The beach, the pool and the city...the illusions and delusions thereof , part 1...

City Manager Michael Bornstein from last Tuesday's (5/21/13) meeting - starting at around 6:40 on the video.  More important words have never been said:

"Everybody's looking for me to say something.  I'm not here to tell you what you want to hear.  Anybody.  You've asked me to come and do this job.  And I can, believe me, this pool, beach facility, the park, it's actually two major projects. Phenomenal, great partnerships, it is successful beyond our expectations.  We are filling the parking lot. Working through all of the issues, it is a success. I love it and spend time there myself. You all know that, but I would be remiss if I didn't say that several years ago you all embarked on a mission here to build an amenity for this city and you can't afford it.  And it is all a part of the beach fund, it is separate part that we can track all of the expenses and costs.  What spent over there at the beach and what is made at the beach is supposed to operate itself as an enterprise fund, separate and a part from the city."

"The business model as anticipated based upon the rents and the revenues is not performing.  And that's normal with an amenity like this and it is an amenity, it's a great thing to have, but it is not performing to what they expected when they wrote the business models."

"Secondly, there is a big gaping hole in the business plan as given to us which didn't address in any shape or form the pool or the pool building.  So when I started this thing a year ago and started saying "Hey, we got a problem with the pool here."  First off, it looks like it may be damaged.  We worked through all those things. We've gotten to the facts, we've cleared out the clouds and we know what the pool costs to simply mothball it. And, at the end of the day, I know good and well that we are going to open the pool at least with limited hours.  That's just, I see it coming; it's going to happen.  But you just got to understand, and I am going to say this to everyone out there, asking for an amenity from a city that doesn't have the resources, asking from a fund that is not healthy, we are going to be $350,000 to $400,000 short in the operation of the beach fund. Okay? I've said this before, we aren't paying the first year's debt service, which we borrowed from ourselves, so we'll ask the people from which we borrowed the money from if that's o.k. and that's o.k. and that's fine too, but everyone needs to be not delusional when you are asking for services from this city that you don't understand the complete impacts and so you don't default to "those so and so's don't know what they are doing, they are incompetent and somewhere I know that there is money banging around city hall. Trust me, I'm not sitting on a lot of cash over here."