necessary levels and then some more in order to repay the debt to the general fund? And with what money will Metro replace that which goes to loan the convention center? Or will it cut services?
And what money is going to pay johnjay7 to troll the intrawebs and make negative comments about the Music City Center project?
That would be Gaylord money. Maybe part of the $8,500 it gave to "Nashville's Priorities"?
Tell us, johnjay7, why does Colin Reed hate Nashville?
...his point that revenues will be derived from existing and new visitor spending is false is itself false. The only way it could be false in the first sense is if the revenues fall short on covering debt service and the reserve has to be tapped to cover the difference.
Actually your point that my point that revenues will be derived from existing and new visitor spending is false is itself false is itself false. (Yikes.)
The flaw in the assertion that "all of the revenue sources are derived from existing or new visitor spending" lies not in speculative assumptions about revenue shortfalls that might trigger a need for non-visitor spending (although one could I suppose play that game). No, the falsity of the assertion lies in the fact that the revenue sources themselves are not exclusively visitor-based. Sure, visitors will pay the bulk, but plenty of local dollars go into hotel rooms, taxis, and rental cars (the spending streams being taxed), and lots of local dollars will figure into the tourist development zone (TDZ) part of the revenue stream. It is simply and demonstrably false to say that all revenue for this thing is derived from visitor spending. While writing my piece in the Scene last spring on the convention center I asked the city finance director what percentage of revenue will come from non-convention-center and non-tourist economic activity. He agreed that some would but said he was unaware of any effort to calculate how much.
Mr. Not So:
I don't see anything negative in that post. I see 4 questions. Now, if you were to answer those questions, it might turn into a negative post, but I digress.
See here for the real life explanation of who actually pays the taxes and Bruce is right. It isn't just vistors and it certainly isn't just visitors to our convention center.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kD1OmoS1TMQ
Estimates are that this project will create between 2,500 and 3,000 construction jobs in the next three years. Nashville has lost over 5,200 construction jobs in the last year. This project will replace about half of them.
That's 2,500 to 3,000 Nashville families with paychecks. Let's do it.
Looks like Cooley's imps are slow on the draw today. They did not drag the Dave's chosen diversionary target slash straw man into a convention center conversation until a few hours after publication and after three other posts.
There is apparently a big drop off from what you get from the professional staff at McNeely Piggott and Fox and the drunk driving staff at Cooley Public strategies. Maybe they would be faster if they received public tax money too?
I will point out the same contractor selected to build the place (ahead of even approval for the center itself) just got lambasted in an Orlando court for unprofessional practices, including failure to pay subcontractors responsible for employment of hundreds. Some of those subs were forced out of business so the managing contractor could claim that the project was meeting cost estimates.
Good choice there conventioneers. Of course if you could run an actual business you wouldn't be
living off the taxes of others for your "investments".
Ah, now we have Colon Reed's other shill, Moost.
Tell us, Moost, how does Colon justify taking $80M in taxpayer money not to oppose the Music City Center project and then think he can hide behind you and oppose the MCC?
How's the service on Colon's corporate lear jet these days? Does he pay you with Gaylord money, taken from the $18 he charges people to park at Opryland Hotel?
Kevin only scratches the surface all the tax dollars Gaylord has gotten from Nashville.
$184 million for the Briley Parkway expansion, including the McGavock cloverleaf.
$14 million for the Delta expansion (in the form of a changed services district).
$5 million for docks for Gaylord's water taxis.
$3.4 million for sewers.
Gaylord has never met a tax dollar it wouldn't take.
Sounds like Gaylord is one of those "too big to fail" companies that live off the taxpayers. Enough. Let them all fail.
Let the entire tourism and meetings industry fail if it can only survive using the taxes government collects. It is the most evil industry in the country with lowest wages, lowest benefits, lowest percentage of employees working full time, and most economically unstable. It isn't even a top 10 employer in Davidson Couny according to state labor statistics. Nashville would be better off investing in it's own people instead of the sham industry.heaven help us all if the other industries start asking for sales tax kick backs for the revenue they create. A billion dollars is bad enough. We would go broke if an actually important industry were to ask for the same considerations.
BB ... you are splitting hairs to suit your argument. If he or any proponent said most revenues, then they'd be absolutely correct. 99.9% of hotel/motel taxes are paid by visitors as are any of the other revenue streams created for the convention center. 99.9 is hyperbole on my point. But how many locals spend the night in a hotel or rent a car from the airport? Very very few. That said, sales taxes from the TDZ haven't even really been factored into the equation with respect to the annual debt service. About the only time the locals would pay is perhaps on New Years. That's the same with respect to Gaylord should it ever do it's expansion. Does the TDZ for Gaylord include Opry Mills? If it does locals could pay more in taxes for that than they may downtown because of shopping at the mall. So in a certain respect the liberal BB is really shilling for Gaylord.
