Why Music Hall was dropped from taxpayer funding

The dropping of Music Hall from the Hamilton County sales-tax levy plan raises a number of questions about how that happened. The Enquirer’s Dan Horn suggests five factors in his coverage, but there are other more subtle factors that may also have been involved:

1.     The Commissioners and their TLRC never asked to have a consolidated renovation and funding proposal for Union Terminal and Music Hall, and the creators of the combined proposal never told them why the combination should be preferred.  There’s no mention of that issue in the 21 slides used by the CFTF before the BOCC on June 23, and it never arose in discussion during the 45-minute presentation that day.  I find nothing on the record showing how the consolidated program would benefit the taxpayers or the political leadership.  The CFTF did not address it, even though Bob McDonald recognized in a January 12 meeting that Otto Budig was worried about separation of the two programs. 

2.     Union Terminal has been receiving county funding since it was first designated for Museum Center use.  Music Hall has never received significant county funding, and no case was made by the CFTF supporting why Music Hall should be added to the list of claimants for county funding. 

3.     The CFTF never presented itself as a coherent and committed entity.  There was never a document issued over the signature of all 22 members, and only about 6 members were identified as participating in the June 23 presentation of its work to the commissioners.  The terse 21-slide presentation to the BOCC included little compelling support for the CFTF recommendations. 

4.     Union Terminal is widely perceived to be in worse shape that Music Hall.  There’s no formal reference to such a circumstance in any CFTF documents, and it may or may not be true.  But multiple public comments at the Sharonville hearing made that point, and it’s never been refuted.

5.     Bullish statements by MHRC in 2011-12 about financing a $150+-million Music Hall renovation largely with private funding may have undercut the credibility of the recent funding plan, which showed only $24 million from private sources and $62 million from the taxpayers. 

6.     The Music Hall constituency never promoted the fact that only 28% of the proposed levy funding would be designated to implement the desired Music Hall renovations.  I think most people have been under the impression that the sales-tax funding would be roughly evenly divided between the two programs.  The reality is that the CFTF figures published in the Enquirer on June 22 showed $62 million in taxpayer funding for Music Hall and $163 million for Union Terminal; however, the slides shown to the commissioners the following day showed only the $225 million total.