Alerus Center Commission Chair Lied to the Public to Justify Secretly Renewing Venuworks Contract
Back in August the Alerus Commission renewed the contract with Venuworks, the company that has mismanaged the Alerus Center for these past eight years. That seemed strange at the time because with the dreaded Britney Spears concert upcoming most people would have thought that we should have waited to see how that turned out.
But Curt Kruen, city council member and Alerus Commission Chair, told the GF Herald Reporter that wasn’t a concern:
Britney Spears ticket sales are going about as expected and the events center is “very close” to that break even point where it doesn’t have to pay promoters AEG Live anything.
Those of you paying attention will recall how excited the Alerus gang was with the late sales surge where thousands of tickets were sold at the last minute. Since the Alerus NEVER came close to breaking even and that we had a sales surge after Kruen told this to the public, one has to conclude that Kruen was intentionally lying to the public.
Another thing that bugs me about the contract with Venuworks is that it was sprung on the public. Nobody had an idea that they were even talking about a renewal.
That’s not how it’s supposed to work in this state. We have very strong open meeting laws. Now a body governed by the open meeting laws may go into executive session to discuss certain matters (like negotiation strategies) but they have to do so in a certain way. They have to hold a regular open meeting that has been announced to the public. Then they have to declare that they are going into executive session and put in their motion and minutes under what specific law they are invoking to go into executive session. They then MUST record the meeting so that the Attorney General can determine whether or not they were following the law.
So how in the world did the Alerus Commission get around all of that without the public knowing that a new contract was coming?
Well it seems that the city attorney just scolded the Alerus Commission for ignoring the law.
Howard basically rapped the Alerus Center commission’s knuckles for forming an executive committee and holding what are essentially secret meetings. They’re secret because they aren’t announced to the public. I once asked commission Chairman Curt Kreun what was up with these meetings and why I wasn’t invited. He said I could come if I wanted, but it would be boring. I got involved in the nickname insanity and forgot about it until now.
My understanding is that they are, in fact, boring, by which I mean there are plenty of fairly routine matters. But occassionally some important decisions get made and I’m looking into them now.
In fact, I now remember a meeting where two commissioners, Curt and Randy Newman, met privately with some folks from VenuWorks right after a commission meeting while reporters waited outside. I was pretty pissed, but I didn’t think it was worth calling our attorney. Turns out I should’ve just called City Council member Terry Bjerke.
Regarding the Venuworks contract it seems that action must be taken. The public never had an opportunity to know what was going on which is illegal. In order to justify the long term contract the chairman of the commission lied about the financial performance of the Britney concert.
What we do know is that the Alerus has always underperformed. Every year it seems the Alerus loses money requiring more subsidies. What’s going to change until we change the management of the Alerus Commission and the company that are supposedly experts in managing these things?
Kudo’s to Terry Bjerke for forcing the issue on the open meetings law. Now where are the consequences for those that broke those laws?
