BCEC expansion | Seaport

Sicilian said:
Not sure why I included that link. I was just checking out the Anish Kapoor sculpture on that site and feeling really disgusted at the entire premise of MA taxpayers building hotels. It's pathetic enough we bought into the idea we had to "compete" for visitors by building boxes for conventioneers.

I feel like we are living in the dark ages.
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But that's the irony of including the link. Chicago taxpayers paid more than a quarter BILLION dollars for that park ($275M out of $480M). Isn't that basically a huge subsidy for the properties surrounding the park? And couldn't you argue that the ripple effect of spending that kind of money subsidizing the convention business would benefit alot more people than a 20 acre park in the central business district (and by the way, Millenium Park directly abuts the 320 acre Grant Park).
 
I'd rather see a park built with taxpayer money, as it can benefit all the taxpayers, and not just guests of the hotel. Now, that's not to say I'd prefer a park in this particular location. I just think that perhaps streetscape improvements and transit connections would be a better investment. Maybe a stronger link to downtown and other hotels would allow more conventions to come to the BCEC.
 
I agree in principle with what Kennedy is saying... and to be clear, he is not suggesting a park be built.

At minimum, public dollars should fund infrastructure. We've done that, and the property owners still sit back and collect parking revenue. That blight should be correctable. The BCEC took active fish processing companies down on the Seaport by declaring the land they sat on "blighted" --but somehow parking lots are allowed to remain undeveloped.

As for Millenium Park, I'm generally with you on the ridiculousness of spending $275m, but I do think there's something to be said for a City that elevates itself with public art and public accommodations -- as NY, San Fran, Chicago, not to mention other great cities do... often funded as a percentage of development dollars. The long-term returns of such investments -- tangible and untangible, are proven. We don't do them because a) there is no appetite here for the short-term investment and b) there clearly is no guidance at City Hall that we should be shooting for the stars.

The fact that I have to pay taxes to build a hotel simply because developers won't get off their asses over multiple decades, and a larger convention center -- after having been told the existing $1 billion box was adequately scaled, just makes me sick. I support the expansion of the BCEC as originally proposed, that does it.
 
The BCEC took active fish processing companies down on the Seaport by declaring the land they sat on "blighted" --but somehow parking lots are allowed to remain undeveloped.
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Excellent point. And I agree with the premise (it may have been yours Sicilian) that CBD, commercial parking lots should be subject to an additional tax.
 
Panel discussion on the BCEC expansion - I can't go I've got a meeting Monday AM. Free for anyone to attend, just RSVP. If anyone goes, please let us know if anything interesting comes out of it . . .

Dear Colleagues and Friends.

You may be interested in the following event
The Tough Questions:
A Panel Discussion on Expanding the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
Panelists

Charles Chieppo, Senior Fellow, Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research
Dan O?Connell, President, Massachusetts Competitive Partnership
Lisa Petraglia, Director of Economic Research, Economic Development Research Group
Sam Tyler, President, Boston Municipal Research Bureau

Moderated by David Luberoff, Executive Director, Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston

Monday, June 28
8 am to 10 am
Ballroom Lobby, Boston Convention and Exhibition Center
415 Summer Street, Boston

RSVP to Jeanne Sullivan at jsullivan@massconvention.com or 617-954-2469.
Sponsored by the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and the Convention Partnership
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Back in the day Bob Kraft just couldn't get The Vault's pom-pom girls on board for their support of Seaport stadium requiring significant public subsidies.

http://www.bookrags.com/highbeam/silence-of-the-lambs-hb/

If you can't beat 'em join 'em!

Wasn't Dan O'Connell in charge of walking the Pritzkers through approvals?

As for former Globe Columnist Charles Chieppo, might as well set the record straight...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/04/09/herald_severs_ties_with_op_ed_columnist/

Tough, tough questions.
 
Tough, tough questions you wouldn't hear at the BCEC pep rally last night.

This from today's Wall Street Journal regarding the "racket" financing projects using municipal bonds.

************
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704269204575270802154485456.ht
ml?mod=googlenews_wsj

America's Municipal Debt Racket

State and local borrowing as a percentage of U.S. GDP has risen to an
all-time high of 22% in 2010.

By STEVEN MALANGA

New Jersey officials recently celebrated the selection of the new stadium in
the Meadowlands sports complex as the site of the 2014 Super Bowl. Absent
from the festivities was any sense of the burden the complex has become for
taxpayers.

