No WhiteWash!

I must admit that the decision of the Kingsport BMA to spend over $15 million for an expansion of the MeadowView Convention Center has really raised my blood pressure.

I have written many posts concerning this issue and feel that politics is playing a big part in the decision to expand the convention center.  Good common business sense seems to be absent for the five BMA members (Phillips, Mallicote, Joh, Shupe, Munsey) who voted to expand the convention center.  It appears that there is an incestuous relationship with special interest groups

Alderman Marsh implored the mayor to get public input before the vote, but the mayor railroaded the convention center expansion to a vote.  Alderman Marsh and Shull voted to give back to the city property owners the 1/4 percent regional sales tax that was used to pay off the current convention center, but the gang of five prevailed.

The taxpayers have invested $25.7 million in the current MeadowView Convention Center and Cattails golf course.  The convention center has never made money and the golf course barely breaks even.

The City of Kingsport is spending another $15 million to expand the convention center into an executive conference center.

One needs to ask, what is the real cost to the taxpayers for Kingsport’s part of MeadowView? The combined cost of the current convention center, golf course and the new expansion would be about $41 million.

To get the true cost, the interest expense for the bonds must be added to the cost.  In the table below you will see the actual cost after applying the different interest rates.  The bond life used is 20 years.

I would like to ask, are there any citizens in Kingsport that would invest $57 – $59.6 million in a project that did not make money for them?

It is up to you as voters to decide your future.  Mallicote, Joh, and Phillips who are running for re-election voted to spend more money on the money-losing convention center.

Alderman Shull who is also running for re-election voted against the convention center expansion and instead voted to give the regional sales tax back to city property owners.

I must warn you to beware of the spin that the city officials have been putting out concerning MeadowView.  If MeadowView has been that great for Kingsport, then why do we have a declining population, negative retail growth after inflation, and the highest unemployment rate in the Tri-Cities area.  You decide…see data

The City of Kingsport apparently has lost its clout with the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce with the Chamber having their 17th Annual Golf Scramble at the Ridgefields Country Club instead of at the city owned Catskills Golf Course.

The taxpayer funded Catskills Golf Course located at the MeadowView Resort and Conference could use money since it barely breaks even.  The City of Kingsport owns the golf course, convention center, and Eastman Chemical owns the hotel.

Parking would not be a problem because the parking lot almost always has a lot of empty spaces.

Kevin Harmon, Kingsport Chamber Golf Scramble chair and Kingsport Town Center general manager stated. “Ridgefields is one of the best golf courses in the state and always does a superb job of hosting the tournament.”

But, the Cattails website states that the Cattails Golf Course is “recognized as one of the top golf courses in a Tennessee region and was recently named the second best golf city in America by Golf Digest magazine”.

It is obvious we have a difference of opinions on which golf course is better.

The taxpayers have spent $25.7 million for the current MeadowView Convention Center and Cattails golf course.  The City of Kingsport is Investing another $15.3 million to expand the MeadowView Convention Center.  This make a total of $41 million that the taxpayers have invested (plus interest on bonds) and history has shown the City portion of Meadowview does not make money.  This is certainly not a good return on taxpayers money.

Since the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce gets funding from the City of Kingsport, the least it could do is to support the city.

It appears that moving the “Family Race Night” from Kingsport to the Bristol, TN race track was a success.

BRISTOL, Tenn. – By most accounts, Bristol Motor Speedway succeeded Friday in giving race fans a better chance to commune with their NASCAR heroes through a relocated and revamped Food City Race Night.

“This is unprecedented,” said Joe LaPointe, a resident of Detroit making his 10th visit to BMS. “To be this close to the drivers – this has never happened, and it certainly doesn’t work this way at other NASCAR tracks.”

Read more via NASCAR Followers Get Close to Drivers at Family Race Night | TriCities.

