On Concerts History, Succession, and Oversight

Normally I try not to rehash what may or may not have been done optimally by staff.  It has always been more important to me to focus forward, how to mkae progress based on the best available information.  But given the amount of politicization going on, I wanted to clarify a few items.  First, let's talk about a bit of history:

At our April 19, 2022 meeting, I raised the issue and it was established that the way the City was accounting for concert funds was not appropriate.  Staff at the time indicated that rather than record inflows and outflows through revenue and expense accounts, all activity was recorded against a liability.  This is a bit technical, but the issue with recording concert activity through a liability account is not that the money was necessarily mishandled. It's that this approach keeps the financial activity out of the City's normal operating statements, budgets, and financial reporting.

For example, if the City collects $50,000 in donations and spends $45,000 on concerts, the Council and public should see both figures, not just the $5,000 remaining.  While individual transactions are recorded, the revenue and expenses do not appear in the City's operating results or budget to actual reports. In fact, because of this there was never any budget established.  As a result, the Council does not have the same opportunity to review, or oversee these activities as it does other City programs.

Here is our former City Manager discussing it:

And to further explain, our former Finance Director:

At this same meeting, it was also established that the concerts had always been City events.  Any discussion now that says or implies it was not a City event is incorrect.  Here is former Councilmember Cloven stating this fact:

And when referencing Concerts as a City event, the one who first brought up the idea of oversight was Councilmember Tillman:

And further discussion of how such oversight could occur:

The fact that the concerts were City events, not volunteer owned, was established in April 2022, when former Councilmembers Cloven and Wolfe were on the Council, along with Councilmembers Tilman, Diaz, and myself.  This is when the discussion of oversight was started, as it was clear at the time that activity wasn't being recorded as it should have been.

During this same meeting, given the Concerts were City events, we also discussed the idea of a succession plan for continuity and sustainability of the events.  Here is our former City Manager discussing how succession could work:

And in that meeting, Howard Geller called in and also talked about succession:

This is quite a bit different than Geller stated at our 10.20.26 meeting.  At that meeting, Geller made the claim that after he booked the bands and signed the contracts (which would also be inappropriate) for the 2023 season, he decided to retire because the City was taking over.  However, in the January 2023 issue of the Pioneer (https://issuu.com/claytonpioneerinc./docs/jan_20_the_pioneer_2023), Geller stated he was already planning to retire at the end of the 2023 summer concert season and that it had nothiing to do with the oversight committee - directly contradicting his 10.20.26 statement:

At the 10.20.26 meeting, Geller went on to claim that the City didn't consider any of the knowledge or experience he had after being involved for the length of his tenure.  Of course, this is also not true.

During the summer of 2023, Councilmember Trupiano spent extensive amounts of time shadowing Geller and documenting the practices and processes that were previously undocumented and informal.  In fact, here is an email from February 2023 where Geller expresses favorable comments regarding the transition:

Given the actual history, it may seem odd that the tune of so many involved in the Concerts changed.  Originally after identifying financial irregularities, all were in agreement that oversight was necessary, that proper recording was necessary, that succession planning was necessary, and that the current folks involved were planning to retire.  An orderly transition is always preferable.  So what changed?

Let's look at the timeline:

• Apr 2022 - Financial accountability, Council oversight, and succession planning identified as priorities.  Established that historical accounting of concerts done inappropriately.
• Dec 2022 - Council unanimously establishes dedicated concert oversight.
• Jan 2023 - Geller states his intention to retire after the 2023 season and confirms it was unrelated to new oversight committee
• Feb 2023 - Geller reiterates his intention to retire and speaks favorably about Council involvement
• Mar 2023 - City terminates Master Use Agreement (MUA) with CBCA that provided for waiving essentially all fees
• Mar 2023 - In response to the termination of the MUA, AJ Chippero who had previously agreed to do promotion of the Concerts as has been done in the past, rescinds his contract, leaving the City without promotion
• Spring 2023 - Councilmember Trupiano assumes all sponsorship activity as the Julie Pierce, who was formerly involved in securing sponsorships, did not return any phone calls or attempts to make contact.  Under Trupiano's leaadership, sponsorship increases significantly.  CBCA had previously contributed at least $5K each year to the Concert series, however after the cancellation of the MUA, concert donation for that year was $500, and after that zero for every year thereafter.  It is completely the perogative of any organization whether or not to make a donation.

It seems pretty clear what caused folks to change their tune.

At the same time, the Committee was focused on ensuring that the concert and other special event activty were recorded propertly, and completely.  Historically, certain City costs were not allocated to the concerts or other activities that were being supported.  This means that any purported "surplus" from 16 years of activity, benefited from the fact that the City was subsidizing the activity and not recording those charges against the concerts.  Things like police, administrative staff, maintenance, these were not consistently or at times ever charged to these programs.  Here is our City Manager addressing the matter of apples to apples comparison:

This is why my previous post called the current posturing theater, and that's being generous.  Given the fact pattern, it's manufactured outrage. Comparing current period activity where things are being accurately tracked, to historical results that were not, is misleading at best.  Any activity can appear great if costs aren't included.