February 4, 2010 – 4:12 pm
The War Memorial Commission met on Thursday with no major issues on the table. The excellent coliseum staff continues to perform well under adverse economic and weather related conditions.
Gymnastics, the circus, both ACC Tournaments, the Gun Show, John Mayer, and Curious George are among the upcoming events. I have my orders from home that we will be attending Curious George. Go, park, and buy plenty of popcorn.
Matt Brown discussed the ongoing procedures resulting in an effort to come in under budget for the Aquatics Center.
Under new business I brought up the following idea. Had there ever been discussion of giving tax paying city residents any type of economic incentive to visit the coliseum such as a discount on parking fees? A sort of return on their annual $1.8M investment.
Matt stated there was discussion under CM Castarphen at one time but the collection of two different parking fees increased the possibility of corruption and no action was taken. Florence Gatten stated the council had discussed this four years ago but implementation was a problem.
I made the motion for: “this commission to ask the executive staff at the Greensboro Coliseum to discuss the possibility of giving parking discounts to city residents”.
Seconded by MacArthur Davis and also voting in the affirmative were Mary Dowdell and Zack Matheny. Someone challenges Zack’s eligibility to vote as council liason. City Legal Mike Williams leaves the room, returns, and declares that Zack Matheny can not vote.
The motion fails 3-5. Keep in mind this motion was only to discuss the possibility of parking discounts. A cordial conversation took place after the vote and one comment was made that they did not want to take the coliseum staffs time with this issue.
I was allowed to explain how gentle and generic the motion was and that roughly 225,000 residents of Guilford County got the same benefits of the Greensboro Coliseum with absolutley no investment. Giving the investors, you and I, some type of small incentive may generate more parking revenue and certainly could soften the next bond vote ($35M for the auditorium?) and some attitudes of the necessary hefty parking fees.
A minor issue but it would have been a major “thank you” for taxpayers.
Thanks for the update from Andrew Brown: “Hi Tony – following up on two items from today’s meeting… as part of the Coliseum’s 50th anniversary celebration in October, a complimentary parking pass (good for any Coliseum Complex event) was included with all water bills to City residents in November.”
It seems that takes care of the implementation problem.
Joe Guarino and Ed Cone and Dave Ribar.
Posted in greensboro, gso coliseum, politics | 13 Comments »