Nearly 40 years ago the Garden State borrowed $302 million to begin
constructing the Meadowlands. The goal was to pay off the bonds in 25 years.
Although the project initially went according to plan, politicians couldn't
resist continually refinancing the bonds, siphoning revenues from the
complex into the state budget, and using the good credit rating of the New
Jersey Sports and Exposition authority to borrow for other, unsuccessful
building schemes.

Today, the authority that runs the Meadowlands is in hock for $830 million,
which it can't pay back. The state, facing its own cavernous budget
deficits, has had to assume interest payments?about $100 million this year
on bonds that still stretch for decades.

The authority that runs the new Meadowlands stadium in New Jersey is $830
million in hock.

This tale of woe has become familiar in the world of municipal finance.
Governments have loaded up on debt, stretched out repayment times, and used
slick maneuvers to avoid constitutional borrowing limits. While the
country's economic troubles have helped expose some of these practices, a
sharp decline in tax revenues has prompted more abuse as politicians use
long-term debt to kick short-term fiscal problems down the road.

It hasn't always been this way. Government debt has long fostered the
expansion of the American republic, helping to build roads, bridges and
water works to serve a growing population. But there have also been
spectacular failures. In the mid-1970s, New York City almost defaulted on
its debt after it used borrowing to fund an aggressive and ultimately
unaffordable expansion of services (like the nation's most generous Medicaid
program) inaugurated by Mayor John Lindsay. Gotham was bailed out by New
York State and the federal government. But Cleveland, whose spending
outpaced tax revenues thanks to borrowing, did default on $14 million in
bonds in 1978.

The 1970s debt crises woke politicians up. Over the next 20 years the
municipal fiscal picture improved, with debt rising only slightly. But
memories of past busts have since faded, and outstanding debt has soared to
$2.2 trillion today from $1.4 trillion in 2000. State and local borrowing as
a percentage of the country's GDP has risen to an all-time high of 22% in
2010 from 15%, with projections that it will reach 24% by 2012.

Even more disconcerting is what the borrowing now often finances. One
favorite scheme for muni debt is giant and risky development projects.

California's redevelopment regime is an object lesson. Starting in the
1950s, the state gave localities the right to create public agencies, funded
by increases in property taxes, which can issue debt to finance
redevelopment. A whopping 380 such entities now exist. They collect 10% of
all property taxes?nearly $6 billion annually?and they have amassed $29
billion in debt never approved by voters for projects ranging from sports
facilities to concert venues to retail malls, museums and convention
centers.

Critics, including taxpayer groups, say most such agency projects add little
economic value. Sometimes the outcome is much worse. In 1999, Fresno
conceived plans to revive its downtown area with various projects, including
a baseball stadium for the minor-league Grizzlies, which it had lured from
Phoenix. The city's redevelopment agency floated some $46 million in bonds
to build the stadium. But the Grizzlies fizzled in their new home, demanded
a break on rent, threatening to skip town and stick taxpayers with the
entire $3.4 million annual bond payment on the facility. The team is now
receiving $700,000 in annual subsidies to stay in the city.

Adding to the city's woes: Last June, another development project, the
Fresno Metropolitan Museum, went bust, leaving the city's taxpayers on the
hook for three-quarters of a million dollars in annual debt payments.

Cities now also use taxpayer-financed debt to engage in fierce bidding wars
that benefit private enterprises. Charlotte, N.C., for instance, won the
bidding for the new Nascar all of Fame with a $154 million offer, funded by
a new hotel tax dedicated to servicing bonds for constructing the hall. But
the venue employs only about 115 people?and an economic development study
estimated the increased annual tourism from the venture won't even equal
what a single Nascar race generates.

Why did politicians offer the deal? For the dubious and hard-to-quantify
purpose of "branding" the city with a major attraction, according to the
Charlotte Observer.

Voters have wised up to the failings of many grand, politically inspired
projects, and when given the chance they've defeated new taxes and borrowing
for them. But much state and local debt now exists in independent
authorities whose borrowings are not subject to voter approvals. Some of
these agencies have operated recklessly.

In 2000, Massachusetts moved to make the entity that runs Boston area mass
transit, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, financially
independent. As part of the plan the authority was supposed to gradually pay
down some $5.6 billion in debt and use cash from operations to finance
capital projects.

Instead, the agency deferred payments on its debt, put off capital projects,
and borrowed more money, so that it now owes $8.5 billion. Today, the
authority is paying a staggering $500 million yearly in debt service,
forcing it to neglect maintenance, shelve expansion plans, and cut service.
Even so, last year the agency needed a $160 million bailout from taxpayers
to close a budget deficit.

