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The next big thing multi-complex sports facility

Something I have noticed, observing city politics over the years, is that every few years, a big new city-funded project comes along—a DECC expansion (1998), the Great Lakes Aquarium (2000), AMSOIL Arena (2007), a new police station (2009), the Grand Avenue Chalet (2012), Spirit Mountain’s water pipeline (2015). What is strange is that these projects seem to have no relation to the actual fiscal state of the city. In 2009, in the depths of the city’s worst financial crisis in recent memory, we continued our steady march forward by building the new police station. In 2012, struggling to cope with a general fund budget that was $5 million lower than it had been three years earlier ($75 million, down from $80 million), we built the Grand Avenue Chalet.

In the last two decades, only one large project that was initially pursued failed to be built: The proposed Kroc Center recreational complex that Mayor Bergson wanted to build in Wheeler Park in 2007. That project failed to secure approval from the Kroc Foundation, which would have funded a big part of it. Nevertheless, the city was ready to plunk down more than $7 million of city money for the complex, and would have happily done so had things gone their way. This was at a time when the city was grappling with a $300 million unfunded healthcare liability—and, indeed, when the Kroc proposal fell through, the $7 million, one month later, went to pay for retiree healthcare.

Why this endless need to build? There are many reasons. For one thing, there are certain groups of people, such as the Building and Construction Trades Union, who always support building new things, because their livelihoods depend on it. The building trades have an influence on City Hall; their support or non-support of candidates can make a difference during elections. Mayors and city councilors are always eager to stay in their good graces.

Another group that always supports building new things is the tourism industry. Most of the projects I’ve mentioned are tourism projects, funded, in whole or in part, by tourism taxes. The tourism industry considers it crucial that the city build new tourism projects without end, so that Duluth’s image will remain fresh and interesting in tourists’ heads. If one examines the key boosters behind many of these projects, one always finds members of the tourism industry—often the same people who were involved in previous projects. They, too, have an influence on City Hall.

Then there are the citizens themselves. I have been surprised to find that there are a lot of people in town who view new construction, in and of itself, to be a sign of progress. The finances of a project don’t matter, nor does a project’s practicality; the simple act of placing one brick atop another, to some people, means the city is improving. Many elected officials seem to share this view.

Of course, there are also people who oppose projects (often referred to as “naysayers”), but their voices tend to be scattered and individual; rarely does an organized group rise up in opposition to anything. And so the projects march on, through good times and bad, adding ever more infrastructure and ongoing maintenance costs to the city’s responsibilities.

The reason I bring this up is that the pattern seems to have been disrupted a bit. For over a year, while Spirit Mountain’s pipeline was being planned and built, the city was rolling full steam ahead toward the next big project: a new library. But then, in May, the mayor called a halt to planning for the library (likely inspired, as I have speculated before, by The Reader’s exposes on the subject). Since then, I have been keeping my ears open for hints of what new project might take its place in line.

One possible answer came at the Parks Commission meeting held on December 9, 2015. Anne Hamann, a representative of Visit Duluth, gave a presentation to commissioners. Visit Duluth is the nonprofit tourism bureau that promotes and markets the city to the world. Ms. Hamann told commissioners that Visit Duluth, responding to increased demand, had begun to devote more resources to promoting the city as a sports destination. In April, Hamann formed a “Sports Council” composed of local citizens and stakeholders interested in this goal. At their monthly meetings, Hamann said, the single biggest topic that came up again and again was the need for a new “multi-complex sports facility” in the city that could host various types of tournaments year-round.

So far, the idea is just an idea. But it’s the type of idea that Duluth seems to love—a big new thing, supported by the tourism industry, costing millions of dollars. As a matter of fact, it sounds just like the ill-fated Kroc Center.

Hamann said that Visit Duluth wanted to hire a consultant to advise them on possible funding sources and locations for such a facility, but that the consultant’s $28,000 price tag was too steep for Visit Duluth’s budget. They had a request in to the city to use excess tourism tax to pay for the report, but so far they had not heard anything back.

In response to questions from commissioners, Jim Filby Williams, the city’s director of public administration, said, “I think that the community-wide need and demand for a multipurpose, fully enclosed, year-round field house is unmistakable. I think what is also unmistakable is that the cost of a field house…far exceeds the capacity of the city of Duluth alone to finance….We see that there will need to be a broader community-wide effort to make this so…If this moves forward, as it seems to be doing, then the city will be a strong partner is expressing our values and looking at our assets as a part of the solution.”

There was one big reason that Filby Williams felt the field house project might move forward. “As our city faces an ongoing challenge with relatively flush tourism tax proceeds and relatively lean general fund resources to meet the needs of regular Duluthians, there will be an increasing premium on finding ways to utilize tourism tax proceeds in a manner that meets not only the highest interests and wants of tourists, but also meets the highest interests and wants of residents.” A field house, he thought, would do that. “There’s a profound overlap, and we want to live in that overlap.”
For now, no studies have been done and no formal proposals have been made. But you can bet people are thinking about it.

New trail crew, roving park workers

As Filby Williams’s comments suggested, the city is looking hungrily to the tourism tax to help bolster its coffers. In 2016, for the first time, the city will be taking $200,000 from the tourism tax fund to help defray the expenses of maintaining what Filby Williams called the “centerpiece tourism engines in our park system: the Lakewalk, Park Point, et cetera.” This move is long overdue, and will free up money in the parks maintenance budget that can be used for other things. The $200,000 accounts for part of an overall $500,000 increase in parks maintenance that Mayor Ness has established for 2016.

At the December 9 Parks Commission meeting, building and grounds supervisor Dale Sellner updated commissioners on his plans for the additional half a million dollars.

“This year…I get to actually send out a trail crew to work on trails,” Sellner said, “—trail improvements, trail repair, trail construction, and so on.” He planned to hire one new maintenance operations lead worker, one new park maintenance worker, and several temporary seasonal workers. “This initiative is going to allow us to get our trails in the type of condition that we need to have them in so they’re more sustainable in terms of maintenance.”

Sellner also planned to hire a seasonal roving crew to maintain sports fields at community parks throughout the city, which have been neglected in recent years. “Basically [they will] go from east to west and groom the ball fields, take care of the turf, fix the bases, and so on….This is going to be able to provide us with dedicated labor, seasonal and temporary employees, to do that type of work. We’ve got the equipment to do it, [but] we just had to have bodies and…the funding to do it.”

Finally, Sellner said, he would establish a roving maintenance crew to address other “needs and wants within the small community parks. We’ll be cleaning things up, getting the weeds out of the sand in those playgrounds. There’ll be more garbage pickup, graffiti repair, and so on.”

All of which sounds great. One reason the city’s smaller parks and fields are neglected is that the city has always devoted resources to maintain the centerpiece tourist attractions first, which draws money away from the rest of the city. Hopefully the city will continue to reimburse itself from the tourism tax fund in the future—$200,000 is a good start, but an excellent case can be made for more. Considering that supporting tourism’s pet attractions has left us with years of backed-up maintenance elsewhere, I think $2 million would be a very reasonable figure.