The Kingsport, TN Board of Mayor and Alderman needs to be more open in the BMA meetings that are televised.  As an example, at last night’s meeting they voted on a technical services agreement with the Marriot Hotel.  It was stated that it was required by Marriott and that was about it.  No mention of what it was for or the cost.  Do not assume that the public knows.

Thanks to Kingsport Times-News for explaining it below.

Voted 4-1 to enter into a technical services agreement with Marriott Hotel Services to provide input on the interior design, plumbing, mechanical, electrical and life safety issues for the executive conference wing to be built at MeadowView. The cost of this service is $90,000. Alderman Pat Shull voted against the agreement, saying he was being consistent with his opposition to the executive conference wing project.

Kingsport, TN City Manager, John Campbell, made the following statement in a press release.  “In addition, in the case of the regional sales tax, at least 60 percent of that fund is paid by folks from outside Kingsport. Most people don’t realize that Kingsport’s population swells by 53 percent every work day.”

I think we have another case of John Campbell playing with numbers and he hopes the public is too dumb to see through it.

John Campbell stated that 60 percent of the regional sales tax is paid by outsiders.  Well, I don’t know how he can break out just the 1/4 percent regional sales tax and make the statement that the bulk of it comes from outsiders.  If that be the case, the regional sales tax dollars is over $3 million per year.  That means that Kingsport only gets $1.8 million from outsiders.  Even with this outside money coming into Kingsport, how did the MeadowView Convention Center lose $1.3 million last year?

He states that the Kingsport’s population swells by 53 percent every work day. 

I got into my car to see where this 53 percent were spending their time.  I stopped by MedowView and the parking lot was almost empty.  I then drove to the Fort Henry Mall and found lots of parking spaces available.  I then went to the Pavilions Shopping area and found a ton of  empty parking spaces.  Where could they be?  Thinking that they must be downtown, I went to check it out and also found lots of empty parking spaces there also.  How could I miss almost 23,500 people that come to Kingsport every working day?  Could it be that folks from Johnson City and County residents are coming to work at Eastman or other places?  One needs to keep in mind that there is only 19,210 people working in Kingsport.  Do you think that these folks are going to take time to shop everyday while they are in Kingsport.  This simply is another case of playing with numbers that don’t mean anything.

I guess John Campbell does not think the contribution from the citizens is important.

It is an election year in Kingsport, Tennessee for members of the Board of Mayor and Alderman.  Mayor Dennis Phillips is running for re-election and has managed to insult the voters in his bull-headed attempt to put the aquatic center in an area where he wants it, but the citizens do not.

The mayor recently made the statement below as reported by the Kingsport Times-News.

“We have got to do a better job of getting this whole thing down to the eighth-grade level to where we can all understand it. I think that we need to get the word out of who we’re building the pool for,” Phillips said.

The above statement by the mayor should tell the citizens what the mayor thinks about their intelligence.  Clearly, this is an insult..

Mayor Phillips is attempting to resell the concept of putting the aquatic center in the Meadowview area.  He has managed to get very strong vocal opposition to it being placed in the Meadowview area and opposition to it being built in this economy.

This issue has been hard wired from the very beginning.  First, it was the committee appointed by the mayor to make recommendations where to place the pool.  It came out in the February 3, 2009 BMA meeting that the findings of the committee were flawed because of the very narrow marching orders given to the committee.  Also, who do you think made presentations to the committee?  Apparently, the committee believed the data presented by the city and we have seen in the past that the city is capable of not telling the full story sometimes.

The demographic analysis stated that the Meadowview area was the “closest proximity to home owners” is also flawed.  I guess the city thought the citizens would believe that statement when in fact there is no way it can be true.  I have reported many times concerning the city twisting the truth to get the effect they wanted.

The mayor states. “At the same time, we will maintain some type of city water feature at Legion Pool for the foreseeable future. We’re not going to abandon those children.”  The city talks about keeping the Legion Pool open for one to two years after the aquatic center opens.  Well, Mr. Mayor, when you close the Legion Pool after one or two years, then you are in fact abandoning the children.

