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.

A "Tight" Budget?

Although I could not follow the budget as closely as I would have wanted, I am nonetheless working on a post detailing all of the capital projects for future reference.

While doing so, I noticed something that jumped out at me. Despite the fact that the people behind the sailing hall of fame publicly said that they did not need any public money, the city has pledged $50,000 of taxpayer money for the HOF in each of the next 3 years.

You can see the budget item by clicking HERE and scrolling down to project 521, entitled "Non Profit Capital Funding".

All we hear about this budget is how lean it is...does this sound lean to you?

Battle Lines Drawn For Sailing Hall Of Fame, Possible Legal Challenges Await

When The Capital reported on the possible start of construction for the Sailing Hall Of Fame, it paid a paltry lip service to possible objections from the historic preservationists:

Local Historian Greg Stiverson questioned what would happen with the house,
which he said is an important part of the city's maritime history.

But, if Mr. Stiverson's letter to The Baltimore Sun is any indication, the HOF has an uphill battle:

The question is not whether the circa 1890 house at 69 Prince George St.
should be moved or demolished to make way for the Sailing Hall of Fame but
whether either scenario is legal under state and federal law.

The section of the SHOF's feasibility study that is most relevant is
the historical summary by R.C. Goodwin. This section highlights the fact that
the building on the site is listed as a "contributing resource" to the Annapolis
Historic District (1969), the Annapolis National Register Historic District
(1984), and the Colonial Annapolis National Historic Landmark District
(1965).

The glory of Annapolis today is that a wide variety of buildings dating
from the 17th- through the mid-20th centuries, from humble to grand, have been
saved from willful destruction. All of these buildings -- not just the homes of
the wealthy -- make Annapolis a "museum without walls" that is unequaled in the
United States.

Changes to buildings within the Annapolis Historic District must
conform to the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. These
standards have been adopted by the City of Annapolis and the Maryland Historical Trust.

Under these standards, removal or demolition of the building at 69
Prince George St. would have an "adverse effect" on both the historic building
and on the surrounding historic district.

It is the Maryland Historical Trust's responsibility to evaluate the value of the building at 69 Prince George St. and to decide whether it must be saved in place or whether it can be moved or demolished. Let us hope that the MHT is allowed to make its decision in a fair, equitable and transparent way, without undue political influence or favor.

The Mayor's actions have made her view on the matter clear. She pledged unbudgeted and unneeded money to the HOF, and will no doubt seek to impose her newest green building standards to the construction of the building. She seems unconcerned to lose a historic building, although admittedly and reportedly the existing building cannot be fitted for acceptable public use.

My only real concern with the HOF is that public money is not used to fund it. The developers claim that the site will 150,000 visitors per year, but I have to believe that the great majority of these people will be coming to Annapolis already, thus mitigating traffic/congestion concerns.

I also don't particularly care about the fate of the historic building, which is not to say that historic preservation is not a noble goal. The way to manage historic preservation is zoning requirements. Zone what you want, and let the private market adjust its pricing and strategy to adapt. If this doesn't work, as in the case of this building in question, the zoning should be changed, rather than public money spent to restore a property that the private market stays away from.

City Needlessly Donks Off $250,000 On Sailing Hall Of Fame

This is going to be a good post.

So, we now know (click here/here) that plans for a Sailing Hall of Fame will go forward downtown, to be erected at the end of Dock St. near Phillip's and the Natural Resources Police:


View Larger Map

The leader of the effort is Dick Franyo, who is the President of the HOF's board of directors, and the owner of Boatyard Bar and Grill in Eastport. Oddly, the responsibility for assessing the feasibility of such a proposal rests with the Maryland Stadium Authority, which highlights cause for optimism:

The feasibility study released yesterday by the Maryland Stadium Authority says
the Hall of Fame would create 95 jobs and bring more than $320,000 annually in
new tax dollars to the area.

And Mr. Franyo seems enthused:

It's probably the most unique property of its kind in the country.

We have what we think will reaffirm Annapolis' position of sailing capital
of the nation, and really, (of) the world.

How, you might be asking yourself, could the city of Annapolis possibly mess up such a dandy scheme? Answer: by wasting a quarter of a million dollars.

Stay with me. The HOF is going to be an expensive proposition--they hope to raise $15-$20 million for the project, which would allow for adequate construction and even free admission to the site. How are they going to get such money? By pilfering it from rich sailors:

The group wants to build a $20 million museum at the site, which is
currently used by the state Department of Natural Resources Police, though the
agency is already planning to relocate. Hall of Fame President Dick Franyo said
he hopes to begin fundraising for the museum soon, with groundbreaking possible
by next year.

Franyo said the Hall of Fame could be built without public tax
money.

"Fortunately there are people who have a passion for the sport who do have
means," he joked.

It sounds like they have plenty of money. Heck, Walter Kronkite (wealthy) and Ted Turner (mogul-grade wealth) are on the board, and they even had enough money to buy out a portion of Phillip's waterfront property. BUT,

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for the hall, including a
$260,000 grant from the city, Mr. Franyo said.

Unbelievable!!! Let's summarize. Several rich people want to build a sailing hall of fame with sailors' money. If that's not enough, they can chip in the rest personally. They proclaim publicly that they do not need public money. THE CITY OF ANNAPOLIS GIVES THEM PUBLIC MONEY.

Seriously.

But that's not all. The Capital reported the grant from the city to be $260,000; however, the city only budgeted for $250,000! This may not seem like a big deal, but it's actually breaking the law.

Here's how it works. The capital budget includes a "project" for non-profit grants. Once a year, dozens of non-profit agencies come to a city council meeting and beg the city to give them money, a process that I* have cleverly dubbed the 'beg-a-thon'. The approved amounts are recorded, and such becomes law, as the budget has to be passed in the form of a resolution by the city council.

(*with the help of my cronies)

The approved funding for the HOF looks like this:

prior years: $25,000
2008: $75,000
2009: $50,000
2010: $50,000
2011: $50,000

TOTAL: $250,000

The $10,000 difference is not a lot of money relatively speaking--just enough to prove that the city can use the written law as a "guideline" and can bend or break certain laws as they please.

This is total poppycock, first that the city would spend money when the non-profit declares they don't even need it, and second that it ignores its own law by giving a non-approved amount of money. In light of this information, the city council should immediately pass a budget revision pulling funding for this project.