Another weapon in the debt arsenal is the so-called pension-obligation bond.
For two decades, governments have played a risky arbitrage game in which
they issue bonds and then deposit the money in their pension funds to be
invested in the stock market with the hope that the money will outperform
the interest rate on the bonds. In a stock market that's been stagnant for
years, pension bonds have become fiscally toxic. As the Center for State and
Local Government Excellence noted in a report earlier this year, most
pension bonds issued since 1992 have been money losers for states and
cities, exacerbating severe underfunding of pension systems in places like
New Jersey.

These abuses came to a head in the second half of 2008, when spooked
investors were unwilling to bet on more municipal debt after several
insurers who typically back these bonds exited the market. Then Washington
stepped in with a new Build America Bond (BAB), allowing states and
municipalities to issue them. Thanks to a federal subsidy, they carry
attractive interest rates. Last year municipalities used BABs to rack up
another $58 billion in debt.

Taxpayers are only slowly realizing that their states and municipalities
face long-term obligations that will be increasingly hard to meet. Rick
Bookstaber, a senior policy adviser to the Securities and Exchange
Commission, recently warned that the muni market has all the characteristics
of a crisis that might unfold with "a widespread cascade in defaults." If
that painful scenario materializes, it will be because we have too long
ignored how some politicians have become addicted to debt.

Mr. Malanga is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and the author of
"Shakedown: The Continuing Conspiracy Against the American Taxpayer,"
forthcoming from Ivan R. Dee. This op-ed is adapted from the forthcoming
issue of City Journal.
 
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So the consultants hired by BCEC that objectively determined expansion was necessary are usually hired to find that expansion is necessary. Shocked! Shocked!

http://www.boston.com/business/arti...ger_boston_convention_hall_has_familiar_ring/

Paid shills?

Boston never saw a conflict of interest that couldn't get unconflicted over dinner at Locke Ober's.

As the website of one of the BCEC's cheerleading teams over at A Better City / ABC formerly d/b/a Artery Business Committee puts it:

"A financial interest is not necessarily a conflict of interest."

"A duality interest is not necessarily a conflict of interest."

and this gem:

"If a more advantageous transaction or arrangement is not reasonably possible under circumstances not producing a conflict of interest, the governing board or committee shall determine by a majority vote of the disinterested trustees whether the transaction or arrangement is in the Corporation's best interest and for its own benefit, and whether it is fair and reasonable. In conformity with the above determination it shall make its decision as to whether to enter into the transaction or arrangement."
 
More from the Department of the Absurd:
Location:
Innovation Distrct
also d/b/a Seaport District
also d/b/a South Boston Waterfront

****************

THE BOSTON HERALD

Hub critics blast signs of excess
City, agencies dole out $1M for placards

By Dave Wedge
Tuesday, April 26, 2011

The cash-strapped city of Boston and two quasi-public state agencies have blown a whopping $1 million for 19 shiny new street signs directing visitors to hard-to-miss landmarks such as the mammoth South Boston Convention Center and the World Trade Center ? some of which loom just feet away from the pricey placards.

The city, which is again proposing sweeping cuts that could lead to layoffs, kicked in $400,000 toward the new ?wayfinding? signs installed throughout the South Boston waterfront, pointing visitors to the convention center, the Massport Cruise Terminal, the Institute of Contemporary Art and other large, easily located attractions.

The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority spent $250,000 on the signs, while Massport ponied the remainder toward the $1 million tab. The blue, white and silver reflective signs, which cost roughly $52,000 each, sparked outrage from lawmakers in the midst of contentious Beacon Hill budget talks.

?I don?t know what to say,? a stunned state Sen. Robert Hedlund said when apprised of the price tag.

?I just bought a sign for my restaurant and it was $5,600 and it?s pretty darn nice,? Hedlund (R-Weymouth) said. ?It lights up and everything. I can?t imagine what a sign 10 times more expensive would look like. Is it gold-plated??

House Minority Leader Bradley H. Jones (R-N. Reading) blasted the spending as ?irresponsible,? noting that the House yesterday once again rejected a proposal to provide taxpayers relief by rolling back the income tax from 5.3 percent to 5 percent.

?Once again, we don?t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem,? Jones said.

Jones called the signs ?absurd,? considering the convention center has been in the neighborhood for seven years.

