Before any bids have been received or ground broken, leadership of the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center project is changing.
The Brown County Maple Leaf Building Corp. accepted the resignation of vice president Bill Austin on April 2.
In an email to Brown County commissioner Diana Biddle on March 20, Austin cited other time commitments, but in a phone interview with The Democrat on April 4, he brought up concerns about transparency.
Austin said that having an independent review of the county-owned concert hall project before bids to build it are opened “makes sense.”
“There’s insufficient transparency, and too much dependence on one person, and a lack of oversight. I don’t want my name to be included as being the oversight when I am not,” Austin said.
“I was supportive, and am supportive if it’s done right.”
Three main groups are involved in the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center project: the Maple Leaf Management Group, the Maple Leaf Building Corp. and the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission.
The building corporation, which Austin served as vice president, is responsible for holding the mortgage and leasing the building back to the county. This is done so as not to affect the county’s bonding limit.
Robyn Bowman is president of the building corporation. Mike Laros has now been moved to vice president and Susanne Gaudin has been appointed to replace Austin and serve as secretary/treasurer.
“We are enthusiastic and excited about the future of Maple Leaf. As a board we look forward to helping reach the goals set by this team of talented and forward thinking volunteers,” Bowman said in a statement on behalf of the building corporation on April 12.
She would not comment when asked to address the issues Austin brought up, such as transparency and oversight.
In an email circulated among Maple Leaf planners in mid-March, Bowman had called the building corporation “a seen but not heard board.”
When asked April 20 what she meant by that, she said that the building corporation doesn’t have the powers that the management group does; its purpose is primarily as a “holding corporation.”
Another leadership change came at the April 10 Maple Leaf Management Group meeting. President Kevin Ault suggested that he and Barry Herring split the president job. Ault was originally selected as president and Herring was as treasurer. “I would handle the administrative side, meetings and things like that. Barry will take the project, handle the construction and the finance,” Ault said.
That change was approved unanimously. The management group also agreed to make secretary/assistant treasurer Dena Patrick the sole secretary/treasurer for the group.
Ault said in a CVC meeting April 12 that being the sole president was “more than I could handle based on my current workload.” Ault owns and runs Hotel Nashville along with Seasons Lodge and Conference Center, and he also is short on hotel staff.
On March 16, Herring had resigned from the Maple Leaf Management Group, but then rescinded his resignation three days later.
Herring is one of the originators of this project. The idea to build a concert hall and fund it with innkeepers tax came to him early last year, he said.
In a March 14 email circulated among Herring and other Maple Leaf volunteers, Herring expressed his feelings about being asked to “take a back seat” on the project. But on March 23, he said his resignation had nothing to do with him not being selected as president of the board in the first place; it was about the strain he was feeling at the time. The work for the Maple Leaf was getting to be too much on top of his ownership responsibilities at the Brown County Inn, and when he was offered more help on both fronts, he decided to go back on the management board, he said.
“People were encouraging me to slow down, and I didn’t listen to them when I should have,” Herring said April 20 about the emails. “I am better now, though. After a procedure, I feel 1,000 percent better.”
In Austin’s resignation letter, he wrote that he had only attended a few of the project meetings, but that he “saw that those involved were enthusiastic to do something extraordinary” and that everyone should be “commended for that spirit.”
“It is an exciting project with the possibility of dramatically changing the future of the county,” Austin wrote.
Bids from contractors to build the Maple Leaf are to be opened during a Brown County Commissioners meeting, at 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 2. That’s when project leaders will know whether or not their cost estimates have been on target and whether or not the venue can be built as planned.
Transparency?
At the April 4 commissioners meeting, resident Sherrie Mitchell also brought up concerns about transparency.
She asked if it was possible to look at the finances for the Maple Leaf Management Group, since she had been unable to get financial documents from the Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The CVB is a nonprofit entity which contracts with the Brown County Convention and Visitors Commission to use 95 percent of innkeepers tax to market Brown County.
Innkeepers tax has been pledged as a backup revenue source for the 2,000-seat, government-owned Maple Leaf venue if it does not make enough in profits to cover mortgage payments.
“I have been denied information previously. What do I do about that?” Mitchell asked.
Biddle and German said that financial information for the Maple Leaf, including how money has been spent so far from a bank loan, could be found in the closing documents for the loans. The county took out two promissory notes totaling $12.5 million in order to build the Maple Leaf.
Late last year, the Brown County Council approved an additional appropriation of $300,000 in innkeepers tax for use by the CVC. Ault said $200,000 was to help fund the construction of the new Visitors Center downtown and the remaining $100,000 was set aside for Maple Leaf expenses until the loans closed.
Depending on how bids for the Maple Leaf project come in, Herring said the Maple Leaf may be able to reimburse the CVC for any money it spends on the Maple Leaf through the loan.
Ault said the CVC also could be reimbursed once the facility is open and in business. He said that’s in the Maple Leaf administration agreement, which was expected to be approved by the management group April 24.
A copy of that agreement could not be obtained by deadline.