And JohnJay, we could what if ourselves into to doing nothing on a lot of things. History, however, is against you on that on the revenue streams. Your statement is utterly naive.
Moost is just wrong. Tourism is Nashville's second largest industry. About 60,000 Nashvillians work in it.
An "evil industry"? What firm are you with to peddle such drunk talk Moost. Gaylord must really fear a new convention center if they are willing to stoop to such depths.
...sales taxes from the TDZ haven't even really been factored into the equation with respect to the annual debt service.
Interesting point. If you look at the financial projections on page 27 of the mayor's presentation on the project in April 2009 (http://tr.im/CEXn), it is true that the TDZ revenue appears as zero, suggesting as CCat says that it is not figured into forecasts of annual debt service. A problem, however, is that those same (TDZ-free) projections arrive at a total amount of "net revenues available for debt service" in 2013 of just under $31 million. In April I asked the city finance director where he expected the annual debt service number to actually come in and he replied with a "guesstimate" of the "low 40s." So yes, in some versions of financial projections (such as the mayor's April presentation) TDZ revenue isn't factored in, but clearly it will have to be if actual debt service is millions higher than TDZ-free revenue would provide.
Even though you won't or can't answer my questions, I shall answer yours. The Opryland TDZ is for Opryland and the expansion area. It does not include Opry Mills (which is owned by a separate company, I believe)
http://www.nashville.gov/council/docs/analysis/070807.pdf
Take note though of how many visitors Opryland estimated a new 400,000 sf addition would bring - 400,000. I would expect that estimate to be lower now but it is interesting that we seem to think we will get 1 million with our 350,000 sf. Also note that they estimate 1300 new jobs - while we seem to think we will get 30,000. And of course it isn't an $80 million tax break but an $80 million bond issue that won't happen because Opryland doesn't have a government co-sign the loan.
History on the revenue streams for current convention center includes the following: a federal grant for 20% of the project; default by the hotel and debt service funded by the bond insurers (or bank I can't remember which); and Dick Fulton standing beside that hole and declaring he would not build the center until the hotel had private investors. the only thing the revenue streams did was pay debt service on 80% of the project.
The only way they have 60,000 thousand is to count people in other industries. State statistics show only 11,800 working in the entire Nashville MSA. 60,000 is way north of that verifiable statistic.
I am thinking that people like you are counting as many McJobs as possible in order to inflate the importance of the poorest industry. How many fast food jobs and retail clerks have to be counted to get 60,000? Apparently all of them.
Right now the hotel and meeting folks are the 19th largest employer in the area. Top 20 yay! Of course that is out of 22.
http://www.state.tn.us/labor-wfd/lmr/pdf/2009/LMRJune2009.pdf
If you would like to count all the restaurant jobs in Davidson as "tourist industry jobs" you would be able to rise to 4th at best. Even then that number would still just be 38,699.
http://www.sourcetn.org/lmi/area/areadetailreportx.asp?session=areadetail&geo=4704000037
The actual recorded statistics just are not as kind to your "industry" and the unverifiable pie in the sky ones that the Cooleyites quote without conscience.
What Moost and Colin Reed don't want you to know is that their company is being sued for non-payment by the contractor that built their shiny new Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in our nation's capitol.
They don't want you to know that over 60 people staying at that hotel came down with a norovirus within days of its opening. Local health officials later confirmed the people contracted the virus in Reed's shiny new hotel.
They don't want you to know that a few days later, their shiny new Gaylord Resort and Convention Center was hit with an infestation of mice. USA Today reported the hotel had to close one of its restaurants after "mice ran up the wall during dinner."
I am curious, the industry as a whole is cheap and evil. How does my proving that show as a sign of support to Gaylord since they are one of the problems just like every other hotel and meeting planner?
I say lets use Gaylord as proof that ta xmoney should not be spent on another edifice to the tourist. Gaylord and the downtown hotel owners can all go pound sand.
Moost, you won't get far with this bunch, although I am learning a lot. That labor stat is good. These guys probably don't even live here and are just working off the script CPS gave them. Which explains why it is so dull.
Now, now, johnjay7. Be careful about the outside agitator accusation. Remember that Colin "Crocodile Dundee" Reed is from the Land Down Under.
Plus, he's never fit in with Nashville. Not like Bud Gilbert did.
Bud Gilbert was a state senator from knoxville. you meant Bud Wendell. he was the president of gaylord that everyone in nashville liked.
How in the world would you know who fits in Nashville? You probably have never been here. Where are you, AL? Or are you part of that group that was doing to push poll on Gaylord? Denver maybe? If you lived here you would know that his name was Bud Wendell not Bud Gilbert.
You would figure that people who were given Gaylord as their talking point (we will have to check the invoices on file with Metro or MDHA to find out) would have received training on how to subtlety bring it in to discussion. Instead they throw out the rusty anvile as soon as any dissent is published on their beloved taxpayer funded cash cow.
