Boat Show Lease May Be Given To Competing Entity**

**Rumor Alert.

In my last post, I lamented the fact that there are 2 bills being introduced to renew the lease for the boat show, one renewing for two additional years (2013 and 2014), and a similar bill to only renew the lease for 2013. I offered little explanation, other than disorganization, as to why this might occur. However, as a matter of course, I have since learned of a more cynical and therefore more probable explanation.

Rumor is that the lease of the dock for the boat show is going to be given to an entity other than that which created the show! And which group of kind folk are so worthy as to receive such a privilege...........

....the Sailing Hall of Fame!


This makes sense to me. Having successfully plowed through opposition to the HOF being located downtown, the organization has a sweet lease for that part of the dock. What would be more natural than for the city, an increasingly anti-profit establishment, to give the rights to operate the show to the non-profit HOF?

Or so goes the logic. The politics are convincing enough. O-35-08 was introduced by the Mayor, and would extend the lease through 2014 with "United States Sailboat Shows, Inc.", and "United Stated Powerboat Shows, Inc", presumably the people who have been operating it so far. O-36-08 was introduced by the Honorable Alderman from Ward 8, Ross Arnett, and would grant the 2013 lease to "City Dock Productions, LLC".

So, our working hypothesis is that City Dock Productions LLC is somehow related to somebody with the Sailing HOF, because we know that Dick Franyo is the Chairman of the HOF and he owns the Boatyard which is in Ward 8. I searched the corporate records or City Dock Productions, and found out that their resident agent is another corporation, Back Creek Services. That company's resident agent is a lawyer named Timothy Dowling, but he may just be a lawyer who represents the actual driving force behind the operation.

Geeze, research is hard.

Well, what we know is this. There is now a competing group that is offering a proposal to run the boat show starting in 2013. Using my VIP connections at the city council meeting and throughout the greater Annapolis area, I am pretty sure that the competing people used to work for Ed Hartman, who apparently is the original guy. The new entity has a financial backer, which may or may not be the Sailing HOF.