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The outside of ARTIC is constantly transforming. Maybe it’s time for the inside to do so as well.
Art Marroquin of the Register really earned more than his usual shell kibble yesterday with a story about how ARTIC isn’t doing as bad as we critics have predicted — it is doing far worse.
More than four month have passed since ARTIC opened, and city officials said that they aren’t close to securing a company willing to pay to put its name on the 67,000-square-foot facility, while total advertising revenue during the six months of operation are projected to be $81,675.
By June’s end, city officials expect to earn $391,548 in total revenue for ARTIC, falling far below the anticipated $2.38 million cost to keep the facility’s doors open.
As a result, the City Council will soon decide whether to transfer the $2 million difference from Anaheim’s General Fund, which pays for police and fire services, parks, libraries, road repairs and other city necessities.
“I think there were all sorts of assumptions that were simply wrong about ARTIC, from ridership numbers to revenue projections,” said Mayor Tom Tait, who abstained from voting on ARTIC’s $185 million construction contract three years ago because his business, Tait & Associates, did business with the Orange County Transportation Authority.
“By definition, we’re being forced to reduce city services from what we could have otherwise spent,” Tait said. “The city needs to figure out how to cut ARTIC’s operating expenses as much as we possibly can. Fiscally, it hasn’t worked out so far.”
(My emphasis, to be followed by repeated re-emphasis — and then by going through the archives to look for City Council discussion of ARTIC. It’s not like we didn’t try to warn them….)
The Anaheim Canyon homeless shelter won’t be ready for years at best. For now, put up 10-foot-highpartitions to cut the thing in half and the half that isn’t being used to make money should be used to shelter the homeless NOW NOW NOW! (Or, perhaps more appropriately, NOW NOW NOW!) The OC Supervisors should be willing to pay for this: it’s a great deal at least in the short-to-medium term. (Meaning, you know, until High-Speed Rail gets here.)
The first time I said that this nicely air-conditioned shell with bathroom facilities and room for personal storage should be used to shelter the homeless I was half-joking. Now, I’m 0%-joking. Docking Anaheim taxpayers at a rate of $4 million a year makes me get serious very quickly. WE CAN EVEN NAME IT THE “HON. CURT PRINGLE TEMPORARY HOUSING FACILITY” — SHOULDN’T HE LIKE THAT?
(And just think of the great “Lookamee, I’m serving the homeless!” photo opportunities for Kris Murray!)
Re the Murray photo op, if you drag Bruno into the picture it should be a slam-dunk.
“We wouldn’t be dipping into reserves or city services to pay for ARTIC, we would be dipping into surplus revenue from the city,” Councilwoman Kris Murray said. “There are several avenues to explore to earn some revenue for ARTIC, and I want to see any money that goes toward these early operations to be repaid once the station becomes revenue-positive.”
Well, there’s the biggest load of bovine manure of the century. ARTIC is NEVER going to be “revenue-positive.” Ever.
And what in the world is “surplus revenue.” That is so meaningless that it counts for an outright lie, even from a politician. This woman’s fingerprints are all over ARTIC and it’s going to come back and bite her in the butt.
Could “surplus revenue” mean “revenue that has not already been diverted to Pringle Ring clients and middlemen?”
We need to compile a list of Murray statements of that sort, complete with proper source attributions. (Just, uh, to have….) Any volunteer researchers out there among our readers?
“Surplus Revenue” means Reserve Funds, the resources a City hold in reserve for necessity. Depleting that is completely reckless and shows wilfull disregard for the City.
On a somewhat similar note, I notice we hear crickets chirping over at OCTA where every County Supervisor and small town hustler went along with this monstrous waste of public money.
Aye, they are too busy planning the next monstrous waste of public money.
Yep, Pringle’s Streetcar Named Desire. Levarage one booner off another – that’s the ticket. And that’s how Anaheim “economic engines” are born.
“…and I want to see any money that goes toward these early operations to be repaid once the station becomes revenue-positive.”
Alas Murray also wants to see fairies riding a unicorn.
Murray only has three and a half years left. She will be long gone when ARTIC is finally abandoned and sold to the Chinese for scrap metal.
Gone in three and a half years? That seems optimistic. I’m wondering whether she’ll run for Mayor, or leave us small-town rubes behind for a try at something like Supervisor or State Senate. (Which position gives her the best opportunity to continue serving the Real Masters Of The Universe?)
Yeah, maybe Mayor, but the Kleptocracy would have to make a massive money effort. And if she does run, it’s going to be real hard to hide stuff like ARTIC. She might try for Spitzer’s seat if if Mr. Megalo were to beat Rackaukas, but that would be a hard row to hoe, too.
But I guess I was being optimistic. The Pringle/Dunn crowd have made a huge investment in this little trinket.
I still think that Harry Sidhu is going to “come down with an illness that prevents his continuing with the campaign” (or some other excuse) and graciously yield the inside track to the AD-68 seat to his former colleague.
Remember that this is the woman who was outperformed on Election Day by Gail Eastman but who still won over her because about 1000 people who voted absentee for Murray somehow neglected to also vote for her “friend” Eastman. (Now THAT’S Influence!) She really is what Jordan Brandman is for the Pringle Democrats: the Indispensible One. Political “friends,” be forewarned.
Sidhu, Brandman, Galloway, Murray, Kring, Eastman.
Pringle’s got too many horses in his stable, so yes, he’s going to have to cull the herd. But Sidhu isn’t going anywhere. He has his own resources.
He has resources, but he doesn’t have endorsements if Pringle decides (in consultation with his cronies) that Murray should have the spot.
Repaid? REPAID?
Repaid to whom? Assuming this boondoggle ever does turn a profit, that profit wasn’t going to the general fund? ! WHERE THE HELL IS IT SUPPOSED TO GO?
REPAID. What a joke.
No fairies riding unicorns so far, but I can offer an instructional video on how to make rainbow unicorn cookies that poop rainbow sprinkles. Is that close enough?
Pringle & Associates should pay to put their names up. It would be their civic responsibility to avoid more General Funds being diverted from covering essential city services.
*The brilliance here is overwhelming…..as usual. No where do we see the famous words: State Transportation Grants. Federal Transportation Grants. Long term Capital Projects for the Public Welfare. Developer Development Funding. Or even the famous non de plume: Revenue Neutral.
Where does this money for ARTIC come from again? Does it come right out of the Anahiem General Fund? Does it come out of indebted bonding for a long term project like the ones proposed for a new Angels Stadium? Let’s get down to the real nitty gritty here and take the fly specks out of the pepper. ARTIC in our mind is a great idea, especially if HSR ever becomes a reality. If not, Anaheim/Disneyland is still a national destination that is not served well, by a bunch of motels on Harbor Blvd. with helter/skelter Vans, Shuttles and Yellow cabs mincing about and clogging up the torn up pavement on Harbor Blvd. LAX delivers a constant flow of bus passengers on a daily basis to Anaheim. A great central Transportation Center is needed, just to move some folks to Ontario and Riverside, others to JWA and others heading down to SD.
It came from Measure M funds. But that was just for construction, not for operation and maintenance.
It will make a pretty great overnight shelter from winter cold and summer heat, though!
*Dr. D., are you saying the OCTA bought off on the entire price tag of the ARTIC project without any State or Federal Grant money assisting? Are they going to use creative finance and use junk bonds to borrow on the long term debt…….or just simply take all the cash out at one time? The developer of the project must be dancing a jig – if he gets his money out front.
See Cynthia’s comment below for the lowdown.
I know Zenger has noted this in the past, there was NO REASON TO BUILD THIS! Yes we needed to tie in other modes of transportation, but there was NOTHING to prevent that from happening at the Metrolink station, with construction of an addition/extension of the station there, which would have been a fraction of the cost, and would have been ON THE CORRECT SIDE OF THE TRACKS!
How convenient. ARTIC used to post the funding sources on their page. The new page is a ridiculous set of useless drop down pages, so I tried getting to one of the old pages, but we get this; http://www.articinfo.com/404?action=no
The grand jury missed it too. http://www.ocgrandjury.org/pdfs/artic_anti_abreport/articreport.pdfthis amendment “relocation” of a Metrolink station is said to meet the intent of “convert” in the original measure. With these approved amendments to guidelines, eligibility and project participation, the City of Anaheim has been allocated funds from M2 and is proceeding with the Request for Proposal Process.
The Board of Directors on the advice of counsel took the authority to amend its ordinances to relocate the station and allocate the funds to this project in the City of Anaheim.
OCTA has allocated $100 million of M2 funds to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Center (ARTIC), bringing the total to $184 million including expenditures from M1, the state of California and the federal government.
Current funding as of 2 May 2012 is as follows
1. Measure M2/Project T&R (84.1 mil Proj. T) 99.2 million
2. Measure M Transit Revenue 43.9 million
3. 2008 State Transportation Improvement Program 29.2 million
4. Federal Sources (includes grants) 11.8 million
Total 184.1 million
(Does not include the 3.6 million for environmental impact report)11
The current project meets all the guidelines set by OCTA and other sources.
I don’t think that includes the $30,000,000 OCTA paid for the land, does it?
And yes, a combined bus depot/train station in the existing parking lot could have been built (if even necessary) for 5-10 million bucks.
Fortunately we live in a County chock-full of fiscal conservatives like Curt Pringle and Lucetta Dunn and Kris Murray and any of the other array of rock-solid Republicans who supported the ARTIC $200,000,000 rip-off.
Ahem, David — technically, isn’t it now a $202,000,000 rip-off?
Well, yeah. Another “economic engine” stuck in reverse.