US Cellular wants its name on the Asheville Civic Center, and it will pay up to $1.3 million to do so. Some citizens are upset over a deal that shut out the public and potential competitors.
[Mayor Terry] Bellamy said the $810,000 investment from U.S. Cellular is equivalent to a a [sic.] 2-cent hike in city property taxes. “This is huge. This says to our community that we are not going to raise your taxes to go into infrastructure at the Civic Center.”
The mayor is partially correct. It tells our community the city will raise US Cellular users’ rates to “go into infrastructure.” Councilman Cecil Bothwell, however, believes there is an order of magnitude error in the calculation of the equivalent tax rate, but that shouldn’t make a diff to anybody caught up in the energy. I digress.
Prodded by the Civic Center Task Force, the city has embarked on a $5.45 million renovation program.
Civic Center enthusiast Dennis Justice recalls the Civic Center was ten years ago deemed in need of $70-105 million in repairs. But that’s OK. Governments often encounter unforeseen overruns, and money can be shoveled out of essential service appropriations to cover them, leaving the taxpayers – or maybe Verizon customers next time – wide open for a tax increase.
