[   ]  For  [   ]  Against

Shall the City and County spend $159 million to develop in uptown Charlotte these new facilities:  an 1150-seat theater; the Bechtler Art Museum; the Uptown Mint Museum; and a new Afro-American Cultural Center; and to renovate Discovery Place?

Citizens should see this question in the voting booth before County Commissioners agree to spend over $10 million of property taxes per year for 25 years for five more arts and cultural projects Uptown.  On September 19, 2006, the Board will conduct a public hearing on the issue, but its ensuing vote is a foregone conclusion.  Six liberal Democrats will overwhelm the votes of three Republicans to levy a new tax and approve the plan.  Before they do so, we urge the Democrat majority:  Let voters have a say! 

Following the approach used in 2001, the foregoing question could be submitted to ballot early next year.  For four reasons, it should be:

                         1.                 Voters already said no.  In 2001, Charlotteans defeated 57 to 43 percent an advisory referendum proposing to build an uptown NBA arena, baseball stadium and many of the same cultural facilities.  The City promptly disregarded the citizens’ voice by giving a $265 million arena to the NBA.  Last September, in debate about failed school bonds, Democrat Commissioners Rembert, Roberts, Clarke and Mitchell all said that the arena decision was wrong and that the public’s vote should have been respected.  Now that the issue is a more elaborate, more expensive cultural facilities package, surely the same principle applies.  If the voters have changed their minds, they can tell us.

                         2.                 We can’t afford it.  City/County tax burden per person in Mecklenburg far exceeds those of all other urban counties in North Carolina.  Yet, Charlotte and Mecklenburg County say they can’t pay for needed schools (exceeding $2 billion), police, roads, and jail space without further tax hikes.  These responsibilities are at the heart of local government and most would say of higher priority than arts and culture.  Polling data and last year’s school bond defeat tell us that voters are in no mood for still-higher taxes.  Before we make them inevitable, we should ask voters’ blessing.

                         3.                 These are “nice-to-haves.”  Arts thrive in Charlotte.  So does Uptown.  To be sure, the new facilities would add sparkle.  The new modern art museum to house Andreas Bechtler’s personal collection would be distinctive.  The African-American Cultural Center would be finer than the one it replaces.  The Mint Museum (separate from Bechtler) would be uptown in addition to the Randolph Road location.  And the 1,150-seat theater at Wachovia’s new complex would complement nicely the two at Blumenthal, two at Spirit Square, the identically-sized, brand-new one at CPCC uptown, the under-renovation Carolina Theater, and of course Ovens Auditorium. 

But it cannot be said that these are critical or even necessary to the success of arts and culture in our community or a lively Uptown.  To the credit of powerful supporters, both arts and uptown have been well tended with public and private money, and the dividends are being paid.  Maybe voters would say do this anyway—you can never have too much art.  But good stewardship says they should be asked.

                         4.                 There’s no free lunch.  Often, advocates for special-interest, economic development deals argue that they cost taxpayers nothing—that increased economic activity pays back the public investment.  No such claim is made here.  Wachovia has an alternative development plan for a 700,000 square foot office complex that would generate additional annual property tax revenues of about $3 million for the City and County.  Properties earmarked for the cultural projects would also be alternatively developed in time, the company acknowledges, further building the tax base. 

All of that revenue—plus more from intensified development of the Wachovia complex—would be forfeited to these projects.  In addition, the car rental tax will be hiked another 5%, to a whopping 27% tariff on airport rentals (16% in town).  That will allow $1.5 million of City property tax per year to be redirected from transportation needs to the cultural projects.

City and County also will pay maintenance expense of $1.3 million per year, although the City’s share (and not the County’s) will be compensated by shifting management responsibilities for some art venues to private funders.  Ignoring the loss from the tax base of the parcels earmarked for these projects, the hit to local government budgets is $4.9 million per year within three years—assuming everything goes perfectly.  That translates to more than a half-cent increase in the County property tax rate. 

Can we sleep on it?

After the 2001 defeat of the “bundled” sports and cultural facilities referendum, a bank executive observed that consensus was needed before trying again.  That was good advice.  Five years out, the plan is more magnificent, but the consensus is not at all clear.  If it exists, a new referendum will bear it out.  On the other hand, voters’ enthusiasm for the glamour of these new projects might be tempered by the reality of other pressing burdens on local governments and taxes that ratchet up year after year.  Consensus may exist only among the well-heeled and powerful special interests that reaffirm one another in focus groups, strategy sessions and cocktail parties.

In either event, showing a modicum of respect to the voters of 2001 requires only a brief delay in this grand plan.  With local delegation assistance, permission for an advisory referendum could be secured from the General Assembly early in next year’s session, and the vote could be held by March.  Consensus demonstrated, the plan could move forward with gusto.

Why should we not check with voters?  The Democrats’ answer echoes the used car dealer.  “This is an opportunity that will vanish unless we act.  Sale ends tomorrow!”  Experience teaches that such urgency to get the deal done is the enemy of good judgment.  Undoubtedly the new cultural facilities plan deserves careful consideration of the voters.  But it can’t hurt to let them kick the tires.

Jim Puckett

Dan Bishop

Bill James