Well, with the update from yesterday, it seem like HOPE is all that Lipman and co. may have for this boondoogle of HOPE Squared (HOPE they can get the funding and HOPE again that, well, it’ll work as designed in “revitalizing the downtown area” – the same area that the same HOPE destroyed when it was believed that their two block “urban renewal” project would revitalize it the first time around. And with new councilors on the Laconia City Council this term, HOPE is growing a patina gone grey – the newbies are starting to question this project and it isn’t going over well (emphasis mine, reformatted):
Frustration boiled over near the end of a detailed, 90-minute discussion before the City Council, usually a congenial group. Councilors Bruce Cheney and Andrew Hosmer, who both joined the council last year, had some pointed questions. Hosmer wanted to make sure that the city would have its own attorney examine relevant documents and that there would be no surprises if and when the financing deal closes.
“The more that I can get in writing about the structure of this deal from an attorney who is making representations and interpreting that we are technically and in the spirit of the law, that would make me feel more comfortable. I’d hate to be the only one at the table without a lawyer.“
Now, Hosmer is the former NH State Senator Hosmer, a Democrat, with whom I have a lot of political disagreement (including Prez-wannabee Julian Castro around Laconia this past week), but he’s dead right on this one. Why this hasn’t happened before, that there’s a lawyer to represent the taxpayers, is just, well, indicative of the problem that I feel is getting close to having the effect of a tactical nuke on those same taxpayers unless a Golden Ripcord is in place (and it this point, it would be already fairly tarnished).
And FINALLY, somebody’s got the cojones that rips that HOPE curtain asunder. I would have LOVED to seen the faces of those that gave a green light to this project when it burst from his lips:
Cheney laid out a worst-case scenario. “What happens if this doesn’t go through?” he asked. “I mean, what do we do with this sudden albatross that’s sitting there if we don’t come up with $15 million bucks?”
After all, Mayor Engler and co. (don’t forget Henry, who is about to enter stage dumb-dumb in a moment) were the ones that started this years ago and I gave it the raze the day it came up. If the private sector had let the theater lay fallow for years, how were these guys gonna make it happen? Sorry, a real life version of the Music Man ain’t gonna make it but hey, if you disagree, you’re pelted as being Nancy Negative as you shine that Big Flashlight on the Emperor’s new (decrepit) building – know your place, knaves:
Henry Lipman, a longtime councilor, said such talk was not helpful. “Putting on the negative hat doesn’t do anything in terms of trying to advance this,” he said.
Yeah, I wonder how big of a percentage of his net worth he’s put in to make that ungainly bird fly? This is exactly the type of talk I’ve seen JUST BEFORE a project starts to swirl the toilet and those with the most to lose (hey, he was LR General Hospital’s CFO – isn’t he supposed to know money?). And to my surprise, I’m supporting Hosmer’s retort (and a needed one at that):
Hosmer countered that he was wearing a “realistic hat.”
“City or public funds are still a significant investment in it,” Hosmer said. “I’m not here to rain on the parade of the Colonial Theatre.”
Lipman countered: “It’s not a parade, councilor; you’re making it harder to get the project done.” Hosmer took issue with that.
Ah yes, the governmental outlook – nothing’s wrong: “all is well!”. Yep, that Animal House reference by a young Kevin Bacon absolutely fits here – because there’s about to be a reckoning. Simply asking questions, for which he was elected, is not making it harder – it’s doing the job that it doesn’t sound like those questions haven’t been asked yet – and they SHOULD have been asked from the beginning and right through the whole process – that’s what projects NEED all the time – the parameters around which when the Golden Ripcord must be ripped. It certainly seems that Lipman has made the project personal instead of him guarding the public’s money.
And I’m glad to see that Hosmer kept at it:
“I’m not making it harder to get it done at all,” he said. “I’m asking questions here that I just want a little clarification. If you are asking for my vote on this to support it, I at least want to have my curiosity satisfied with some facts. I’m not here to rain on the parade.”
