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Jane Ann Morrison
$42 million question answered: Mob Museum to repay $6 million
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Thank you, FR.
You're the anonymous soul who posted a good question online at the end of my Monday column on the Mob Museum.
Most of the time the comments at the end of stories have little value, show great ignorance, poor spelling and pitiful grammar and often are personal attacks.
Rarely do the comments result in another column. This is one of those rarities.
FR asked: Is any part of the $5 million in operating expense slated to begin to repay the taxpayers the $42 million they have invested?
It was a question that I hadn't asked and hadn't seen in other news accounts.
I assumed, wrongly it turns out, that if some repayment were in the works, city officials would have shouted it from the rooftops. The public outcry calling the museum an inappropriate use of tax dollars has been constant and vociferous ever since the idea was first floated by then-Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman in 2002.
I asked Ellen Knowlton, former head of the FBI in Las Vegas, who is president of the nonprofit now operating the museum -- The 300 Stewart Avenue Corp. (Not coincidentally, that's the address of the downtown museum).
Didn't feel so bad then because she didn't know the answer either and referred me to Mike Devine, who has represented the city of Las Vegas for the past three years through the construction phase and negotiated with the nonprofit so everyone is on the same page.
Simple answer: Yes. The city will be repaid $6 million over the next five years.
"The development agreement between the city and the (nonprofit) board is that over five years, the city will be paid $6 million from the museum back to the city," Devine said Friday. That's not contingent on anything, that's a requirement.
What happens if the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement is a bust? Will the city be on the hook to pay any operating costs?
"After the city gets paid back $6 million, we have sufficient operating reserve to cover a relatively long time," Devine said. "There are plenty of institutions that have very low attendance and still operate."
If 300,000 people a year come paying an average of $14 a ticket ($10 for Nevadans, $18 for tourists) that makes for $4.2 million. The operating costs are estimated at $5 million a year.
If the Mob Museum doesn't draw crowds, Devine said, the nonprofit will reach out for other sources of funding, but it's no longer the city's responsibility.
What if it's a huge success and makes buckets of money?
Devine can't say definitively but suspects the city and the nonprofit would renegotiate after five years and perhaps repay more of the nearly $37 million the city has spent on the $42 million museum. State dollars totaled $2 million, and federal grants made up another $2.7 million.
This information won't change the minds of those who believe the entire museum should have been built by private industry, not public dollars, and view it as having no value because of the subject.
But a personal observation here. On Thursday, I saw a couple leave the Mob Museum and stroll down Third Street toward Fremont Street. They asked if Triple George had good food, and I said yes. They headed inside.
It's a tiny example of how a tourist contributes to the local economy and helps a local restaurant. But if enough tourists visit the museum (a big if) and then stay downtown to eat, drink or gamble, maybe this museum, despite certain imperfections, will work after all as a downtown redevelopment tool.
If nothing else, it preserved a historic courthouse worthy of restoration.
I'm not saying that just because Oscar Goodman called critics of his dream "morons" and "monkeys," because I've been called worse.
Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. Email her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call her at (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/Morrison
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“I’ve already said this on TV so I might as well say it to you,” Morrison told me on Tuesday. “By avoiding any mention of Clean Face, the Mob Museum shows itself to be either clueless or gutless or both.”...
Las Vegas museum officials were in a highly agitated state when I called to ask them about the absence of Mr. Clean Face...
“Sen. Reid was never charged with a crime,” Barrie told me Tuesday. “We don’t go after people just because one person mentions it on a wiretap. Who knows? Was Joe Agosto the most reliable? And with only one source, we didn’t think there was much of a story there.”
http://www.morrisdailyherald.com/2012/02/22/well-worth-the-18-admission/a11dcnv/?page=3
No. Not much of a story when the sitting Senate Majority leader is accused of being in the mob's pocket by a mobster turned federal witness Joe Agosto, who was recorded on an FBI tape saying that “I gotta Clean Face in my pocket.”
That would be one Harry Reid. Senator. From Nevada.
No story there.
ScottNV: You gave a really good question. I only write MOB MUSEUM here, but we should compare with other local attractions. Some of them are very expensive. MM: Low estimate of ticket sales is about 300,000 a year. (I don't know what City has. I live in Henderson and got nothing to do with any government. I am just nosy number-holic). It opens more than 8 hours, or so I guess. There are windy days and some rainy days. So, from news I hear on attendance, my annual attendance estimate is low. If they are only locals, $3 million a year. I omitted tourists because we never know they prefer to spend money to play slots. They have 'maybe I win' mentality. Local people cleverly choose Video Poker. (Their 'maybe I hold this card', often works.)
correction on my computation: City Hall is not constructed inside of MM. MM is not constructed inside of City Hall ... Zappo is not inside of MM. MM is not inside of Zappo.... Neon .. ditto. Smith .. ditto. //////// Therefore, MM's Expense is $36 M. Annual expense by MM's operation is N1= annual operating cost (i.e. Office. employee pay, operating cost). ,.. P1 = Ticket sales - operating cost. N2 = numbers of years until MM achieve break point. 36 M/ N2 is the annual expenses. After that, annual ticket sale - annual expense cost is ALL NET INCOME.
What are the attendance numbers of other local attractions that require admission, like the top of the Stratosphere, or the Adventuredome?
300,000 visitors in a year? Thats 822 paying customers every day, 7 days a week. If they are open 12 hours a day then they need to herd 68 - 69 people thru there every hour, every day non stop. Thats one paying person in the door about every 45 seconds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Its not gonna happen
Ms. Morrison: I am not going to write details of numbers here. My forecasting model indicates that Mob Museum will have 'break even' not too far from now. Very shorter than invading, I mean expanding, Japanese huge corporations in USA. Japanese corporations are in ubiquitous era business. They no longer in analog or digital era business. The way Mob Museum and downtown business operating is the way Japanese operate. I probably go there sometime later. Some restaurants have sushi menu. I will try them. Did you try? I am no drinker. I will avoid Mr. Goodman's restaurant.
This whole fiasco looks like yet another poor planning effort by CLV. No rainy day fund to cover the MM, which must meet high expectations to break even. Then again, the CLV apparently also lacks a rainy day fund but continues to spend countless millions, they don't have and can't cover, as self induced memorial(s) to the Goodman's. My guess is the MM will be yet another Las Vegas white elephant along with the city parking garage, the Springs Preserve, the Neonopoplis, the costly new City Hall, the leaking roof detention/court house complex, Symphony Park, etc. etc. etc. Viva Las Vegas.
777: You like numbers: You wrote about Henderson Police Chief's Retirement Income for her 29 year service. Then I had my numbers. You did not correct me for first 2 computations with bugs. I wrote bug-free 3 rd comment. You disappeared. Now I found you here. You can pick on my numbers here ('.')
I seriously doubt there will be a minimum of 821 visitors a day for 365 days. I wonder HOW MANY pockets were lined with the millions that were waisted on this project. This was a serious abuse of authority. Oscar.
correction; 299M -24M-275M [NET EXPENSE] I Should use VB or QB45 in the evening, At least they debug my error, faster than hand computation.