May 26
Email of the day
From person-of-mystery "ML":
Ladies and Gentlemen,May 25I believe may have a solution to Richmond's Performing Arts Center funding stalemate.
One word: Monorail.
I propose that we add a network of monorail tracks, elevated above the City of Richmond, that would link the site of the proposed Performing Arts Center with surrounding counties, except perhaps Hanover.
This monorail system would allow supporters of the Performing Arts Center, who are almost exclusively non-Richmond residents, easy access to the Center site. And since the track system would be elevated these well-healed supporters would be able to visit the Center for their tea parties, "arts" brunches, senior rainbow parties or whatnot without coming into actual contact with any "Native Richmonders", if you know what I mean. This would, I feel, remove the largest traditional block to downtown development in the city.
The cost of this monorail system would be far less than what the Performing Arts Center alone is expected to cost, and once the "Richmond Arts Monorail System" was a proven success, funding for the Center itself would be easy to obtain due to the undoubted interest of our nation's entrepreneurs.
The monorail system could also link Richmond's famous Canal Walk, the soon-to-rise Brown's Island Space-Tower-Needle-Thing, and proposed Sixth Street Marketplace Demolition Memorial, thereby highlighting our city's tradition of success.
And, of course, all of this proposed city development will, I believe, result in the accomplishment of our one overriding all important goal the fixing of our leaky schoolroom ceilings. Maybe even repair some of the air conditioners.
With a monorail, the sky is the limit.
We need to think creatively here, people. And always keep thinking of "the children."
We're optimistic your time will be well spent!
May 25
Feet to the fire
Andrew writing: I don't know who made this clever little film, but it's brilliant. And while you're at it, check out some swell commentary from One Man's Trash.
Richmond government just keeps getting weirder—today's T-D fronts the escalating battle of words between the Old Guard and the Mayor. If I understand the OG's strategy, it's to paint the mayor as a possibly corrupt, far-out maverick. Future downtown resident Jim Ukrop takes umbrage to Wilder's characterization of himself as a "bully." "I would like for him to show me some people who I have bought and I have bullied. Name one," Ukrop said, in words that we reckon may come back to haunt him; we've heard some pretty wild stories of, if not bullying, rather forceful lobbying on his part when it comes to the arts center, the stadium, and the Kroger on Lombardy.
Of course, since all we have is hearsay, we're not going to repeat anything here. But if you'd like to share a first-hand story (and don't worry, we'll protect your name if need be), just let us know.
Meanwhile, now would probably be a good time to get in touch with the Mayor and let him know you appreciate him standing up for all us non-millionaires. I have absolutely no idea how this rift is going to play out, but if the volume keeps increasing, it's not gonna be long before national press takes notice. And unlike city council and Lower Paleolithic-era newspaper columnists, real reporters won't be satisfied with a letter or two from Brad Armstrong.
Because you know how things work here? It's not much like the rest of the world.
May 24
Who's your daddy?
Andrew writing: I don't really have a lot of clear memories of last night's city council meeting--I'd heard that VAPAF was buying two free drinks afterward for anyone who showed up at the Hyperlink wearing one of their yellow "WOW!" buttons. I fished out the "BIKINI INSPECTOR" badge I bought in Ocean City when I was a bachelor, which has kind of discolored to a pale ochre, but the guy at the door told me to go home, that they didn't want any pessimists here.
Fortunately, I ran into some stockbrokers who had been watching the council meeting on PBS and they bought me a couple of these babies, which I drank in front of them in the old Lums' parking lot. I think I may have danced for them, too.
I woke up with some notes from the meeting (I hope they were from the meeting) scrawled on various body parts. Here's some stuff I remember clearly:
Wilder was wearing a rather kicky denim suit, incidentally, and I expect to see Loupassi in one next week.
Also in related news, fascism enthusiast/Richmond.com entrepreneur John Whitlock resigned yesterday from VAPAF saying, "I just don't want to be involved in the controversy." Which should make that optimist Pantele even more optimistic. Good work everybody! Great meeting! Oh my head....
May 22
Old whine, new battles
Katz said he wasn't going to Monday's council meeting because he thinks anything that happens there is going to be essentially irrelevant given the growing chasm between the mayor and VAPAF. We're gonna go because it's shaping up as the last hurrah for the business elites and public-private partnerships that have shaped all debate about the future of downtown since the Confederates fled.
Plus we love a good show, and there's no reason to think council chambers won't be a mini performing arts center on Monday, from the rally outside at 4 p.m. through the moment Brad asks everyone who supports the extension of the fund-raising deadline to stand to counting the number of times "the children" of Richmond are invoked, like Helen Lovejoy (above) after a few espressos.
Finally, Pulitzer LOSER Mark Holmberg takes time off from exploiting the homeless to call us a mean name this morning. I'm not mad at you, Mark—I'm sure you're just jealous of my opposable thumbs and my clip file. But seriously folks, isn't it odd how many times we've been called names and how few times anyone's challenged our arguments?
Update: Katz did in fact say Michele Walter was the executive director of the Richmond Symphony, but he is still the only one with any real presentation and promotion experience.
UPDATE 5/24: The audio for Katz's interview is archived here.
May 20
May 20 Back when we started Save Richmond, Brad Armstrong immediately reached out to us, and we met with him, a couple other people from VAPAF, Jim Ukrop, Greg Wingfield, Jack Berry from Richmond Renaissance—I tell you, if a bomb went off in that room (the back of the Ukrop's in Carytown, no joke!), there wouldn't have been a bad idea forced onto downtown for years!
I kid. I like all those people, even Brad, who seems hell-bent on making our disagreement with him personal. But that's not what I'm writing about today. I wanna talk about Joel Katz, because for all of the firepower who met with us at first, Katz sought us out independently to reassure us about programming. Wow, remember when that was what we were concerned about?
Katz even offered to take us to lunch—which shows how sincere he was because we both make weird slurping sounds when we eat—to allay our concerns; I couldn't make it but Don, who never misses a free meal, went and returned duly impressed by Katz's commitment to keeping the performing arts center open to all kinds of music. And no, nothing else was discussed.
Of course, by that time—which coincided with us getting softly kicked out of the totally useless Alliance for the Performing Arts—we had already started to develop some new concerns. Such as how the fund-raising was going, since the foundation was going for another tax hike. And that, most worrying, there had never been a feasibility study for the music hall VAPAF wanted to build on Broad.
In fact, the only research we've ever been able to find is a totally outdated study for the original vision of the arts center: renovating the Carpenter Center for TheatreVirginia, building a small "black box" theater next door and turning the Thalhimer's site into a public park. Plus renovations to the National and Empire. All of which made sense.
But then TheatreVirginia went kablooey, and rather than rethink the plan, VAPAF retrofit it to the needs of all the city's arts groups. Again, an admirable goal, but IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN RESTUDIED. Especially with the foundation's decision to build a whole new venue instead of a park. And now look where we are. Brad Armstrong, up to his neck in his own B.S., calling Katz a "disgruntled ex-employee who was terminated for cause" when it sounds more and more as if Katz was the only one who knew anything in that whole outfit.
Personally, I think the man deserves to have a street named after him for being concerned enough about the performing arts in Richmond to call this plan what it is: "over-ambitious" and "unrealistic." Now we're looking at a cashless private foundation—and yo, make with a bank statement already if we're so wrong!—not only leaving Broad St. looking like the outskirts of Fallujah but also potentially shuttering the Carpenter Center, whose operations it took over, for years. So there will be no performing arts for anybody.
Gee, it's almost as if what we've been predicting for some time has happened. We'll take our apology in the back room of any Ukrop's in town.
May 20 In this front page story, Will Jones of the Times-Dispatch quotes me as
saying, upon first learning of the mayor's press statement yesterday: "If I
would kiss a man, I would kiss [Wilder]."
My attornies are looking into this, okay?
What I REALLY said, and I quote: "If I would kiss a man—an air kiss, mind
you, Richmond Times-Dispatch reporter, like those Hollywood people do—I
would air kiss [Wilder] and then shake his hand with masculine brute force."
I then told this particular reporter again what an 'air kiss' was, so he
understood...
That's what I...
Oh, all right. I was so stunned, so absolutely FLABBERGASTED, that I actually
said what I said. The thing about the kiss.