Phillips said the city would somehow make the aquatic center available to people who can’t afford the fees and find a way to help some people get to the new facility.  Nothing has been said about the fees that would be charged.  Mayor Phillips statement makes be believe that the fees will be higher than the Legion Pool.

“This aquatic center is an investment in our city, and you have to invest in your city to get people to come,” Phillips said.  Apparently the mayor is willing to invest money to get tourists to come to Kingsport, but not willing to invest to help lower the high unemployment rate in Kingsport.

Clearly, the mayor and city manager are on a public relations blitz to keep this project going.

I encourage you to read the entire Kingsport Times-News article (including comments) and also see post,   Kingsport’s aquatic center in deep water

Comments are welcome.

Oops…..maybe Eastman and the City of Kingsport need to reconsider the MeadowView expansion plans.  You see, the Bristol Motor Speedway is pulling “Family Race Night” from Kingsport and MeadowView Convention Center. 

Does this mean that Kingsport will lose it’s tourist appeal?

See link for more:   Family Race Night moving from Kingsport to Bristol Motor Speedway

The Kingsport, Tennessee Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting held on February 3, 2009, was indeed a very lively one with much discussion concerning the aquatic center.

The issue was for approving money so the city could begin to come up with detailed drawings.  However, the issue with the location came up with Mallicote again restating his opposition to the aquatic center located at Meadowview.  Alderman Marsh and Shull also voiced their concerns with the Meadowview location.

Alderwoman Valarie Joh was not a happy camper in this discussion.  She stated that the BMA had already voted on the Meadowview location.  That statement is true, but Mallicote, Shull and Marsh did vote against the Meadowview location last summer.

Alderwoman Joh has stated that in past meetings that Marsh and Shull were sore losers because they lost the vote.   Well Mrs. Joh, it appears also that the citizens of Kingsport are also sore losers because of the large numbers that are expressing their concerns over the location of the aquatic center.

On August 30, 2008, I wrote the following.

Kingsport, Tennessee has decided to build a new aquatic center at Meadowview and to co-locate with the YMCA.

The very vocal concerns expressed by local citizens over the location of the aquatic have fallen upon deaf ears by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen.  The citizens are calling for a petition to stop the aquatic center and voting the current BMA out of office.  Never before have I seen Kingsport citizens more angry.

I have not written a post of this issue before, but privately I felt that the BMA would vote to place the aquatic center in the Meadowview area.  It appears that certain members of the BMA have decided to railroad this issue to a vote.  The very short two-day notice of a public meeting was a good indication to me that the BMA wanted to push the aquatic center.  Giving the public two-day notice of a public meeting to me is not ample notice for an aquatic center that has been in the works a long time.

I would like to add that Alderman Shull, Alderman Marsh, and Vice Mayor Mallicote voted against putting the aquatic center in the Meadowview area.

Also, it appears that the City of Kingsport does not care about other small businesses by competing with them.  Giving the YMCA the aquatic center to operate and who is not paying for the center, gives the YMCA an advantage over other firms who provide a similar service.

What are your views on this subject?  Leave a comment.

During the vote last summer Larry Munsey started the idea about keeping the Legion Pool open for a a year.  In the meeting this week, it was discussed about keeping it open for two years.  Keeping the legion pool open for a period of time will not satisfy the citizens concerns because the city plans to shut it down later.

Do we really want the expense of operating two pools?   See how these ideas “evolve”.  I guess you can do anything if you spend enough money.  This points to the greater problem – the BMA refuses to distinguish between NEEDS vs. WANTS and will not prioritize spending.

The City Manager envisions turning the Legion area into something like the Splash Pad at Riverview.  In short, we need to see some cost and usage data to really make up my mind.

Kingsport’s history is to get hit later than the rest of the country during a recession, but to also Recover Later.

What are your thoughts on the aquatic center?

