Beware the Sales Pitch

Commentary

Pause. Re-wind. 

I thought you get input from your residents – you know them; they pay taxes and they vote – before you make a major financial decision like the proposed arena, not after you have crunched the numbers and pitched the project to City Council Members in front of the cameras and to reporters.

The arena deal has been public for three months.

Virginia Beach residents were caught flatfooted when the deal was proposed.

And the costs keep rising.

What timing.

The city has formed a Citizens Communications Committee “to assess residents’ opinions about the possibility of building a sports and entertainment facility near the Oceanfront.”

Aren’t you a little late?

 “We want to find out what citizens think about the potential for an arena that would attract major sports events and top-level entertainment to Virginia Beach,” said committee chair Linwood Branch on the city’s Web site.

If you want to know what they think, read the Comment section at Pilotonline.com below every arena deal article.

You would think these meetings would have been held before the proposed arena deal hit the presses.

 “This is the first in a series of conversations we will have with residents about this project,” Branch said. 

Meanwhile, the lawyers, the accountants, the consultants and the parties in the deal will be drawing up documents, crunching numbers and lobbying sports teams. 

Branch, by the way, is a member of the Virginia Beach Development Authority and an arena advocate.

The Development Authority, by the way, would issue the bonds to construct the arena.

The Authority's 11-member board approved the nearly $1 million for the surreptitious studies lending credence to an arena in Virginia Beach.

This is smoke and mirrors, pure and simple.

Do you think if most Virginia Beach residents opposed the arena deal Mayor Sessoms and nine City Council members would ditch the deal? (City Council Members John Moss and Bill DeSteph oppose the proposed deal.)

The group will hold a public forum on Tuesday, Dec. 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Virginia Beach Convention Center at 1000 19th St.  The meeting will be in Suite 1.