But you can understand my joy and surprise—a local government official,
winning a broad mandate for change (not those chump-change mandates you
often hear about), had actually been consistent in following through.
Someone who is willing to hold our richest citizens to the same standards as
everyone else. How unique and novel in this city, in this world really.
Speaking of which, I've been a whole lot slower than Andrew in recanting my
past sins. So here it is, Mayor, I
was wrong about you. Whatever happens with the traveling "Alice in
Wonderland" production on Monday night—should our local Captains of
Commerce actually decide to press foward with their façade on Broad—you
deserve SOME kind of show of affection from the people of this city.
As for my contribution to the love, how about a nice black light poster for
the office or a "Where in the Heck is Chesterfield County?" T-shirt you can
wear or something like that? Or maybe I could send you one of those greeting
cards that plays "Let The Sunshine In." All those things I can do, no
problem. Kissing, bah! That's so passé. Who kisses anymore these days?
[Andrew writing: Whatever, Hot Lips!]
May 19 Mayor L. Douglas Wilder said today that neither the City Council nor the
Virginia Performing Arts Foundation has justified the proposed City
ordinance they are rushing to pass this coming Monday concerning their
promised downtown Arts Center that will cost the taxpayers tens of millions
of dollars.
The Mayor said:
"I am very disappointed in what is taking place and continues to take place
in Richmond on these kinds of things. The people of Richmond deserve better,
especially when it comes to the priorities we place on the expenditure of
city funds, in terms of education, public safety and social services.
"Two years ago, in an unprecedented move without adequate input from the
public or adequate due diligence on the part of those heading city
government, the Council and the Performing Arts Foundation passed a new tax
dedicated to a private entity, and furthermore, gave that entity control
over one of the most valuable pieces of land in Richmond.
"This unprecedented move was justified by City Council and the Foundation on
this basis: that the people were protected because the ordinance passed by
the city contained a July 1, 2005, deadline for the keeping of the promises
made to the public and the reversion of the property to the City upon
default.
"This deadline was put into the law to ensure the public that those running
the City were not making an open-ended commitment of tens of millions in tax
dollars and other city resources to a private entity.
"The Foundation has repeatedly lobbied for more and more public dollars -
more taxes, even a new ticket tax under a different name - while falling
short on the promised private dollars.
"I do not doubt the dedication of the Foundation to its project or its
commitment to the arts.
"I too am a patron of the arts and would hope we could do more, in the
appropriate way, to make them more a part of our City.
"Accordingly, at this point, I believe it is time for the Foundation to give
the land back to the City. This will allow for the development of a new
proposal to ensure the future of the Carpenter Center, the Landmark Theatre,
the National Theatre, and the future of the downtown.
"I have today advised the head of the Council and the Chairman of the
Finance Committee, of my decision."
E. Martin Jewell was a citizen back then. Today, he represents the fifth
district—one of the city's poorest—and he looked mighty distinguished in
his fine suit as he sat behind the elevated podium of the council.
As a member of the Finance Committee, Councilman Jewell nodded politely,
spoke a few occasional words, pursed his lips at times. The question before
the Committee: Does the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation deserve a
deadline extension to obtain the private funds they said they would raise by
July 1, 2005—monies that haven't, to date, been raised by any stretch of
the accountant's pen.
[Andrew's note: At the meeting, VAPAF said it was no longer going to pursue a hotel tax increase to finance the arts center; that increase, widely considered DOA, was previously the centerpiece of VAPAF CEO Brad Armstrong's strategy for finishing fund-raising for the center, as he outlined to Mayor Doug Wilder in a bizarre letter earlier this month. He just can't seem to step away from that PR disaster quickly enough; now he's saying that the letter's plan to build a "facade" of an arts center was "a very poor choice of words". I despair sometimes, I really do.]
"I oppose this center on moral grounds," Jewell had stated, loudly,
flamboyantly, as a citizen on July 28, 2003. "I don't have time for
niceties—this is a moral vote!
"The Republican conservatives will tell you the best way to kill something
is to tax it—we haven't taxed the Internet for that very reason. But they
[gesturing to the VAPAF] would pick our pockets again though you [the city
council]?"
