BC to weigh new fee to stem white elephant red ink

If at first you don’t succeed, knock seven dollars off the price and call it something different to stem the red ink from the white elephant known now as the Brookshire Grocery Arena.

Just over three years ago, ASM Global, the management company decided it would institute a $12 parking fee at Bossier City’s arena, where $2 would go to the company handling the parking through a cashless system and the other $10 would be split evenly between ASM for operations and the city for capital expenditures. As if to highlight the city’s acceptance of the deal, at the next City Council meeting discussion about taking $350,000 out of the 2017 LCDA Bond Fund to buy a new generator for the facility focused on how the new bounty would offset such costs, particularly as the arena has lost money since its inception 25 years ago, over $10 million cumulatively.

That idea went over like a lead balloon. Almost as suddenly as it had appeared it quickly disappeared. But the problem remained. Despite barely making money for only the third time in its history in 2024, not only does the facility continue to hemorrhage funds generally, but also this is on top of capital improvements being made. The 2022 dip into the 2017 LCDA bond fund actually came as part of a one-time effort to perform capital improvements. Over the past several years, over $15 million has gone to that purpose, with a typical budget of $250,000 each year reserved out of the Hotel/Motel Taxes Fund from occupancy and related sales taxes for this purpose.

So now the city has decided to take the lead and put permanence into squeezing money out of arena users. At this week’s Council meeting, as part of extending the agreement with ASM Global – “we don’t shop” seems to apply here despite recent rhetoric that the city do more of it with its contracting – another five years, the ordinance from the Republican Mayor Tommy Chandler Administration proposes to levy a “Restoration and Transportation fee” that slaps a $5 surcharge onto every sold ticket to an event (although up to 250 exceptions can be made). Of that, ASM keep a buck and the rest goes to the city for capital improvements.

Thus, insult is added to injury, at least for Bossier Citians who attend paid events. More of their dollars now will go maintaining the money pit that sucks in their tax dollars and to fund its operations, as the added buck merely offsets what would have been contributed from elsewhere in the budget. It does have the virtue of injecting more out-of-towner dollars into paying for capital improvements and potentially mitigating an operating loss, and makes for better governing in that users foot a greater share of the bill relative to taxpayers who don’t avail themselves.

Still, given the losses the city’s first option should have been a sale. The next option should have been opening up the contract (signed after 2021 elections but before the new mayor Chandler was inaugurated) for competitive bidding. That could have led to a reduction in managerial costs, which are in the quarter-million dollar range that ASM gets regardless whether it puts on a single event, that could pare or reverse losses.

Or, maybe not if the ordinance passes unmolested, which also extends the agreement through 2030. If so, it addresses a deep wound with a superficial bandage and kicks the can down the road in dealing with a nonperforming asset.