And what I thought was going to happen as I was reading the article, happened – the defense of HOPE.
Lipman repeated, “It’s not a parade at all. “I have no issue with having all the facts on the table, but the way we are talking about it this evening is destructive, not constructive.”
For guy that was supposed to have his fingers on all of the projects going on at LRGH, the largest local employer, that’s a real poor strategy against someone who could vote down the project. Then again, under Lipman’s management, there have been a number of years where LRGH announced losses (at the same time, making big purchases of practices and infrastructure / building programs), so are his words indicative of that? Is that how he worked at LRGH – talking down “to the help”? Sorry, Hosmer’s no “little person”
Hosmer called that “a tad bit condescending. And if that’s the way you choose to proceed in this, that’s a mistake.”
And now for the money bomb – no, not an infusion but more bleeding. And I’d bet that Lipman knew that ahead of time, too:
During his presentation Monday night, Engler said that hard costs, which have increased due in part to inflation, have reached $10.4 million — $900,000 more than the project’s budget.
Oopsies! And how many private developers, trying to make something that has already failed, would look at that and go – sure, more money coming up! And the Mayor makes it plain – yep, more money coming up! He’s admitting that the light of their project’s train is really starting to look like the proverbial train:
“Realistically, there is no other source of revenue that can happen in a timely fashion,” Engler said. “We’re the last resort, if you will. “We continue to believe this project is not only desirable but vital as far as the future of the city is concerned.”
Yep, taxpayers, your wallets have already been opened REGARDLESS of the financial profitability of this project – you ARE the good money that is about to thrown after the bad money. Read that bolded part again – Engler has just said that you are going to be his ATM because hell or high water, this project is going to get done. You know, just like the Lakes Business Park.
Yep, the ability to get even just one more vote than your opponent makes you a genius at everything else. Automatically. With “gravitas” even. We, you and I, are going to WISH this project over the line and the stars will shine, manna and pixie dust will rain down, and hordes of multicolored unicorns will come thundering down from the Belknap Mountain range.
And I’m a 7′ black Asian woman whose the leading MVP contender in the NBA, too.
And while HOPE is nice to think about at times because new things excite most of us, Lipman isn’t facing a potential reality that might be rushing full force at him while Engler is indicating that if that failing reality does come forth, he’s got 16,000 involuntary donors at the ready. Such a deal, such a deal! HOPE lives eternal:
Proponents say it could attract new businesses, residents, visitors and investment to a downtown area that has more than 100,000 square feet of unoccupied commercial space listed online for sale or rent.
Laconia’s problem is NOT going to be solved by having a real time staged theater. Laconia’s problem is NOT going to be solved by putting all of your eggs in one basket. I’m not a developer so I don’t have a single bullet that solves it. I do know that businesses generally don’t last long downtown. I also know that the area turns the lights off early in the evening – why go downtown when nothing is open but perhaps one or two businesses?
They complained when the local mall opened and it sucked business away. Now the mall is (and has been for a while) experiencing the same empty store syndrome – but the now bustling outlet mall in the next town over is doing well.
And they don’t have a theater. Not even a movie multiplex. Go figure.
But finally, FINALLY, at the end of the piece, part of the real problem shows up:
In an interview on Tuesday, Engler said that, in retrospect, project proponents initially did not have a thorough-enough grasp of how the financing would work.
“Clearly, there were sources of income in the original plan that did not materialize,” he said. “There were aspects of the earlier project budget that were not realistic.”…“I think we were naive as to how the New Market tax program works and what it would take to get that funding,” Engler said.
So they threw the taxpayer money in up front, jiggered whatever project plan they had to tilt to an end that now is being stated as “unrealistic”.
Go back to Hosmer and Cheney – new eyes, new evaluations – and I think that they need to be talking more and being listened to more. And Engler just made the argument for them.
And Lipman should sit back and listen.
(H/T: Laconia Daily Sun)