Citizen Jewell was speaking to a council that had installed two interim
members that very evening. One of them, Walter Kinney, voted for the meals
tax hike while the other, Robert Jones, abstained.
Also sitting on council that night, voting yes, was a member accused, later
convicted, of bribery. To her credit, before casting her proud "yes"
vote, Gwen Hedgepeth urged the Foundation not to forget "the everyday guy"
while they prepared the programming for the center.
But nobody was talking about accountability, responsibility, "expectations"
or the old days on Wednesday (and read down for some entertaining video clips of Armstrong, and a couple of current councilmembers praising the wisdom of this very deadline). At least not seriously. This bunch claimed to be
"looking forward."
Here's what a done deal looks like from up close:
The REAL problem wasn't that an outside entity of well-compensated
suburbanites hadn't lived up to an agreement made with the city over a
consumption tax hike that targets to low-to-middle income Richmond residents
that THEY themselves pushed through council. OH NO! The problem, according
to Pantele, is that people take the whole idea of deadlines too seriously.
It seems that those kinds of people simply aren't thinking of... the
children.
"Deadlines are where decisions are made," he said with a grin.
As Wednesday's meeting concluded, and the Finance Committee voted
unanimously to recommend the VAPAF extention—to allow the Foundation MORE
TIME to build a facade of an arts center on Broad for the one-day enjoyment
of the Queen of England—there was one more weird and surreal exchange
among the council members.
It had something to do with Councilwoman Robertson running for President. I
forget who mentioned it first but the notion brought joy to everyone
involved. Pantele laughed, Robertson joined in, Graziano swatted imaginary
flies and Brad giggled along. I didn't get it. As I took my leave of the
asylum, I concluded that it must've been an in-joke. The whole meeting, in
fact, had been one big in-joke. As written by Lewis Carroll.
Meanwhile, a few feet away from the action, L. Douglas Wilder stood in the
hallway and posed for photographers. He was smiling and upbeat too,
seemingly unconcerned about what was happening a few feet away. When asked
about what he planned to do about the VAPAF's extention, the Mayor (who has
wondered how something like this "ever got off the ground in the first
place") mentioned that he didn't have the power to veto until July 1.
"But we're looking into it," he said.
He was grinning too. I left wondering if anyone was ever going to let the
rest of us in on the joke.
May 12 That fogginess has spread to City Council, 7 of whose 9 members are in favor of extending the financing deadline. We thought we'd help get their feet on the ground: Please enjoy some video from the meals-tax-hike debate (you need QuickTime to view them).
Councilman Bill Pantele saying how "wise" it is that the deadline is in place
Then-Vice Mayor (now Councilwoman) Delores McQuinn likewise applauding the deadline
Enjoy! There's more to come!
May 12 So we're gonna give Brad a break. Anyone who sums up yesterday's T-D story about his fund-raising credibility gap by telling supporters "In essence, the numbers completely reconcile, and the reporters were satisfied" NEEDS a vacation!
To that end, we're gonna go ahead and distribute the new set of talking points he wrote up for supporters and principals to spare him and them the need to do any interviews over the next few days. Go on, big guy, head on out to the river house a day early.
A few years ago, we set our sights on doing something special for this community—to design, fund and build a performing arts center by 2007, when over a million people are expected to come to central Virginia for the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown landing.
We have discovered that it's just not possible to get it all done by then. We can complete a renovated and expanded Carpenter Center, and we can be well on the way to completing a multi-purpose hall on the front half of the block. But, the cost premiums associated with forcing the fast track construction of the multi-purpose hall by 2007 are enormous, and not a responsible use of donor money.
The average performing arts center takes at least a decade to design, fund and build. We have been trying to make it happen in just six years. Unfortunately, because it's not possible to responsibly complete the entire performing arts center by 2007, some have characterized our project as unsuccessful.
We have raised over two-thirds of the money needed to build the performing arts center. We have successfully designed a facility that has won rave reviews from the arts groups that will use it, the public that will use it, and from the architecture critics. We've acquired the Thalhimers building, we have demolished that building to make way for the new performing arts center, and we have built an organization at the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation—staff and Board—with stature and expertise.