“We (the management group) are bound to communicate to the CVC, but the CVC can’t tell us what to do. Within our documentation, our administration agreement, it tells we have certain reporting,” Herring said.
Oversight?
Brown County Council President Keith Baker has asked the CVC to start making quarterly reports to the council about what it has spent from innkeepers tax revenue. Innkeepers tax revenue comes from hotel, inn and tourist rental stays.
In December, Mitchell had asked the council about withholding a portion of the innkeepers tax to make sure there was enough of it to cover Maple Leaf loan payments, operating expenses and the CVB’s budget.
“I want them at the microphone explaining what they’ve spent money on” each quarter, “so the council can tell people, ‘Yes, we are keeping on an eye that,’” Baker said. “I don’t think we have ever in the past, but things have come to light. There’s a lot of attention to it.”
At the April council meeting, Baker asked Ault about why innkeepers tax revenue had gone up compared to previous winter months. Ault said that’s because people want to come visit Brown County when it snows. This spring snow, however, may result in lower innkeepers tax numbers for March, he said.
Ault also said more rental cabins have been created and a few additional hotel rooms added since 2007, which may be another reason for the increases.
Baker asked Ault about how innkeepers tax is collected. Property owners turn those forms into the treasurer office, Ault said.
He also asked what system is in place to track those who are not reporting the innkeepers tax collections on time. “They know who should be reporting, and if they are not reporting, then they go after them. They have the same teeth that the State Department of Revenue does,” Ault said of the county treasurer’s office.
Baker asked when the innkeepers tax was audited last, and Brown County Auditor Beth Mulry said it was in 2014. However, Ault said the CVB is audited every year. Former council President Dave Critser said the council had not looked at those CVB audits before.
Ault said council members could see the audits if they wished.
Mitchell said it’s important to know where the innkeepers tax is going exactly, since it is taxpayer dollars.
Baker, commissioner Diana Biddle and commissioner Jerry Pittman all said they do not view the innkeepers tax as local taxpayer dollars.
“The county doesn’t control those dollars; the CVC controls those dollars. … Those are dollars collected by the tourists for use by the CVC to market tourism and Brown County. … It’s not a county deal, or I would be grabbing it and using it for the roads,” Baker said.
Mitchell also questioned how the CVC can submit a one-line budget of $750,000 for approval to the county council without any other information. “How do you know they are following the rules and spending the money on marketing if you don’t look at their money?” she said of the CVC’s budget the council approves each year.
“We do look at their budget to see how much is in marketing, how much is in salaries,” Baker said.
Mitchell said that as a private citizen, she didn’t have the ability to review any of those budgets. “I just feel like there’s a huge transparency (issue) here, and how do I get what I am looking for?” she asked.
Baker said he would look into getting copies of those budgets from the CVC for her.
County Attorney Jake German said along with financial oversight from the county council, there is also legal oversight for the innkeepers tax because if that money is found to be mismanaged, it can be prosecuted. “Public mismanagement of funds in any scenario is a crime that’s turned over to the prosecutor,” he said.
Public discussion?
CVC secretary Derek Clifford asked at the April 12 CVC meeting who had oversight of the Maple Leaf Management Group in case the group takes “a step too far” when making decisions about the project on its own.
“The (county) commissioners, at any point in time, can remove any of us (from the CVC),” Herring said. “If we get removed from this board, then we are automatically removed from the management group.”
Ault and Herring both said that the council and the commissioners have “ultimate control over the management group.”
Clifford told the other CVC members that he wanted to see all other questions about the Maple Leaf project asked and answered in public. He said he felt he’d done the CVC “a little bit of an injustice” by reaching out to members personally.
“If you look back through the CVC, in the minutes, there wasn’t a lot of discussion of details on this project. I think it’s because we all know each other so well that if we have a question or an issue, we just call them up and ask,” he said.
Clifford said it is important for commission members to ask any questions they have in public meetings.
“That’s why we’re (the management group) having two public meetings a month instead of one. Every other week, we’re going to have a public meeting. Anyone can attend and ask any questions,” Herring said.
Clifford said he was “100 percent for the project,” but he felt that Maple Leaf project updates should have come before the CVC as well.
“It wasn’t even thought of this commission should see the plans,” he said. “There is a certain level of, I hate to keep using that word but, respect this commission should have by presenting those plans and presenting information. … It’s not an ego thing, I don’t think; it’s a position that we were put in by accepting an appointment of sitting on this board.”
Ault said he agreed.
“I think you’re right. We need to keep this group (the CVC) updated as to what’s going on. At any given point, this group, because there’s two of us on there (the Maple Leaf Management Group), the other three of you (CVC members) have the right to vote us out as appointees,” Ault said.
Profits?
Where any Maple Leaf profits will go was discussed at the League of Women Voters’ candidate forum April 11.
Moderator Julie Winn asked if it was fair that profits from the Maple Leaf would go to a non-elected private group, the Brown County Community Foundation, for disbursement.
