Monday, October 19, 2009

Elks contract, incorporation top Prescott city agenda

I find it fascinating that Mr Norwood is proposing accounting tricks to shift stimulus funds designed for energy conservation over to the Elks Theatre. It's creative and for an arguably good cause, but it sorta smells like fraud to me. I just don't see how you can use conservation money to buy early 20th-century plaster decorations. I wonder what Mr Lamerson might have to say about that.

My boilerplate on the Elks:
* The theatre will only survive if we put the money into equipment and major improvements to make it work better and be truly rentable. Every dime spent on decoration is wasted if artists and promoters can't use it.
* Bring theatre pros in as primary advisers, designers and contractors. Unspecialized architects and contractors will screw it up every time.
* It is not, never has been and never could be an opera house.

On the incorporation of Williamson Valley, I think it would be dead stupid to add yet another separate municipality to Quad City. This area needs coordinated planning, shared resources and a stronger sense of shared community. For a practical future we should be eliminating arbitrary boundaries, not making more. It will be far better in the long run to annex WV into Prescott than create another parochial suburb and sales-tax competitor.

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