|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Imagine a small East Coast city — say about 100,000 people — beautifully situated along the sea, and home to an iconic chapter of American history. Imagine this city had in its downtown a first-class, 100-year-old theater building owned by the city government.
Now imagine that as the result of the presence of a first-class, nonprofit performing arts center that ran that theater, and took care of the building, the city was about to rebuild the 101-year-old structure. Imagine that, astonishingly, the overwhelming majority of the bill was going to be paid from sources other than city taxpayers.
The state and federal governments, in the interest of helping with the revival of urban communities, had agreed to pay $21 million towards the reconstruction. Some $12 million was going to come from once-in-a-lifetime pandemic relief funds, and an additional $9 million from historic preservation tax credits. Roughly $750,000 would be paid by the city floating capital improvement bonds.
Architectural renderings depict the Zeiterion after renovations.
Even more impressive, the performing arts company had also raised, on its own, an additional $11 million from private philanthropy — individual donors and foundations. It hopes to raise an additional $4 million, split between private donations (75%) and state government (25%), to complete the $37 million cost.
The result was to be a state-of-the-art renovation of a magical 1,200-seat theater first built in 1923 to house vaudeville acts. It would include a completely rebuilt stage and orchestra pit, new seating, offices, two lounges and classroom space for the community.
Now this revived theater, under the guidance of its performing arts company, had been beloved in the community for more than 40 years. Among the national acts that had performed there over the decades were Alvin Ailey, Arlo Guthrie, Brian Wilson, David Byrne, Yo-Yo Ma, Brian O’Donovan’s Celtic Christmas and the Martha Graham dance troupe.
A local speakers’ series, the Lyceum, had brought renowned public figures to the theater, like Watergate reporter Bob Woodward and feminist leader Gloria Steinem. And every year, the local symphony orchestra and musical theater performed at the venue for extended dates.
The performing arts company’s own study estimated that this theater company, and its associated entertainment partners, spend more than $10.2 million a year in the region, and are responsible for 338 jobs serving 70,000 patrons. Some $3.6 million was estimated to be spent by visitors to the theater.
In return for the $37 million rebuild, and the annual $10 million poured into the local economy, the city taxpayers were asked to annually provide for the next seven years, just short of $500,000 to the theater company that runs the building. The money was for its operating costs, along with annual cost-of-living increases after the third year.
That $500,000 was a hefty $300,000 increase from the nonprofit group’s previous contract with the city. Which sounded like a very big jump until you realized that the previous contract never fully paid for the cost of the operation, and that the theater would be closed for several years while the renovation took place. In addition, the theater group had agreed to take over utilities and insurance costs previously shouldered by the city, worth between $150,000 to $175,000 a year.
Plus, under the 99-year lease required for loans, the Zeiterion Theater Inc. has taken over all responsibility for upkeep of the building.
It’s important to know that just before the theater closed, it had also lost many performances to the pandemic the previous two years. The same nonprofit group, while the theater was dark, still had to oversee the costs of the planned rebuild, and also to continue some performances at other, temporary locales.
Oh, and the previous contract had included no annual cost-of-living increases in an era of high inflation. The theater group was doing business in the midst of an era of sharp operating challenges.
The reason for the city’s contribution to the operating costs were these: The people providing the tens of millions of dollars understandably wanted assurances that the operation would be fiscally solvent and continue to bring the same nationally-known musicians, theatrical performers and speakers that it had always done for decades.
Keep in mind that fine art theaters in smaller cities run by nonprofit groups are rarely money-making operations, and especially after the pandemic. They often need subsidies.
Municipally-owned, but privately operated theaters are not particularly different from other privately operated city services. Let me think. A zoo, an art museum, golf course, airport, even a privatized trash pickup or wastewater service come to mind. Come to think of it, this city performing arts center was a little like a public charter school. It was privately run but funded in part by the taxpayers.
By now, you know that the imaginary East Coast city I’m talking about is none other than our own New Bedford, Massachusetts.
New Bedford is the iconic American city whose whaling industry played such a legendary role in both the nation’s economic and cultural history. New Bedford is the city with the wonderful downtown theater built for vaudeville by the Zeitz brothers in 1922.
Work crews are busy remaking the historic theater.
New Bedford is also the enterprising place whose long-standing performing arts company has put together an innovative and imaginative plan to rebuild this historic theater that has done so much for the quality of life of city residents.
