The Tampa Bay Times carried a story today on its front page about the duration of the blockage of the Dali Museum and Mahaffey Theater for the St. Pete Grand Prix. The City is about to extend the contract with the Grand Prix until 2017. The Museum is effectively walled off for about a month. The article quotes 45 days. During tourist season, too. My favorite quote is from Council member Steve Kornell suggesting that the Dali pay for an extra shift of workers to speed up the removal of the barriers!
Why should they? The SPGP supposedly attracts 150,000 visitors to the city whose travel/hotel expenses puts a lot of extra money in some business owner's and City pockets as well. Why should those blocked have to take a loss, let alone pay for barrier removal while others are being enriched?
I'm sure an equitable solution can be found to compensate the Museum for revenues lost during the days the SPGP barriers block their doors.
To the Museum's Director, who commented that "This hasn't been talked about in the press of any public forums.", I would like to say: Where was your press release indicating your predicament? Why did it not go out to a list of media sources? Putting it on your FB page is not nearly enough.
Had I known about it sooner, this article would have appeared immediately.
--- Luis
Postcript: The City Council gave the SPGP a new contract through 2017 without regard for the fencing problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment