While the recent scam that resulted in Town Toyota Center losing $250,000 in taxpayer dollars was not discussed during the public portion of the Greater Wenatchee Regional Public Facilities District meeting on Thursday, the board held a lengthy and at times heated public discussion about a proposed policy that would dictate how promotional dollars are spent.
The issue arose after the PFD board voted to give Rock Island $5,000 for fireworks this Fourth of July and another $5,000 to Cashmere for ping pong balls that were dropped from a helicopter during the town’s Founder’s Day celebration in June.
Those expenditures caused a public backlash, with some accusing the board of using the PFD budget as a “slush fund” for pet projects.
You can read my coverage of that here:
And after a summer of reviewing how the board awards public funds, PFD board member and Chelan City Councilor Tim Hollingsworth voiced his concerns with how the process has gone up to this point.
“This seems like just a little bit of political patronage,” he said. “And I don’t really think that this is the appropriate institutions to support these things. I think there’s other places where these moneys are available – chambers of commerce, lodging tax, private charities.”
But that discussion came after public comment time, when a citizen named Michelle Morgan expressed her concerns with what she sees as a lack of commitment from the TTC to enforce its new safety measures. She said on two occasions since the policies were enacted she has seen people getting through security without using clear bags and was told by TTC staff that people are still smuggling food and drinks from outside the facility into Wenatchee Wild games.
“So my concern as a citizen is if you set a policy I would like it followed,” she said.
You can watch her full comment with subtitles above.
After that the board postponed an executive session to discuss “pending litigation” due to the Imagine Dragons scam, dealt with the other items on the agenda and came to the discussion of the “promotion hosting policy.”
This spring the board established a committee to create a policy regulating how and when the PFD awards “promotional” funding like it did with Rock Island and Cashmere. So Rock Island Mayor Randy Agnew and Cashmere Mayor Jim Fletcher joined it.
And during Thursday’s discussion both tried to shift the focus away from how their towns have recently benefitted from PFD funds. Fletcher especially took a hard line approach, decrying the fact that PFD funds have gone to anything other than “paying back the bond holders and taxpayers.”
However, the topic did come up.
“So we’re done with the fireworks displays and ping pong ball drops and all of that going forward?” board member and Chelan Douglas Regional Port Authority Commissioner JC Baldwin asked.
Fletcher and Agnew were more keen to talk about the PFD’s decision to spend $100,000 to support the Port’s regional sports complex feasibility study earlier this year.
“This board did fund $100,000 to the regional sports complex and if you’re going to ban all contributions or whatever the word you want to use, you might want to consider that,” Agnew said.
Fletcher went a step further and called out the decision to help fund the study.
“We should not have funded a $100,000 (sic) study,” Fletcher said. “That’s not a direct benefit to us.”
But he also didn’t want to adopt the policy he, the other committee-members and local attorney Julie Norton have been working on for the last few months. That would just be adding a level of government “bureaucracy” where one isn’t needed, he said. They should shut the door on this type of thing entirely and entertain any requests for funding.
“That’s how we got here. Somebody needed money for something that was not what the PFD does,” he said. “So that became a way to justify that, and it got repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated. Not that it was a bad idea, it’s just that wasn’t what the PFD was founded for, and contracted for, and voted for.”
Any funds coming in and any profits made by the facility should not be “siphoned off” and spent on other activities, he said. His fear is that the amount of money that will be “pick pocketed” out of the PFD’s budget for things other than paying back the bond and paying operating costs.
Wherever they land on the issue, board member and Wenatchee Mayor Mike Poirier said he’s looking for “safeguards” to the process.
Fletcher then suggested perhaps changing the mission statement, and started riffing some new verbiage for that.
“There’s other ways of doing that. By clarifying the mission statement, saying our mission is the fiduciary responsibility operation of this facility, period,” he said. “There is no other responsibility outside this facility. So don’t ask. Because why should we be funding studies for anything if it’s not going to directly benefit this facility?”
After that there was a lengthy silence. Then Poirier spoke up with a joke.
“Now you have no direction,” he said to Norton.
In the end the board took no action and decided to continue the conversation at next month’s meeting.
Then the board went into executive session and the public had to leave the room. After executive session they meeting was adjourned.
You can watch the entire discussion regarding promotional spending here:
Onscreen from left to right is East Wenatchee Mayor Jerrilea Crawford, Rock Island Mayor Randy Agnew, with TTC’s Administrative Assistant Cindy Herdt in the foreground, then Wenatchee Mayor Mike Porier, Cashmere Mayor Jim Fletcher and Chelan City Councilor Tim Hollingsworth. Seated at the table facing them is TTC General Manager Mark Miller and Attorney Julie Norton.
Off camera is Douglas County Commissioner Marc Straub and Chelan Douglas Regional Port Commissioner JC Baldwin.
'Seems Like Political Patronage:' Public Facilities District Board Debates Town Toyota Center 'Promotional' Policy