Special Bd. of Aldermen — 12/20/2018 Page 15
| don’t Know actually, | would have to run the calculations on that. | learned my mistake last time around. An
idea was floated and it sounded reasonable at the time, | would have to go back and look and do my due
diligence and tell you whether that could actually be done or not. | don’t know.
Attorney Bolton
| don’t think advertising that we are just trying to raise money to make the bond payments is the way to raise
money.
President Wilshire
Are you all set Alderman Jette?
Alderman Jette
Yes thank you.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Yes, Attorney Bolton | would agree with you. A couple of things, first of all Director Cummings as we were
talking about the contract | was thinking also the operator needs to be 7 years just so we have stability across
that 7 year time line and | think that is important for the Performing Arts Steering Committee to hear so people
are all thinking in the 7 year time frame moving forward and understanding the importance of that.
To Director Cummings, | did not coach Alderman Lopez, but Director Cummings and | have had conversations
about the importance of all of us benefiting from everyone’s questions because we all look at this with a little
bit of a different background experience.
And | just want to say and Mr. Cannon | don’t know if this has been shared with you or not but | almost threw a
tantrum to make sure this meeting happened, because your words to my ears, it needs to be open and we
need to understand what we are doing. And we were asked to vote on a piece of legislation without this;
although some of us had done research, we hadn’t had this discussion. That being said, in looking at the
timelines you’ve presented us with, it seems to me that once we get that letter of commitment, then a whole lot
of balls are going to start being juggled. That is when we should all anticipate a lot of information coming our
way for us to process and to make some votes on.
Because if | am understanding this properly, that is when that non-profit that is going to actually operate the
building, that we will be paying our lease payments to needs to be established and everything else that needs
to be set up to make this move forward. So that is kind of nice to know because the Performing Arts Center
Committee has some other work to do around contracts and design. So while we are waiting for this to happen
we have other work to do. But | am anticipating 3 to 4 months we will then really have to be hitting the road to
get some of these decisions made. And again, recommendations and input from the Performing Arts Steering
Committee but the decisions being made here.
| do have one question and | guess this is questions that have been asked of me and | guess this is where my
not fully understanding this and | think wrapping my head around it a maybe a little bit more now. But it sounds
to me when we talk about non-profit we are almost talking 2 non-profits. When this legislation was put together
we were talking about a non-profit that was going to have about a $4 million dollar endowment that was going
to be used there as a safety or a cushion. We weren't looking at New Market Tax Credits yet as being part of
the private money. So it appears to me that in going down the New Market Tax Credit route, which | am fine
with, and this all makes sense to me and | do believe that it happens like in 24 hours; this is an established
process. It is not something we are inventing. But there are now the two endowments and | guess | just need
a little more clarity as to what money is going where, which | think goes to Alderman Jette’s question because
