David Stuckel, attorney for the Civic Center Authority, had his letter to the editor printed in the Journal Star today. He asks:
Why should Peoria taxpayers be ticked by the efforts of the Peoria Civic Center Authority to bring a new hotel to Downtown, as suggested in the Jan. 29 editorial? Because it will improve Downtown’s appearance? Create jobs and tax revenues? Attract people who spend money in the community?
No, Mr. Stuckel, it’s because the Civic Center Authority (CCA) lied to the city when they started this expansion. They told the city — in writing — “We believe [an expanded Civic Center] can be successful without an attached hotel,” and that they weren’t asking for any public funding for a hotel.
Now, less than a year later — before the mortar between the bricks is even dry — the CCA is coming back to the city with its hand out, begging for TIF status and claiming the Civic Center can’t even be solvent without a new hotel. Stuckel then has the chutzpah to ask, “Will our traditional lack of governmental foresight consign this to the woulda-coulda-shoulda trash bin?” The only lack of foresight in this equation is the CCA’s. All the city did was take them at their word.
No, Mr. Stuckel, we’re not ticked for any of the spurious reasons you gave. Peoria taxpayers are ticked because they don’t much care for extortion. They don’t much care for arrogant criticism of other hotels by an entity that has never been self-sufficient and continues to rely on heavy tax subsidies. They don’t much care for an organization that has taken their temporary HRA tax funding and treated it as a permanent entitlement.
Can the Civic Center be an asset for Peoria? – YES. Is it now? – Not so much. Does the proposed hotel site pass the “but for” test when considering a TIF? – NO. The Civic Center was supposed to be self sufficient by now, but how many times in the last 20 did it see black ink? Once or twice maybe. I doubt it could have done that without the 2% Hotel, Restaurant, Entertaint tax. Here is a good idea to help pay for a full service hotel downtown: End the 2% subsity and return that money to the existing downtown hotels so they may be able to do necessary upgrades. It is WAY past time that the city of Peoria require the Civic Center to act like a real business. As long as the city is willing to them money, they will take it.
Sell the civic center to a private entity. Eliminate the taxes that support it.
“Sell the civic center to a private entity. Eliminate the taxes that support it.”
Either that or heavily weigh current management salaries on a percentage of black ink (minus the 2% HRA tax).
Yes Yes I agree. HRA tax will never go away. Name one, just one tax that has. Garbage Fee?? Nope, it too will never go away and standby folks, I’ll bet you it will go up soon. Watch and see..
CJ,
You are being a bit selective in your posting from that memo, and I believe you are using those paragraphs out of context. From I read, that memo was supporting an RFP process to find out what it might take to get a hotel. At the time, the Civic Center wasn’t advocating (outright) public financing. (Obviously, they probably supported it.) But the RFP didn’t garner any developers who didn’t require some public incentive. So, given the rest of their memo that outlines quite clearly that they won’t be quite as successful without an attached hotel, and presented with no options that do that without incentive, they are now asking for the incentive. You can disagree, but I’m not sure this makes them a liar.
No one is saying the CC will be a failure without a hotel; lots are saying it will be better with one. Say what you’d like about TIF, and I don’t disagree, but that fact seems pretty clear.
So, if no developer would build a hotel without incentives, does that mean that they don’t think they can make “a go of it” without them? And if they can’t “make a go of it” without incentives, then do we need a(nother) hotel?
Some Guy: I certainly didn’t mean to imply that the CCA was ever against an attached hotel or wasn’t pursuing it. So if that’s what you mean by me taking their comments out of context, my apologies. That was unintentional.
But outside of that, I do believe I was properly representing their comments. Here’s a little more context:
As you can see, they very clearly state that, yes, as you say, they think it will be more successful with an attached hotel, nonetheless they believed (or so they said) that the expanded civic center “can be successful without an attached hotel….”
You say, “No one is saying the CC will be a failure without a hotel.” Take a look at Mr. Stuckel’s letter to the editor again:
Costs going up? Budget shortfalls? Questions about who is going to “keep the operation solvent”? It doesn’t sound to me like Mr. Stuckel has much confidence in the CC’s success without a hotel.
Mr. Stuckel’s letter does seem more gloom-and-doom, but there is no way to know if he is speaking for the entire CCA or just himself.
I guess the question is whether you want the CC to be successful or “as successful as possible”. Either is fine, but one might be better. There seems to be a lot of evidence that we miss conventions because of the lack of an attached hotel. If you can dispute that, fine. I don’t believe that means the CC will fail, but might not live up to its potential. Maybe the Council has been mislead all along — maybe the CCA has always said “Oh, no, we’ll never need an attached hotel.” But I doubt they’ve been that naive/duplicitious.