Written by Diane Benjamin - editor

Follow up – BCPA

By:  Diane Benjamin

Follow up to this story:  https://blnnews.com/2019/02/02/bcpa-reports-mirror-coliseum/

Facts:

  • The BCPA belongs to the citizens of Bloomington – not the City
  • The BCPA is a WANT, not a need
  • The BCPA has zero transparency unless I FOIA reports
  • The BCPA doesn’t come close to breaking even
  • NONE of the February event reports have been posted

A calendar of events is available on http://www.artsblooming.org/events/calendar

I previously FOIA’d all the missing reports for events listed on the calendar but not posted to the City website:  http://www.cityblm.org/government/advanced-components/documents/-folder-1702

My request for the missing event reports was denied.  Below is the main reason why:

More facts:

  • The BCPA staff rents out the asset owned by the citizens of Bloomington
  • The citizens aren’t allowed to know what the rent was
  • The citizens aren’t allowed to know what expenses the BCPA incurred renting the facility
  • The citizens aren’t allowed to know if any profit was earned at their property through rentals

The BCPA operates more like a private club for insiders.  Many of the events lose money as shown in the precious story.  Sales Tax was raised to fund the building, so everybody pays and few benefit.

The BCPA needs to be self-sufficient.  That might mean handing it to the Friends of the BCPA and making them pay all expenses, including bond payments.  Give them the Creativity Center too.  Bloomington taxpayers are paying the salary of a fundraiser for them, but you aren’t allowed to know how much (if any) money has been raised.  https://blnnews.com/2019/02/14/it-a-secret-bcpa-creativity-center/

Entertainment is not the job of government, they are REALLY bad at it.  (See Coliseum)  

Citizens can’t safely drive around the potholes.   Money spent for the benefit of a few proves who really matters to government, it isn’t the people fleeced to pay the tab.

See the entire FOIA denial here:  FOIA_5_RESPONSE_19-02-0231_Updated

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5 thoughts on “Follow up – BCPA”

  1. The entrance way for BCPA is a long hall of smoke and mirrors. Shame on the citizenry for allowing this type of operation to exist. Has apathy become rampant in the Twin Cities ? Have we become so selfish in our personal lives that we care not about the common good ? Shame on you and shame on me.

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  2. If people spent as much time READING what their local officials are up to as they do driving around on their cell phones, they’d be OUTRAGED!!

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  3. “The BCPA operates more like a private club for insiders.”
    Bingo! – A lot of the stuff around here is basically geared toward a “certain set” of insiders. I truly hope most of us here know which businesses are “theirs” as well and do not patronize them, EVER. I know it’s hard to keep track sometimes but everyone please do your best to not give one dollar towards ANY of these people at least directly, for any reason, and yes I know that’s not easy sometimes. My personal little vendetta is against the “art community” here, at least most of it – all of those little subsidized “galleries” are a particularly irritating feature of BloNo and no this does not mean that I am anti-artists/anti art, but if you look closely and pay attention, you will find quite quickly that THEY are mostly anti “you”.

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  4. Ha, I like your solution, turn the BCPA along with the Ceativity Center over to friends of the BCPA.

    Unfortunately you (the city) could offer it to them free of charge and even a second grader would not bite.

    Reply

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