Advise for those people working on behalf of Cooley. You are making him and his "organization" look bad. You should at least coordinate the unveiling of the Anchor Of Awkwardness by having another two or three supporters at least mention Gaylord in news responses prior to bringing out the thud talking point.
Do the job statistics cited by Moost include all the undocumented immigrants working at the Opryland Hotel?
You're being snobbish looking down on "McJobs." Remember that all of Nashville's young people have to find some place to work since Gaylord closed down the Opryland theme park and did away with their summer jobs.
Finally, one word for Moost: spell checker, baby.
I would imagine the State of Tennessee's published statistics include the illegals that work at every hotel in Nashville. Gaylord is a sinner in the economic slavery game just like every other hotel/motel owner in Nashville. If they had to pay real wages they would not have the money to pay Cooley to go get them other people's money.
Good job from the poster who uses the word "shiny" like you were Rainman. You also made a Harbrace 13d comma error in the last Sentence. Plus you apparently lost track of your sentence use in your previous posting and repeated the same thought in paragraphs two and three. Plus your use of contractions in writing is generally frowned upon. I suggest that we once again post all the previous rhetoric and use the red-line markups provided to us to ensure their accuracy. Feel free to blame your atrocious grammar on Colin Reed or the Scotch you and Dave Cooley were drinking while driving through town.
Reed is British not Australian. Also jobs are jobs. And so what if they are filled largely bu immigrants. Immigrants have filled lower level jobs in the country for more than hundred years. Given the attitudes by some here, you could never build crap in this city. Fact remains it takes more than private investors. Stuff costs money to build and a lot of it in part because some weenie long ago put together some model for revenues derived from massive projects to pay back loans on a project because local taxpayers don't want to pay for anything. Gaylord has built most of its hotels and convention center on the back of some public incentive or another. In utopia, there would be a better way. The key question is do people want economic activity or not?
Lots of things deservedly get built in the city. Most of them are privately built. A fair amount are publicly built and for public use (like government office buildings). The hangup is having our government building structures for use and control and benefit of private concerns. This goes beyond the normal model of public investment via incentives.
It is not too late to have this projects be done the fair and correct way. Meeting planners should band together with downtown hotel interests, national construction companies, and local banks and finance the structure themselves. Why do they want to hold Nashville back by refusing to make this investment it the city's future? Are they trying to keep the city from progressing into a world class city with their failure to cough up the case? Do they not believe in what Nashville could become with this money? This money is coming from their customers so they will not have to pay a cent for this needed structure.
Nashville's hotel/motel industry has agreed to a higher tax rate to pay for this project. They believe in Nashville enough to do that. They understand that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Gaylord went along with the agreement in a 2007 memorandum of understanding. Of course, they got $80M from the taxpayers in exchange. Maybe they ought to give that money back.
And, as a previous commenter asked, how much public financing has Gaylord gotten for all of their properties? How much did DC give them? How much did Grapevine, TX and Orlando, FL give them? Mesa, AZ? San Diego?
Do you want to answer, Moost, or shall I?
I don't thing requesting that taxes be raised on other people makes one eligible for economic canonization so to suggest that hotel owners made an investment by having taxes raised on everyone but themselves is Pythonesque. It is curious that you mentioned that the entire industry agreed to this since therr have been multiple owners of establishments who have opposed one or both parts of the project and the taxes. A more accurate comment would be one that limited this support to downtown interests only since this will have no up side for businesses anywhere else in Davidson. Ask the hotels to the South who are suddenly at a disadvantage to the Brentwood competition.
Also I am not certain about this but I think that Gaylord never received the ill-gotten hush money since they never started the project. That is probably a good thing to cc supporters since even with that money still in the bank they are far behind the annual debt maintenance amounts.
Mark my words, less than a week after the last property is acquired and razed the project will be mothballed. That allows an election where we can make the reps finally listen to the voters. That includes the state reps who will be asked to reverse the rediciulous and arbitrary limitation on tourist tax uses. Then the council can be asked to publically declare their priority list for the real future of Nashvile and ALL Nashvillians. Right now they are still hiding behind the wizard's curtain of "the money can't by law be used for any other purpose."
Moost sounds incredibly like Lew Conner's son in law, Gaylord's shill fronting their sham organization.
Gaylord still has their hush money, Moo. Now you've outted their purpose: they want to change the law so they can use the money for something else.
Does Colin need a new corporate jet?
You also didn't answer the previous question. Tell us how many hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars Gaylord has taken for their projects.
Hey this project has been stupid long before the jerks at Gaylord became involved. I would imagine that Gaylord has taken billions of dollars in tax money from various jurisdictions and should pay that amount back immediately before other tourism slum lords feel they are entitled to tax money.
