Grand Forks Finally Dumping the Alerus Center’s Management Company
Finally. I wonder if there’s more to this story than they are saying.
After ten years of dismal performance the Alerus Commission is going to not renew their contract with Venuworks.
The city of Grand Forks will likely run the Alerus Center itself next year, according to events center commission Chairman Dwight Thompson.
The commission this morning agreed to end its contract with management firm VenuWorks, a decision that Thompson said came through mutual agreement.
This is the right thing to do and I hope that the Alerus Gang steps aside for a new look at the entire operation.
My biggest concern at this point is what’s going to happen with all the money that Venuworks owes us. Just over a year ago the Alerus gang rewrote the contract with Venuworks allowing them to repay us the approximatley $270,000 that they owed us over five years.
They must owe us over $200,000. We better get our money back.
Venuworks has been a disaster for Grand Forks. Not only have they lost millions of dollars for us ($2.7 million in 2009, the last available audited numbers) they’ve insulted us. Their executive director of the Alerus called people who were skeptics of the failed event center morons.
After this guy was caught traveling around the country on the city’s credit card the Alerus gang did everything they could to cover up the fraud found by our auditor, not theirs.
It was right after this when the city gave Venuworks time to pay back the money they owed us.
So while this is a fine first step we need to get rid of those in city leadership that have been covering for Venuworks mismanagement of the cities most expensive asset.
I think we should tip our hats to Terry Bjerke who’s been the only one in the city who has tried to stop the mismanagement at the Alerus.
Updated: It appears that despite the story in the Herald it’s Venuworks that’s firing the Alerus Gang.
GRAND FORKS, ND – The company that manages the city-owned Alerus Center in Grand Forks wants to terminate its management contract with the events center effective December 31.
In a letter sent to the events center commission today, VenuWorks President Steve Peters said “(W)e believe that a new governance and management structure may be required to meet the challenges facing the Alerus Center today.”
This latest link from the TV station is actually timestamped before the Herald story. It appears that our old buddy Tu Uyen Tran is misleading us again by writing this story to make it look like the Alerus Commission is firing Venuworks. He would have known about the letter, both the TV station and the Herald are owned by Forum Communications.
The conclusions are the same. Getting away from Venuworks is the best thing that we can do at this point. It saves us money and leaves the group behind more accountable to the public.
Tags: Alerus, Greedy Grand Forks, North Dakota News