Biddle, a Republican seeking reelection, said the original concept behind distributing profits was to return them to the community.
“That venue is not going to generate property taxes, so one of the things we wanted to do was to make sure we were not being burdensome to town law enforcement, the county law enforcement,” she said.
The community foundation was chosen to eventually receive profits “to give everybody a fair shot at applying for grants from those funds,” she said.
The administration agreement for the Maple Leaf Management Group says that first, profits would go back to the CVC for any money spent from the innkeepers tax on the Maple Leaf, Herring said. “Basically it says where the profit goes, like to the community foundation,” he said.
Republican commissioner candidate Ron Sanders said he would like to see the county sell the music venue after it is built to create “a pool of money” that can be used for law enforcement and other county needs.
“You don’t give up $2 million (which was what it cost to buy the Maple Leaf land). That’s county money. I’ll take care of that if I am elected and I can work with the people,” he said.
“If you do it right, you sell it, you put it on the tax rolls. That’s giving the county a pool of money and prove to them you did a successful deal.”
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The Brown County Maple Leaf Management Group Inc. will now meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 2:30 p.m. in the Salmon Room of the County Office Building, at Gould Street and Locust Lane.
The group’s first meeting in May was scheduled for May 8, which is Election Day. That meeting was rescheduled to May 9 at 2:30 p.m. in the same location.
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Several groups have been involved in the process of building the Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center, a 2,000-seat indoor performance venue slated to be built on 13 acres of Snyder Farm behind Brown County Health & Living Community.
BROWN COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
What they do: As the executive, elected body in charge of business in Brown County, the county commissioners authorize and approve various documents relating to the Maple Leaf. They will award bids for the construction of the venue. They also entered into a contract to finance the venue with the Maple Leaf Building Corporation.
Members: Dave Anderson, Diana Biddle and Jerry Pittman. All are elected by voters.
BROWN COUNTY COUNCIL
What they do: As the elected body in charge of Brown County finances, the county council authorized the county commissioners to enter into a contract to finance the Maple Leaf.
Members: Keith Baker, Darren Byrd, David Critser, Debra Guffey, Arthur Knight, John Price and Glenda Stogsdill. All are elected by voters.
BROWN COUNTY CONVENTION AND VISITORS COMMISSION
What they do: Members are responsible for managing the innkeepers tax, which comes from overnight lodging rentals. The commission approved a resolution “irrevocably” pledging certain innkeepers tax revenues toward loan payments for the Maple Leaf.
Members: Kevin Ault, Derek Clifford, Patty Frensemeier, Barry Herring and Mike Patrick. Ault, Frensemeier and Patrick were appointed by the county council. Clifford and Herring were appointed by the county commissioners.
MAPLE LEAF BUILDING CORPORATION
What they do: Building corporation volunteers signed for the loan and purchased the land as an agent of the commissioners.
Members: Robyn Bowman, Susanne Gaudin and Mike Laros
MAPLE LEAF MANAGEMENT GROUP
What they do: Members and committees within the management group are responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operations of the music venue, including construction, marketing and staffing.
Members: Kevin Ault, Diana Biddle, Darren Byrd, Bruce Gould, Barry Herring, Dena Patrick and Jim Schultz. Ault and Herring were appointed by the CVC; Biddle was appointed by the commissioners; Byrd was appointed by the council; Gould was appointed by the Convention and Visitors Bureau Board of Directors; Patrick and Schultz are two at-large members who were appointed by the group.
BROWN COUNTY CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU BOARD OF DIRECTORS
What they do: Volunteers oversee the work of the CVB and monitor tourism as an economic driver. The board will act as a sister board to the Management Group and reports to the CVC.
Members: Debbie Bartes, Doug Baird, Vickie Blake, Jane Ellis, Carol Fitzgerald, Bruce Gould, Missy Myers, Scott Rudd, Penny Scroggins and Susan Spagnuolo. All are appointed.
MAPLE LEAF AD HOC COMMITTEE
What they do: It is unclear when this group formed, but its existence became public in the summer of 2017. The group began meeting to discuss the possibility of building the Maple Leaf, and created a plan to finance and build the venue before making a public announcement at the Brown County Playhouse in June.
Members: Bruce Gould, Kevin Ault, Diana Biddle, Doug Harden, Barry Herring, Jim Schultz and Wayne O’Hara (agent for the Snyder Farm land where the venue is to be built).
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The following is a rundown of money spent on Maple Leaf Performing Arts Center as of Feb. 8:
Land purchase: $2,049,663.01
Signage: $1,000
Auditorium lighting, dimming and controls: $7,250
Professional fees: $174,872.98
Title/survey/appraisal: $39,025
Environmental/soils test: $10,700
Architect fees: $91,165
Sound engineer: $22,300
Closing costs: $7,222.59
Financial adviser and bank fee: $122,227.91
Interest carry: $7,156.63
TOTAL: $2,532,583.12
Source: The $3.5 million Brown County Maple Leaf Building Corp. First Mortgage note
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