Letter: Beware the total public cost of arts center
From the newspaper, we now learn that the cost of the proposed arts center on Hilton Head Island isn’t $30 million. It’s at least $65 million.
How can this be?
When David Bennett ran for mayor, a credential he claimed was his role in the arts as “senior adviser” to the mayor of his former home, Carmel, Ind. There, according to The Indianapolis Star, what began as a $30 million “rental hall with a private promoter” morphed into a project of $82 million; then with related projects to a final cost somewhere between $120 million and $150 million.
One result is that now nearly all tax increment financing (TIF) money raised there goes to support the interest cost of the bonds required for this and related projects. Plus Carmel must cover the art center’s revenue shortfall of nearly $8 million annually.
Carmel’s Mayor Jim Brainard defends this, saying: “People say why would you build something that loses money? I say it’s the same reason we have a police department. That’s why government exists, to provide things that the public sector doesn’t want to do.”
Is this what Hilton Head’s “public sector” wants?
Frank Mangan
Hilton Head Island
This story was originally published April 7, 2016 at 10:34 PM with the headline "Letter: Beware the total public cost of arts center."