Neither wanted to hear the facts or listen to the truth
The last item on the agenda was discussion on the Beach Fund. City Manager Bornstein brought it back for discussion as he wanted the information to "sink in." I am sure that he is as perplexed as the rest of us when it comes to the majority's decision to purposely operate at a loss at our beach. Now what businessman would consciously do that?
"We promised the people," said Triolo when talking about the loan rate and term. What you also promised the people was to make right decisions for the health and welfare of our city. What person of any responsibility would vote not to do that? The money that was borrowed to build the Casino is our money and we can pay back this loan at any rate and at any pace we choose.
When you are operating a business, there are times when you need to borrow capital and you negotiate the best rate and terms possible. Most businesses borrow from financial institutions; we borrowed from ourselves. There are many times when you re-finance that loan in order to alleviate financial pressures or to get a rate that is more advantageous. We have done that at City Hall with some of our outstanding loans/bonds. It is a normal operating procedure. Maxwell complained that there was never a policy decision to pay the loan from ourselves.
But restructuring loans isn't normal to Vice Mayor Scott Maxwell nor is it normal to businesswoman Mayor Pam Triolo. I would think that commissioner Amoroso would understand.
Maxwell has been about doom and gloom from inception and wants to know if any of the merchants at the beach have been asked about raising parking fees. That's sort of like asking your tenant who leases your house what they think about your raising their rental amount. Do we ask all our customers about what they think about water rates going up and if they approve? Really stupid stuff. What do you think they would say? And why do they still want to engage the community about our beach? We already decided what we wanted at our beach.
What never is mentioned is the negotiation with Morganti, the builder, and what is going on in that regard to fix the problems we have had at the casino. How much money would it take to fix those problems and how much money are we spending on legal fees? Are we close to any kind of compromise?
The only conclusion that one can arrive is that the "visionaries" want our beach to fail. The shoved more expenses onto the beach without approving ways to raise revenues. Last night, the only positive was that they voted to formally end the latest proposal by Hudson Holdings. The other negative is that they didn't make another motion to go out on an RFP to find a broker to handle our un-leased second floor 5,000 sq. ft. space. The entire beach plan was predicated on all space being leased. Why wasn't a motion made for an RFP? Maxwell didn't want it to happen. Someone should have made the motion anyway and got it on the record.
Scott Maxwell was mad and didn't want to agree on the numbers provided by our Finance Department and presented by the City Manager.
Summary of Revenues and Expenses
We know that Maxwell is angry and has no tolerance for anyone who crosses him. Pam is just being stupid and has been given some very bad advice on our beach.
ReplyDeleteThis is BAD POLITICS and just one more crazy thing to add to the ever growing list of insanity.
ReplyDeleteThis is all very confusing to me. One faction says the beach is in the black and making money, but can't pay back the loan per the terms we agree to with ourselves. The other faction says we are in the red, the building is poorly constructed and rotting before our eyes.
ReplyDeleteAccording to you, we should not have to pay ourselves back at all since we borrowed the money from ourselves.
It was the original intent, as I recall, to finance the construction and once it was completed, re-finance with a lending institution. Why wasn't that done with rates at historic lows?
Who's idea was it to put a restaurant upstairs where the ball room always was? That space is proving to be almost unrentable unless you give it away. It has been on the market for what, 4 years now?
1. I don't recall that we EVER said that we would refinance this loan with a bank, or alternative. Steve Carr recommended that we finance it ourselves--
ReplyDelete2. I NEVER said nor have I recommend that we don't repay the money to ourselves.
3. You can look at the summary of revenues and expense and see that the beach was in the BLACK for the past two years. However, the projection now is to move our operations into the RED thanks to this commission.
4. The upstairs space has NOT been marketed well maybe not at all. Anderson & Carr had a client but their offer was too low and they wanted our ballroom thrown into the mix. This commission decided NOT to negotiate with them. I don't understand this bad decision. We need to market this space nationally.
5. I'm all for keeping it for office space leaving room to rent out for meetings. That option is NEVER discussed although it was brought up in the past. It will cost several hundreds of thousands however.
whoever is in charge can make the numbers look however they want. as such, the folks who are in charge make it look like the beach is failing miserably, these same folks voted against raising parking fees. so they show debt and loss at the beach at the same time rejecting any proposal to increase parking fees and fail to do anything to lease the upstairs space so they can show the beach is failing.
ReplyDeletethe whole this is depressing. We have a great building, if there are construction issues, address them. lease out the vacant space. raise the parking rates and revisit the issue next year.
i sure wish the commission would spend this much time on code or mention the fact that there have been three shootings in the last week and focus on crime and blight rather than rehashing the beach or the pool multiple times. i don't understand the priorities of this administration.
maxwell has to go --not to many like him--but nobodys wants to work or even involved in lake worth because they can't get rid of bad reputation of low class,crime and many addicts
ReplyDeleteHey Bornstein, have a couple more one on one "consensus " meetings with Maxwell. He's just not getting it.He's looking more and more unelectable every time he opens his mouth.Even Piggy the orphan piglet must be getting embarrassed by him now. Maxwell must be suffering deep depression because he just waved bye bye to all of his Hudson Holdings Dreams.Maybe SOMEBODY on the dais (wink wink,nudge nudge) could share some of their "happy" pills with him.
ReplyDelete