THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 16, 1995 TAG: 9510130007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Another View
SOURCE: By MELINDA WELLS
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Beth Barber and Tony Wharton, in their recent Nauticus columns, have exercised their constitutionally protected free-speech rights to criticize government decisions and the officials who made them. Nauticus deserves rigid criticism and review because of the substantial investment of public funds. But to produce a pair of unfair and unbalanced columns provides no useful information on a major subject.
Nauticus is a fact. It's here and will be here after we are long gone. The only relevant issue is how best to improve and increase attendance and to involve and inform our citizens about the plan to achieve that objective and report its results or failures.
Nauticus is a first-rate attraction. It is subjected to an incredible amount of criticism by people who have never set foot in it. Although the people of Norfolk own it, they provide only 13 percent to 14 percent of its attendance (New York residents represent 27 percent and Virginia Beach furnishes nearly 25 percent of total attendance). That's real absentee ownership.
Tourism is this region's largest nongovernmental economic generator. It employs more people and has greater economic impact than all other private enterprise combined. It is entirely proper that Norfolk, which sits between two major travel destinations - Virginia Beach and Williamsburg - would make a major investment in an attempt to attract additional visitors from the millions of tourists just minutes away. In fact, Nauticus in its first year has demonstrated its potential to do just that.
One needs only to check the sales at Waterside, the Marriott Hotel and the sales taxes those two paid to see the results.
As noted in Ms. Barber's column, Nauticus returned in taxes to the city $575,000. A phone call to Van Massey, general manager of Waterside, would reveal that Waterside paid nearly $2 million in taxes last year, an increase over the year before of several hundred-thousand dollars. Additional calls to Marriott's and Omni's general managers would reveal that the hotels paid tremendously more taxes this year than last, due to Nauticus. In essence Nauticus is well on its way toward being self-sufficient if you credit taxes the facility has already generated through other directly impacted businesses.
As a taxpayer to the city of Norfolk and an investor in several publicly owned companies, I guarantee that if you will return all the taxes generated by Nauticus to a private company, a buyer can be found in a heartbeat. And taxes alone are not the full story of the economic value of Nauticus to this area's economy.
The respending cycle of tourist dollars is as magical as compound interest on an investment. It echoes and re-echoes throughout the local economy. To suggest that those dollars affect only the downtown area of Norfolk is naive and destructive. As any student of basic economics knows, the money spent by visitors is free of cost to the city in terms of providing services or schools, trash pick-up or other costly services. These dollars find their way into every section of the area through payroll and then are respent for other goods and services practically infinitum.
It is equally ludicrous to compare the investment of public funds to attract tourist spending or other economy-expanding investment with dollars to be used for purposes such as filling potholes or air-conditioning school rooms. Both are essential, but one has the potential to generate additional dollars while the other only consumes.
Finding ways to generate revenue is Norfolk's greatest challenge. There are endless essential needs to be financed.
One could easily conclude from the two published columns that our city officials engaged in purposeful deception in projecting attendance or promising that Nauticus would be self-supporting.
Those statements were made in good faith, based on the advice of advisers and professional consultants, and they were wrong. But to question council's judgment, integrity and responsiveness on every project and program in the city seems excessive and further divides our ability to resolve our common problems in a fair and civil manner. MEMO: Ms. Wells is a businesswoman who lives in Norfolk.
by CNB