We will build a performing arts center that is a cornerstone in the rebirth of our downtown. It will have a dramatic and positive impact, both culturally and financially, to our city and region. As long as they're listening to us over there, can anyone explain why Dan Neman is employed as film critic instead of something he'd be good at, say, validating parking slips or folding advertising inserts? Or do they already have machines that do those things? Just kidding, Dan. We love your work.
May 10 It's time to jump in. Figure out right now who your councilperson is, and get in touch. Email if you must, but calls are better because they can't as easily be ignored. Tell them you may not own a chain of overpriced grocery stores that can't compete outside of this area, but you do vote (you do vote, don't you?) and you will be weighing this vote heavily. Be nice. Be firm. Be a Richmonder. And if you have a second more, drop the mayor a line, too, and encourage him to hold the line.
May 9
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Here are the results:
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Best Regards,
Bryon Brooks,
May 4 What's your recommendation?
Building a façade before having the money secured to build the entire thing? Do you think that is a smart strategy?
So I guess what it comes down to ... somebody has to volunteer to be the bad guy. And in this instance, I guess I'm the bad guy. But I didn't volunteer to be the bad guy. I volunteered to be the mayor of the city of Richmond, to represent all the people of the city of Richmond. ... That's why you see the kind of support that this administration has because the people are saying: Thank God somebody is finally saying the things we've thought all along. Thank God somebody is not afraid to peel back this façade.
You talk about a façade. Yes, to peel back this façade of supposed direction. The city doesn't need to go to other people to give them money to build things for it. [We] can build things for ourselves.
Not so fast. That money's not unrestricted. It's set up as a match; in other words VAPAF has to prove it has a dollar in cash for every buck it gets from the state. Let's get legal, y'all:
Is the proper term "cognitive dissonance"?
Click here to download the VAPAF's response to Mayor Wilder (68k). We are at war with Oceana. We have always been at war with....
The passion of the Katz
Andrew writing: Since I seem to be the only one today who can keep his hormones in check, I thought I'd comment on the interview with ex-VAPAF'er Joel Katz in today's T-D.
Kiss on my list
Don writing: I need to clarify just a coupla little things today. First of
all, as Brad Armstrong will no doubt tell you, those T-D boys never EVER
EVER get it right. Like in today's news feature on the latest, and greatest,
VAPAF setback—accompanied by a resounding and embarrassing slap in the
face to city councils past AND present from our new mayor.
Like a giraffe batting away flies
Mayor Wilder Issues Statement Regarding
Performing Arts Center Deadline
May 19
Done deal
Don writing: When I walked into the city's Finance Committee meeting on
Wednesday, the first thing I noticed was new councilman Marty Jewell. I had
to squint to make sure— and yep, it did look like the very same dapper dark
suit Mr. Jewell wore the last time I saw him here in council chambers, on
July 28, 2003. That was when city council voted to raise the meals tax to
fund the downtown performing arts center.
Failsafe
As we noted earlier, Brad Armstrong's relationship with reality seems to have been warped a bit by all the negative press he's been getting lately. It's especially evident in his new claims that the July 1 deadline for financing was "intended to be a 'fail safe', in case our project did not move forward."
It's nearly summer, and we're feeling generous
Despite what Brad Armstrong claims, we like him. In fact, we've never been anything but friendly to him, as he's been to us, when we've met. He even gave us our copy of the only consultant's study that's ever been done—you know, the one that proposed renovating the Carpenter Center for TheatreVirginia and building a park where Thalhimer's was.
Virginia Performing Arts Foundation
May 11
Talking Points—May, 2005
What Save Richmond says
Andrew writing: I'm on deadline this morning and don't have much time to go into this right now, but Save Richmond is mentioned in TWO articles in the T-D this morning. This one about VAPAF's embarrassing loss of Joel Katz quotes our call to get in touch with councilmembers about their latest giveaway plan to VAPAF. Another addresses our question as to why VAPAF's public pronouncements about financing don't skew with what it tells the IRS.
