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Dear Editor:
As rising interest rates threaten to crush Carmel’s $1.5 billion experiment in progressive central planning, its gemstone – the Center for the Performing Arts – already has dipped deeply into insolvency.
The latest publicly available data the city is required by law to provide show the Center’s total annual revenues of $8.1 million and expenses of $47 million (including $310,000 in payments to its CEO and $575,000 to its Hollywood artistic director who usually receives $750,000 but cut it in the COVID year).
Omitted were $7.8 million in debt service on the two Center construction bonds (circa 2005) and $1 million a year in Center utility bills paid by the city council.
Together, the true loss was $7.8 million which, had it been reported, would have cost the Center its tax-exempt status with the IRS.
The $100 million borrowed in 2005 to build the Center now stands at $83 million after 17 years and $276 million in refinancing and repayments.
Despite lavish four-color ads promoting its offerings (at taxpayer expense), the Center’s financial trajectory is that of a thrown rock.
Bill Shaffer
Carmel
And Brainard says he is a conservative fiscal responsibile Republican? He will need another Century to pay off the Palladium, however the people of Carmel keep reflecting him.