Does Cooley use a stick on you "guys" or does his hand go all the way up? This Gaylord strategy commenced and your sudden interest in news commentary started just after his hiring by the downtown tourism shadow-government so I assume that I am debating a couple of Muppets. Did Jim Henson Productions get paid a flat rate or is this a commission thing where they get a dime for every comment.
I regret even suggesting the media look up the MPF invoices now. At least the taxpayer got a higher class of rhetoric with those guys. Now all we have are autistic puppets chanting "Gaylord Sucks" from the balcony even when something else is on stage.
I will add that Gaylord was promised the $80 million in hush money but definitely did not receive it (this time). But they should be held criminally responsible for the other breaks and handouts they strong armed. Someone should have gone to jail for the sewer fiasco several years ago.
I am a equal an opportunity hater of the least worth industry in Nashville. They are all guilty of inflating their importance to our government. It would be nice if our elected officials listened and researched and discovered that tourism is not at all even close to being the second largest employer in Nashville and as a whole does more harm than good in our city.
What sewer fiasco with Gaylord? I keep reading cryptic comments about Gaylord screwing Nashville in deals. What are you people talking about?
Gaylord was guilty for many years of using the sanitary sewer system without paying the full amount for the service. Customers are charged for their service based on the water usage at the same facility. Gaylord was using on-site water (water not bought from the public utility)for many functions but still using the full sewer for that water. Somehow someone at Metro and Gaylord quit metering the on site water being used by Gaylord so they were dramatically underbilled for sewer service they were in fact using for many YEARS. It is without a doubt the biggest billing error and fraud ever perpetuated against Metro.
"Dispute over Gaylord sewer bill winds down"
By ANNE PAINE
Staff Writer
Metro Water Services is awaiting one last $800,000 check from Gaylord Entertainment Co. to end what has been a longstanding dispute over years of free sewage service that the company received.
The last check, due in late December, will complete a payment of $2.6 million that has been spread over three years.
Gaylord's Opryland complex pumped well water for at least five years without the knowledge of Metro Water Services and dumped the resulting wastewater in the Metro sewer system without paying for treatment.
Officials agreed to a settlement in which Gaylord would reimburse Metro Water $2.6 million. That figure represents several years of water usage at an estimated 11.5 million gallons a month. The two sides, however, could not agree on where an additional 3 million gallons of wastewater a month entering Metro Water Services lines in that area was coming from.
"They had speculated that maybe we had some extraneous flow," said Tom Cross, a Metro attorney. "We had a very small amount (and) that was corrected."
Gaylord engineers believed Metro Water's aging pipes were leaky and taking in ground water, which then appeared to be wastewater coming from the Opryland complex. The utility repaired its pipes where needed.
The lengthy investigation involved placing meters temporarily on wastewater Gaylord was putting into the Metro system.
Meters also now record the amount of water Gaylord is pulling from wells, so it is known basically how much the complex is putting into the sewer system and can be charged for it.
It was finally agreed that Gaylord would pay $272,000 for the 3 million gallons a month. That amount has been paid, Cross said.
"We were able to reach an accord with Metro," said Jim Brown, a spokesman for Gaylord Entertainment. "Both parties are in agreement on what the resolution was."
Gaylord officials had said when the discrepancy was found that they did not realize the company was required to pay for sewer service.
However, a former plumber at Opryland claimed in a 1990 lawsuit that the company was intentionally avoiding sewer charges.
The Opryland complex began taking part of its water from wells in the 1970s.
The tourism giant received permits for the wells from Metro Codes but failed to register them with the Metro Water Department as required.
Metro Water discovered the well use for a laundry for the hotel and an electric power plant in 1999, and negotiations began then. Back payments stretched from 1995, when the two facilities went into operation.
Cross called the settlement agreements "very fair."
"Once everybody realized there was a significant problem, they worked hard and hired the right people to figure out what to do about it," he said of Gaylord.
So, if we are going to talk about Gaylord can we also talk about Butch Spyidon's salary - $350,000 - which makes him the highest paid taxpayer funded employee? Or how about Walt Baker who gets oodles of cash from the CVB through his company Mercatus Communication? Does he represent hoteliers or does he represent himself?
Oh, johnjay7, it all pales in comparison to Colin Reed's $4 million annual compensation package and his corporate jet that he takes to NASCAR races. You know, all the things that led to the Gaylord shareholder's revolt.
BTW, tell us why Colin hates Butch so. Does Colin not get to eat lunch with the cool kids?
I smell a jealous Stalinist Cheetos. UPS not pay you enough and it make you mad at the smart people making money? Do you feel oppressed by the mean old capitalist. You know Cooley is making a killing as well and he probably isn't even giving you a percentage point to play lackey in the sudden "hate on Gaylord so no one will pay attention to the bad public policy" strategy.