End it, don't extend it
The stink of old groceries is all around City Council chambers this morning after seven of the nine council members suddenly announced, against all evidence to the contrary, that they think it's a good idea to extend the fund-raising deadline for the arts center. We think this is a terrible idea for many, many reasons (read down for a few), not least that the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation has consistently lied about money. For crying out loud, how many times do we have to provide this copy of their most recent IRS filing before someone at the T-D reports on it, before someone on council reads it, before this madness ends?
Wild about Doug
Andrew writing: Ever since I learned about these things called blogs from the Times-Dispatch, I've become a regular, enthusiastic reader of RiverCity Rapids, a very good blog about Richmond. I was away this weekend and am just catching up to the last few posts, including this one, which reprints Don's and my mayoral endorsements from last year. I just wanted to point out that we have since admitted we were wrong about Wilder. Just for fun, I'd also like to direct you to the 1989 endorsement of Wilder's gubernatorial opponent Marshall Coleman in the T-D, which I think we can all agree has come a long way in its relationship with the Mayor since calling him an "inky squid."
But what we really want is credentials to run a public-private partnership
From: Bryon Brooks
It seems the website has better credit ratings than any of us (except maybe Nystrom).
Subject: Finally some good news
Date: May 5, 2005 2:50:55 PM EDT
To: action@saverichmond.com
Reply-To: "Julie@soundtraining.net"
Negotiable Amount: $275,000 to $862,000
Rate: 4.47% - 7.09%
Account Manager
The only music you hear downtown is "Taps"
We hate to bury an important post (and the post below this one is vitally important stuff) but drop what you're doing right now and read Scott Bass' interview with Mayor Wilder in today's Style Weekly.
What about the Performing Arts Center? Their plan is to go ahead and start construction before they finish fund-raising. December 2006 is when they hope to have the fund-raising complete.
May 4
What does December 2006 say to you? That that's the furthest date that we believe we'd be able to have fund-raising, which is a year and a half from now, which has no certainty to it attached at all. No, let me tell you quite frankly that there may be no need at all to wait until July 1 to do anything. They've already said they are not going to meet [the fund-raising deadline to receive $15.8 million in city funds]. It is what you would call an anticipatory breach of the conditions. ... The only issue, now, is what the city role is going to be and what the city intends to do with a contract that has already been violated.
I'm going to make it at the appropriate time. [Chuckles] ... To say we're going to do this, thus and so past your breach — that may have worked with the previous administration. It doesn't work with me.
The new thing is, this was supposedly a privately funded thing. That all you needed was a little seed money from the public. Now you'll find that two-thirds of the money that will be generated, if they are counting, will be public when you count the federal, when you count the state and the city. [This occurred] without the city or any locality or any of the government officials having any say-so as to what happens. How anything like that could have gotten off the ground in the first instance is beyond me. ... And somebody says, We'll give you a seat on our board. You're not going to give me a seat on your board. The question is, will you have a board for anyone to have a seat? Then the final determination is whether Richmond wants to participate, and it will determine what seats it wants. Not for you to tell us. ...
The match game
VAPAF is getting $8.5 million from the Commonwealth, right? That widely reported figure is no doubt already ensconced in the foundation's reports of money raised.
"No allotment of appropriations shall be made to a nonstate agency
until such agency has certified to the Secretary of
Finance that cash or in-kind contributions are on hand and available
to match equally all or any part of an appropriation which
may be provided by the General Assembly, unless the organization is
specifically exempted from this requirement by language
in this act. Such matching funds shall not have been previously used
to meet the match requirement in any prior appropriation
act."
Uh-ohhhhhhhh. VAPAF is, as far as Save Richmond's legal experts—what, you think we don't know lawyers?—can tell, not exempt. This means that VAPAF has until July 1 (that day again!), 2007, to show that it has $8.5 million in cash, which as we've seen before may be a problem (click here to download a copy of VAPAF's most recent IRS filing, which shows about $2.8 million in net cash before demolition began).
Unlike the Times-Dispatch or Kathy Graziano, the Commonwealth of Virginia will require proof of cash on hand. Brad Armstrong and Co. may be able to stockpile cash by not paying bills—which may explain the sudden lack of S.B. Cox equipment on the site of the proposed center, even though demolition of the Carpenter Center stagehouse hasn't begun—and then using that to make it seem as if he's got the dough.
