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Wednesday, October 13, 1999
Columbus Fleet may ask Business Alliance for funds
By James A. Suydam
Caller-Times
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| John Kennedy/Caller-Times |
| Ruben Pena works on a scaffold as he prepares the Santa Maria for a new coar of paint. The Columbus Fleet Association has a plan to keep ships open for the next several months while it negotiates the ships' return to the Spanish government. |
Columbus Fleet officials didn't ask the city for money Tuesday to bail out the financially strapped tourist attraction.
Next stop for possible funding: the Greater Corpus Christi Business Alliance.
Columbus Fleet Association chairman Norman Wallace had planned to detail the fleet's financial problems and plans in a closed session with the City Council. But the city manager and city attorney said they were concerned that his presence in the closed session might be perceived as a violation of open meeting laws and wouldn't allow Wallace to present the information. Instead, city officials asked the fleet's attorney, John Bell, to give the presentation.
"We were going to present our figures to them. I was going to do that and talk to them in executive session and come and make a request in the open session but I was not permitted to stay to go to the executive session," Wallace said.
"At this point, I'm not ready to request anything from the city," he said.
"I had intended to ask if there was some way that they could help us with enough money to maintain the ships as we closed them down," he said.
The Columbus fleet is unable to meet operating costs such as paying staff, utilities and insurance. In addition, the association owes $2.9 million for the plaza constructed to display the ships and $1 million to Spain for the lease of the ships.
Wallace said he plans to ask the business alliance for $7,000 to $8,000 a month of the city's hotel-motel tax money for the next several months to keep the ship open for tours.
Laurie Cook, business alliance chairwoman, said she doesn't know where the alliance would get money for the ships.
"Everything is already budgeted," she said.
Wallace said the money he plans to request from the alliance would only be a temporary stay for the ships, though.
"The decision has been made to close down and negotiate with Spain about returning the ships," Wallace said. "If somebody came forth with enough money to take care of the debts and all that, we'd be interested and we would reconsider, but I don't think that's going to happen."
Wallace said he hopes to close the attraction down slowly, and use the proceeds from continuing tours to help pay for maintenance and insurance while officials negotiate the ships' return to Spain.
Wallace said that the fleet likely will be able to stay open for tourists until the end of October, but that the gift shop will close Friday and the fleet will no longer offer sailing classes. He had said previously that the ships would have to close Friday.
The fleet association board will vote Monday on the proposal for scaled-back operations, he said.
But as for funding from the city, it's in the hands of the alliance, Mayor Loyd Neal said.
Neal said the intent of the closed session briefing was not to hear a funding request, but to hear the financial status of the ships.
"There was no request made by the Columbus Association whatsoever," Neal said
Bell briefed the council on the association's budget, projected revenues, cost projections for operating at a reduced capacity and how long the ships would be able to operate on what they had.
Neal said the council's concern is what the city may pay if the fleet association defaults on its $2.9 million debt that resulted from the construction of the plaza near the Corpus Christi Museum of Science and History. If the association can't repay the debt, the hotel-motel tax-funded visitors bureau will have to pay $280,000 a year starting in 2001.
Neal said he asked the fleet association for a budget that would show what it would take to operate the fleet during the next few months and asked what it would cost to put one of the ships back in the water. He also asked association officials what their plans were.
"Their plans were that they are going to run out of money in two weeks," Neal said.
No date for the fleet's request from the alliance has been set. The alliance executive board will meet Tuesday, and the full board of the alliance will meet Oct. 26.
Staff writer James A. Suydam can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at suydamj@caller.com
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