Henderson County BOC meeting about FRP: All shook up

From the Hendersonville Lightning:

Here are excerpts from public debate, comments and interviews by the Hendersonville Lightning about the Flat Rock Playhouse and proposed occupancy tax.

County commissioners discussed the proposed 1-cent hotel tax increase on July 18 but took no action. [Ed. - it is a 1 percent, not a 1-cent, increase (and a 20% tax rate increase, from 5% to 6%)] Commissioners set a public meeting on Aug. 8 at 1 p.m. to take up the issue again.

Public comment (from the July 18 Henderson County BOC meeting)

Steve Carlisle (former Playhouse actor, theater professor at Western Carolina University): The primary responsibility of any board of trustees is a fiduciary responsibility of financial success. In 2005 the theater had a surplus, and then they had this board of trustees come in, and we know that they have lost $1.4 million in 2010, and we haven't seen the numbers for 2011. But the (IRS form) 990 for 2011 should be out in about a month and that should tell us whether they've been successful in their business practices or not. And what are those business practices? Here we go into a recession in 2008, or 2005, and they raise ticket praises, they raise salaries of employees, they hire more year-round employees, they open a satellite theater downtown, during a recession and are now in discussions about opening another theater in North Myrtle Beach, S.C. I see nothing wrong with making money in theater; for 57 years Mr. Farquhar did that. He did it by putting on the kind of entertainment that the people wanted to see at a ticket price that people wanted to pay. If you don't have a good product and you don't have it at a good price it's not right for the taxpayers of Henderson County to have to pay for that, or the tourists that come here.

Vincent Marini, Playhouse director: It's not fair, we agree, to pass a tax when we haven't had the opportunity to present an honest straightforward plan to you or to the other people that the tax affects. The inns and the hotels are some our greatest partners in this community. We support everything that they do. And we believe that with the right information, and by telling them how we're going to use these funds to help everyone in the community we think we can develop a sense of consensus around this. I think it's very important you give us the time to show you how these funds are going to be expended and also to show the inns and hotels what that tax would go for and how it would benefit them.

Commissioners debate

Chairman Tommy Thompson: There's been all kinds of statements that have been made, none of which have been totally and completely in my opinion verified either way. It would be for the sole purpose of a forum, not for the public but for the Playhouse and its management, its tax people, its attorney, the chairman of the board, and this board have a forum, and that's hash all this out and let's air all this information and make sure we understand what the status of these things are.

Larry Young: I have been doing a lot of homework on this. When I was with General Motors they taught me how to do a double entry financial statement. I can show you a lot of things in these that says it's bad business management, and one is raising salaries... When you go into this bad economy, you have to cut your expenses, they have increased their expenses drastically. One of the things is Mr. Marini's salary. It went from 2009 at $44,000 in 2010, to $103,000.

Vincent Marini (from the back of the room): That's not accurate. I wasn't here.

[The $44,000 figure Young cited was four months salary.]

Young: They're gonna take our occupancy tax money and take it to North Myrtle Beach for the Playhouse down there. How you going to separate that? I'm bringing information that needs to be out to the public. ...

Read it all. The August 8 meeting should be fun.