Alternately, he could try to get the city to free up some cash even though he hasn't met the fund-raising deadline—nah, that seems completely unlikely!
May 3
Email of the day
"Perhaps Brad is on to something with this facade idea, it worked for the people of Rock Ridge. Any other comparisons with the movie and the current happenings on Broad
St. are purely coincidental. Keep up the good work."
May 2
Build it and they won't come
Courtesy Single-Eye Twilight via his job-threatening Richmond City Watch habit, check out this fascinating article from The Newark Star-Ledger. Nine years ago, the struggling town of Camden, New Jersey, built a performing arts center as part of an attempt to bring back its waterfront. There are some big differences between the proposed Richmond plan and the Camden one, the South Jersey Performing Arts Center. It's part of a Clear Channel-operated Tweeter Center, and that's given rise to some operational issues. But the larger issue is that nobody's going to the damn thing, and let's not forget that Camden is an eight-minute drive from downtown Philadelphia.
Now the damn thing's bleeding cash—New Jersey is subsidizing SJPAC to the tune of $119 per patron. And what's it done for Camden? "The perception within the city of Camden is (the waterfront) is not part of Camden. It's actually kind of physically true as well, since it's separated from the city by an ocean of parking lots and empty lots," SJPAC director Mark Fields told the paper.
Sound familiar?
May 2
Blah, blah, blew it
Andrew writing: I was interviewed for the Times-Dispatch's piece on these newfangled compyooter "blogs" this weekend, but for some reason (sun spots? late frost?) my comments never made the final copy. To be fair, the writer did email me for a followup interview on Friday, which I couldn't do, but it's hard to put aside the suspicion that my comments didn't quite fit her thesis: That blogs aren't "true journalism." Whatever to that debate, but here's my email interview with Paige Akin in full:
From: Andrew Beaujon
Date: April 27, 2005 11:48:32 AM EDT
To: Paige Akin
Subject: Re: hey, guys
Hey Paige,
Answers follow. Best of luck with your piece.
Kind regards,
Andrew
When did you start your blog (it's you and another guy, right? What's his name)?
Don Harrison, my wife, Ewa Beaujon, and I started Save Richmond in 2003. Ewa has since dialed her involvement back to an advisory position.Why did you start it?
We started the blog because we needed a way to get information out to people interested in the same issues as us. We think it's since grown into a respectable news and opinion site for people who enjoy our take on Richmond events.What reaction have you gotten to your blogging? How many hits, what kind of emails, etc?
Our hits range from about 500 a day when we haven't posted anything new for a while (which is often) to 1,500 a day when we do. Generally a story mentioning us leads to a sharp spike in traffic--when the T-D did that profile of us last December, for instance. It's hard to know exactly how many readers those numbers signify. I suspect we have about 1,000 regular readers.Is blogging a valid source of news in the community, or just a place to let off steam?
Other thoughts?
Well, take the performing arts center story. We first reported Brad Armstrong's high salary, which the T-D picked up the next day last June. (Ask Jeff Kelly to verify.) Since then we've consistently done a better job than the T-D at combing through the details of the Virginia Performing Arts Center's planning. We've hammered at the fact that, for instance, there has never been a feasibility study for the proposed music hall and that any projections about it are unfounded. I think you're seeing the effects of that planning now. But the story's been there all along; your reporters have been perfectly happy to accept VAPAF CEO Brad Armstrong's assurances that all is well in response. So yeah, people who read Save Richmond know more about this project than people who read the T-D.And sure, it's important to have a place to let off steam, to have some fun with Richmond news as well, like when we suggested casting for a movie about Richmond politics (Paul Giamatti as Bill Pantele, for instance). I think we balance fun stuff with serious analysis nicely.
Unlike your publisher, for instance, neither Don nor I owns vast swaths of downtown real estate, nor do we want jobs with VAPAF. So we don't have anything to gain by doing this--and since I'm a senior contributing writer at Spin, a regular contributor to the Washington Post and am working on a book that'll be published by Da Capo/Perseus next year, the thrill of seeing my name in print has dulled a bit! We just care a whole lot about what happens downtown, and we think we provide a real public service by keeping an eye on the details. If your paper ever steps up to the plate, we'll probably stop.
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