The city of New Bedford, of course, runs or subsidizes in one way or another, pays the bill for all sorts of municipal services that I just mentioned: The zoo, the golf course, the art museum, the charter schools, the curbside trash pickup service. Yes, it does a lot of things most suburban communities do not do. With a large number of working families with little discretionary income, I’d say that’s a good thing.
If you have heartburn about the $495,000 bill for the operating costs of the Zeiterion, consider the following: According to the annual city budget book, the increase to the cost of New Bedford zoological services in the last fiscal year (Fiscal Year 2023 to Fiscal Year 2024) went from $1.1 million to $1.4 million. The cost of curbside trash pickup went from $5.4 million to $8.6 million. The cost of the city’s three charter schools went from $26.6 million to $31.9 million. And the cost of health insurance for city employees and retirees went from $15.8 million to $21.5 million.
The cost of running the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center went from $210,000 to $495,000. Sounds like a bargain.
The majority of the City Council know a bargain when they see one and voted 8-3 on Sept. 26 to approve the support agreement for the The Z.
But not before several councilors convinced the majority to eliminate the cost-of-living increases.
Councilors Shawn Oliver and Linda Morad argued that the cost-of-living increases would set a precedent not available to city unions, and Morad stated that supporting a theater is simply not the purpose of government.
Those are legitimate philosophical positions, although it’s worth noting that the state of Massachusetts has long allowed retired city employees to receive up to a 3% cost-of-living increase on part of their retirement benefit. The state law only allows local retirement systems to opt out of the Public Employees Retirement Commission’s cost-of-living increase (COLAs) if the local system’s funding schedule is in danger. In 24 of the last 25 years, New Bedford has raised the retiree COLA 3%.
In the wake of arguments from Morad and Oliver, Councilors Derek Baptiste, Joe Lopes, Naomi Carney and Ryan Pereira reversed their previous votes in favor of a modest 1% and 1.5% cost-of-living hike and eliminated it entirely.
Councilors Morad and Oliver proceeded to vote against the $495,000 subsidy anyway. As did Ward 2 Councilor Maria Giesta, a councilor who over the last several years has voted for a combination of city, state and federal grants for the rebuilding of a different theater as an economic development center and housing in her own ward.
I asked Councilor Giesta, who chairs the Property Committee and did not comment during the council’s public deliberations, about her vote but she declined comment.
For her part, Zeiterion executive director Rosemary Gill rebutted the argument that government should not be funding the operation of a theater.
At a key Property Committee, she pointed out that the theater group has been running the building as well as sponsoring visiting acts for many years, and said that if it did not receive payment for caring for, and operating the building, they would have to switch to just renting it from the city for certain dates, as other companies do.
Gill also made it clear she does not think the majority of the public shares the philosophy that running a theater is not a purpose of government.
“I just want to make sure you understand the repercussions because The Z has a tremendous amount of support from our community,” she told the councilors. “And they would be very interested in the wellbeing of not only the building, but in our organization.”
All the councilors, of course, talked about how much they loved The Z and personally support the arts. But some evidently didn’t see the money spent on this rebuild as a good deal for the city. I’m not sure what they thought of the theater group’s economic impact arguments because they were not a big topic of discussion on the council floor.
Those are the facts as I know them.
For myself, I’m looking forward to late 2025 or early 2026 when the Zeiterion hopes to reopen its grand doors again to the people of Greater New Bedford.
Jack Spillane is a New Bedford Light columnist. Email him at jspillane@newbedfordlight.org.
Editor’s note: This column was modified on Oct. 16, 2024, to correct a portion of the source of the final $4 million that the Zeiterion Theater Inc. intends to raise for the $37 million renovation of the Zeiterion Performing Arts Center. An estimated 25% of the final $4 million will come from state government, according to Z officials. The column was modified on Oct. 17, 2024, to more clearly explain the circumstances under which up to 3% annual cost-of-living increases are granted to city employee retirees.
Great reporting. The Z is a gem. A wonderful venue. We have seen many great performers and performances there.
Jack Spillane got this one exactly right! The Z is a bargain deal for which most small cities would stand in line to sign on the dotted line. The city was so fortunate that a variety of federal, state, and private capital support became available (in a rare and lucky way) to take this iconic building long into the future in a first class way. Now the city needs to step forward and commit to operating cost backing that completes the package. At some point the governing bodies of the city need to acknowledge that “real dollars” are needed, which translates to some form of inflation indexing.
I will always support the arts, so to get such a great theatre for such a low cost to the city is amazing! The councilors who pushed so hard against the lease (always the usual suspects) should be voted out, especially Morad who was downright nasty and intentionally obtuse for the entire process.
Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.