Financial Woes and Ill Will Plague Spaceport by Ariel Dougherty and Sophia Peron Recently, the Truth or Consequences Herald touted “the city, along with the rest of Sierra County, wants and needs its Spaceport Visitors Welcome Center. Not all citizens are in concert with this move, the chosen site, and that Sierra County, and New Mexico taxpayers are required – without any public input – to secure a loan of $6.5M, immediately. Many people have serious questions about going ahead with this unproven, ever growing behemoth project rapidly approaching a quarter of a billion dollars! The proposed Truth or Consequences Visitors Welcome Center, is a glorified 4500 sq. ft. bus station, with a five acre parking lot, operating to benefit one company, Follow the Sun Tours. Taxpayers are being forced to pay a high inflationary price for six acre site in an ill-conceived, behind the times retail center. The T or C “Welcome” Center is NOT a Visitor “Experience” Center! The “Experience” Centers designers, Floridas Idea Group of Disneys Epcot Center, has been paid over $9.2M for exhibits and what-not for these non-existent Centers! Over the next five years Spaceport projects revenue of about $7.5M from tourism, including in the Visitors “Experience” Center, hoping for 128,600 visitors. Fact is: the NMSA is in trouble. “Weve used up the money that had been allocated to build a visitors center in operating the spaceport, Chairman Rick Holdridge said to reporter Diana Alba Soular of the LC Sun News in July. Maybe we need to know where the money went before another $6.5M gets into their hands, to possibly misspend. In late June, New Mexico Spaceport Authority Board (NMSA) and the Spaceport America Regional Spaceport District (SARSD) fast-tracked a $6.5M dollar loan application in two back-to-back special meetings. Open Meetings Act violations occurred at the meetings. Community activists in Truth or Consequences have reported the violations. They also questioned the completion and accuracies of the loan request, which lacks financial information. NMSA Executive Director Christine Anderson claims that income from the Visitor “Experience” Centers is vital to Spaceport America’s success. For 2014 NMSA anticipates $60,000 in income from tourism. From January through June they earned $5,135.30 from Follow the Sun Tours, the monopoly running Spaceport tours. Maybe financial and visitor figure adjustments are in order. Political bodies that go against public will are doomed. A community can prosper only if benefits are spread out fairly to the many. Bestowing major tax-payer largesse to a primary individual or single business creates rancor and ill will. Creating community prosperity demands an informed and active citizenry so public officials feet are kept to the fire. On Monday, October 20th, at the NMSU Pan American Center, the New Mexico Legislative Oversight Committee will review the expenditures of Spaceport America in an all-day meeting.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 16:17:15 +0000
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