It appears an agreement has been worked out between the Eureka Springs City Advertising and Promotion Commission and the city in regard to use of The Auditorium.
At the CAPC’s monthly workshop held Wednesday, Jan. 14, executive director Mike Maloney told commissioners that attorneys from each side had given their blessing to an agreement, which now just needs to be approved and signed by each entity.
“We gave our recommendation to the city … we vetted it through our attorney and then they vetted it through their attorney,” Maloney said. “We arrived at what we think is the best relationship.”
That “relationship” involves three key components, Maloney said.
“We will continue to be occupants of the building and will maintain the building up to a point of $65,000 maximum per year,” he said. “In other words, if something breaks, like an HVAC system, then we will have, I guess you could call it, a deductible of $65,000.”
The city originally proposed an amount of $75,000 before the CAPC countered, commissioners were told.
The others parts of the proposed agreement call for the CAPC to continue to pay building utilities, Maloney said.
“…The city provides the insurance for the building and the contents, and we provide basically for the upkeep,” he said. “For instances, our marquees, our cleaning and so forth.”
The CAPC will continue to get six parking spaces adjacent to the building.
“We will be the lessors of the building,” Maloney said. “….We’re occupying the building at the behest of the city and we get six parking spaces, and we show up every While the city has agreed to take care of any expense that costs more than $65,000, any “huge” expense will have to be approved by the city council and go through the required bid process.
“That’s really the essence of it,” Maloney said. “We realized that if it had to go back and forth and back and forth we might never get it done. Steve (Holifield, former CAPC chair) wanted to get it done. The mayor wanted to get it done, and I think we pushed ahead and probably as well as we can.”
Commissioners had questions about the agreement from the get-go.
Heather Wilson asked if the CAPC was pretty much stuck with whatever the city offered, and commissioner Coltan Scrivner questioned whether the agreement forced the city’s hand to handle the costs it agreed upon.
“Who makes the decision on whether or not something needs to be replaced?” Scrivner asked. “Is it the city or is it the CAPC? So, for example, let’s say we decide we need to replace an HVAC and it’s going to be $100,000. Does the city just have to cover the extra or can they come in and say: ‘No, we don’t think you need to replace that.’ Who has say in what counts as a renovation?”
Maloney replied: “…. The answer to the big question, what happens when push comes to shove? It’s 20 below zero, we’ve got an Aud show, then we’re going to have to go ahead and roll up our sleeves and get really aggressive with the city and say: ‘It’s a must must fix.’
“But are they bound contractually to do that if we just deem it a must fix?” Scrivner responded, with Maloney indicating yes.
“You know there is that possibility,” Maloney said. “We ran into it two years ago when the temperatures got really cold and we had lots of problems and we had the guys out here in the middle of the night working on it trying to get it warm. Hopefully we don’t have that expense again, but in analyzing our expenditures for last year we did not spend $65,000 on this building last year. So you know, there is a little bit of a comfort level that you know perhaps something will happen, we know, but we just don’t know when.”
Another topic that has been a focus of Wilson’s is the pay of CAPC staff. She acknowledged the staff recently got annual bonuses and cost of living raises, but said she felt the group also needed merit raises for their work throughout the year, mentioning that it culminated with the efforts to help put on the New Year’s Eve Bash With a Splash event.
While he said he appreciated the topic of merit increases for staff, Maloney suggested waiting until “June or July” when it is time for the CAPC to decide whether or not to renew his contract.