I think that your readers may be interested in a quick history on the Aquatic Center.

Before I joined the BMA the board established a fund to repair the Legion Pool. Previous Boards “raided” that fund. The City tried patching the pool several times, but the pool continued to leak.

The BMA then considered starting over again with a new pool in current location. Then the board began entertaining the idea of also having an indoor pool, quickly emerged into the Aquatic Center concept.

Let’s pause – the entire BMA agreed that the current situation – leaking old pool was unacceptable. But then the differences in opinions began to emerge as the City staff provided different versions of an Aquatic Center. While ALL members requested that the City manager discuss the situation with the YMCA, it was never immediately agreed upon (as was inferred last night at the BMA business meeting) that the city would enter the type of agreement with the YMCA that we seem to be headed toward.

Last summer we had a special called session to decide 2 issues: 1) Location of the pool, and 2) Should it be co-located with the YMCA. I voted against BOTH for the following reasons.

- The Meadowview is not the ideal location for the pool. I won’t elaborate here, but I would be glad to discuss further with any citizen. I favored the Legion Pool area

- Co-locating with the YMCA gives them a tremendous competitive advantage over the other fitness center operators. In effect, the city would be subsidizing an already NON-PROFIT organization to the detriment of tax-paying enterprises in the city (Great Body Company and others).

I asked the question of Mr. Gray, the YMCA Board President, that night – what would the Y do if the city built a world-class outdoor pool at the legion area? He replied that they would go forth with their plans (an outdoor & indoor pool plus fitness center) at their site behind K-Mart. He ALSO assured us that they had the funding to do this.

I immediately proposed to my fellow members that we build the city facility at Legion (a great new outdoor pool) and let the YMCA build theirs. Please note that the citizens of Kingsport would then have two options for indoor swimming – the Dobyns-Bennett pool and the YMCA.

Not only do I believe this to be the best option, I’m even more strongly for it considering the Recession that we are now in. What’s wrong with saving tax-payer dollars.

As a side note about the DB pool. It belongs to the citizens – we simply need to get that point across to the BOE.

One other point – under the current concept the Y will only build a fitness center (no pools) right next door to the City Aquatic Center. This will save them a lot of money. I have nothing against the Y. But I’m interested in saving the City money.

Thank you.

Pat Shull, Alderman

In this recession, the City of Kingsport, Tennessee has decided to go ahead with borrowing $34.77 million to fund various projects listed below.  While companies and citizens are having a difficult time in this economy, the city is going ahead with the spending of taxpayers money.  The addition of the $34.77 million would put the total debt for the City of Kingsport around $190 million.

According to Moody’s the three bonds have been issued and are listed below.  The dollar amounts below do not include interest expense.

General Obligation Public Improvement Bonds, Series 2009A
Sale Date: 22 JAN 2009
Sale Amt: $12.31 million

The detailed spending for this bond is listed in the table below.

General Obligation Bonds, Series 2009B
Sale Date: 22 JAN 2009
Sale Amt: $7.15 million

The bond above is for rebuilding of the V.O. Dobbins Community Center as well as the creation of a new non-profit center.  This non-profit center will take tenants away from the private sector, which means, the City of Kingsport becomes a competitor with it’s own tax customers.  Alderman Marsh and Shull voted against this project.

Local Option Sales Tax Revenue and Tax Bonds, Series 2009C
Sale Date: 22 JAN 2009
Sale Amt: $15.31 million

The above bond is for the MeadowView Conference Center Expansion.  This expansion is a very controversial subject with many citizens because of it benefiting special interest groups.  The current convention center loses money and it wishful thinking that the expansion would break even.

This new $15.31 million bond for the convention center expansion combined with the $25.7 million already spent for the current convention center and Cattails Golf Course would make it $41 million that the taxpayers will have poured into MeadowView.  The Cattails and the current convention center do not make money.  Alderman Marsh and Shull voted against this project.  See link for additional information on Meadowview