?Couldn?t they have gotten a sheet of plywood and had prisoners paint them?? Jones said. ?And never mind that everyone has GPS.?

The Boston Redevelopment Authority paid $150,000 toward the signs? design while $250,000 came out of the city?s capital infrastructure budget, BRA spokeswoman Susan Elsbree said. Elsbree defended the spending, saying the neighborhood has 11 new retail businesses, has launched a new sailing program and is bustling from the growth of the cruise terminal, which brings in $459 million annually.

?We want to make sure people can access the port in a way that it keeps money coming into the local economy,? Elsbree said.

Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce acknowledged: ?It is a lot for signs but it?s a very large area and it?s never had signage.?

However, some of the new signs are within feet of smaller ones pointing to the convention center and cruise terminal.

?The South Boston waterfront continues to grow into a vibrant neighborhood,? Joyce said. ?We?ll continue to promote it and work with all our partners to ensure all can enjoy all that our city has to offer.?

News of the spending comes as Massport and the MCCA have come under fire for out-of-control salaries. James Rooney, the MCCA?s $360,000-a-year director, recently saw his pay slashed by 10 percent by Gov. Deval Patrick, while outgoing Massport director Thomas Kinton took heat for cashing in $400,000 in unused sick time on top of his $195,000 annual pension.

The MCCA is also considering a $2 billion expansion that calls for $200 million in taxpayer cash, while the Herald has reported that Massport has cut state police overtime and patrols at Logan International Airport to save money.
 
Signs = good
Signs costing more than $5,000 each = idiotic
 
It's actually more than $50,000.00 per sign.

From the article:

"The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority spent $250,000 on the signs, while Massport ponied the remainder toward the $1 million tab. The blue, white and silver reflective signs, which cost roughly $52,000 each, sparked outrage from lawmakers in the midst of contentious Beacon Hill budget talks."
 
We were talking about this in my State and Local Government class earlier today and no one could understand how signs could cost so much. Honestly, I don't understand how this happened.

At first everyone said, "well it sounds okay, signs are good so people know how to get around" but that soon turned into complete rage and disbelief that it was for only 19 signs. Seriously?! Should be like 500 signs!
 
Quality signs have always costed a fortune. They need to be weather-proofed, be able to stand the elements of the harsh New England winters, be somewhat immune to urban/pedestrian/anthropogenic fatigue... $52,000/sign really doesn't surprise me. Hell, people pay more than that for cars that they won't be driving 3 years down the road... at least a sign has the potential to stick around for 20-30 years.

I'm from South Florida, and there's a story about a highway down there called the "Sawgrass Expressway". The Sawgrass Expressway was originally planned to be called the "Sawgrass-Deerfield Expressway", but a consultant for the project famously pointed out that the name should be reduced to save money on the cost for signage along the expressway. Perhaps building 19 signs large enough to spell out "THE BOSTON CONVENTION AND EXPOSITION CENTER, NEXT RIGHT" (or something like that) is partly to blame for the expense. Again, this isn't shocking news.
 
Sicilian said:
Menino spokeswoman Dot Joyce acknowledged: ?It is a lot for signs but it?s a very large area and it?s never had signage.?
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This has to be one of my favorite statements ever. Do you have any idea how hard/more expensive it is to put a sign in a place where there hasn't been a sign before? There must be a huge "virgin soil" premium...and maybe a premium for signs being put in a "large area" (regardless that we are talking 19 signs--did we mention those 19 signs were put in a very large area?). Yep, distribute those babies in a large, virgin territory and watch the expense climb. When you consider that South Boston is really just part of Massachusetts and thus part of the US and, therefore, part of the world, I think we're actually getting a pretty good deal.
 
dshoost88 said:
$52,000/sign really doesn't surprise me. Hell, people pay more than that for cars that they won't be driving 3 years down the road...
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A car should cost significantly more than a sign.

Because, you know, one is a car and one is a fucking sign.
 
kennedy said:
This.
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If they bought cheap signs and had to replace them in 5 years, you and the others would be the first to complain about the need to replace them again.

Make one investment now that is quality and will last or make a bunch of smaller investments that will require repeated investments and wasted time?
 
datadyne007 said:
If they bought cheap signs and had to replace them in 5 years, you and the others would be the first to complain about the need to replace them again.

Make one investment now that is quality and will last or make a bunch of smaller investments that will require repeated investments and wasted time?
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It's true, there's a sucker born every minute.
 
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