By: Diane Benjamin
The Bloomington City Council is holding a Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night. The June Committee of the Whole meeting was NOT live streamed or video taped. Transparency? NOPE. That means, you better attend!
John Butler and Bart Rogers from CIAM are scheduled to proclaim the greatness of what they have done as managers of the Coliseum. Here is a link to their presentation, I hope you have fast Internet because it’s 93 pages: http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8877
The purpose of their presentation is to convince the Council to extend their management contract. I could spend days tearing their performance and presentation apart, but the bottom line IS the bottom line. They can claim anything they want, it doesn’t change the facts. The Coliseum bleeds money and COSTS taxpayers higher sales taxes and subsidies to keep the doors open. Meanwhile, the management pays themselves well and continues to hide concession sales and payroll.
Below are some interesting points though:
1) Who would have thought an additional tax would have affected income?
(Maybe anybody with a brain!)
Page 5 http://www.cityblm.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8877
2) CIAM claims parking problems cost them the Home Show. As I previously reported, parking was only part of the problem: http://blnnews.com/2014/03/11/coliseum-failed-the-home-show/
3) The presentation proves there is NO NEED for a downtown hotel!
CIAM claims 69% of all tickets purchased, other than at the Box Office, were from outside McLean County. 16% were purchased outside the State of Illinois. In fact, tickets were sold in 49 of the 50 States. Percents are deceptive though, actual attendance at most events is dismal – those figures are included in the presentation. The 4-day Cirque Du Soliel event only had 7,141 ticketed attendees.
Since people did travel to events at the Coliseum WITHOUT a hotel across the street, why subsidize building one?
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Let’s get to the bottom line:
Below are the numbers CIAM reported (dutifully reported by the press) and the REAL numbers reported by the Auditor. If the Council is asked to vote on a new contract before the 2015 Audited Loss is revealed, it MUST be tabled. The City will be acting against Best Practices of having all applicable information before making a decision.
http://blnnews.com/2015/01/20/more-coliseum-fraud/
Reported: CIAM Audited
2011-2012 <$51,281> <$109,049>
2012-2013 $176,759 <$22,943>
2013-2014 <$183,727> <$782,945>
2014-2015 <$494,444> Won’t know until October
Anyone who has to use a100 page to defend themselves is trying to hide something. It’s sneaky that Hales couldn’t wait until after the Committee of the Whole meeting to have the vote for the scoreboard. Waiting to vote for one or two weeks is a problem?? This is crap!!
A majority of the city council should have been responsible to the taxpaying citizens by standing up to David Hales and saying what it is, bs and we’re tabling this item for further discussion and options. A bunch of irresponsible cowards in my opinion!
they need to grow some
Butler and Hales are joined at the hip this 100 page file is loaded with crap to try and cover their ass and they know the council as a whole is stupid enough to believe them
Will the council really ask them any tough or intelligent questions ?
There is a 30 minute comment period. Show up and point out the ridiculous content in the report.
What happens to the old signs? Is it noted that there was some trade in value or does CIAM get the stuff (so they can sell it themselves)?
CIAM claims, “old equipment is not salvageable…no other venue wants it…would cost more to ship that it is worth” Who know what they will do with it.