City of Phoenix scrambles to pay Celebration 2000 performers despite shortfall
John Dougherty
john.dougherty@newtimes.com
Less than 48 hours before the city of Phoenix is set to host a downtown New Year's Eve celebration, confusion reigns over how performers and workers setting up the event will be paid.
The Celebration 2000 event was supposed to be financed by a nonprofit corporation appointed by Mayor Skip Rimsza called Citizens for a Community Celebration.
The city loaned the CCC $500,000 last summer as seed money to secure entertainment and pay for an elaborate fireworks show. The CCC quickly spent that money and much more.
The nonprofit corporation -- headed by former Attorney General Grant Woods -- is supposed to pay entertainers and stage hands another $400,000 on December 30 to fulfill their contracts. The nonprofit, however, doesn't have enough money to pay its bills (Snafu 2000, December 2).
So the city is rushing to the rescue -- and tossing aside city regulations to do so.
On December 15, the city council approved an appropriation for $150,000 to the CCC after the committee asked the city to sponsor one of the three performance stages. The CCC failed to attract corporate sponsorships for the stages, other than an $80,000 contribution from Arizona Public Service Company, $40,000 from Wells Fargo Bank and $30,000 from the Hensley Company.
The CCC projected that corporate sponsorships would total $1.5 million, but only managed to attract $150,000.
Combined, the $300,000 from the city and the corporate sponsor still leaves the CCC $100,000 short of the $400,000 that is supposed to be paid on December 30. City officials refused Wednesday to say how many tickets at $10 each have been sold in advance -- but estimates last week placed the total around 3,000.
To cover the shortfall, Deputy City Manager Jack Tevlin said Wednesday that the city will issue checks to meet the contractual obligations entered into by the nonprofit CCC.
"An agreement has been made with all the performers that they will be paid," Tevlin said during a Wednesday press conference. "The city will cover that expense and we will be reimbursed by the sponsors of the event (CCC) on the money that's made from that event."
When asked by New Times in a separate interview whether the city council has approved the appropriation to pay the performers, Tevlin said the council has not yet voted on the matter.
"We are going to have to go back to the council when we find out what exposure there is, if any, and get their approval to expend city funds to cover the shortfall. But it will have to be a public action. It's not something that we will do without council approval."
Yet Tevlin continued to state that the city would be issuing checks to entertainers and stage crews on December 30 -- without council approval. "What choice do we have?," Tevlin said.
City Attorney Phil Haggerty says Tevlin cannot issue city checks without the council first approving the expenditure.
"I don't know how in the hell they are going to do it," Haggerty says. "It's not that simple to write a check with no appropriation to it."
"I just think that Jack is talking off the top of his head," Haggerty added. Haggerty says the city is not responsible for the debts incurred by the nonprofit CCC.
"We didn't sign the contracts. We are not liable on it. The contracts are signed only by the committee (CCC)," Haggerty says.
Committee chairman Grant Woods could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
Mark Hughes, a spokesman for Mayor Rimsza, had no response when asked how the city could issue checks without council approval. He simply shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
Celebration 2000 stage manager Wally Versen said Wednesday he was told by city officials that final checks for all performers will be available on December 30 as required in the contracts.
Besides representing the city in negotiations with entertainers, Versen also represents Tempe bands the Gin Blossoms, the Gas Giants and the Peacemakers. Those bands are still owed 50 percent of their contract, which totals $140,000 for all three acts. Other acts -- including Steppenwolf, Three Dog Night, Waylon Jennings and the Rock N Roll Army are also still owed a total of $140,000.
"The bands are all coming in tomorrow and expecting to get paid," Versen says. "No one told me otherwise."
Tevlin says city council members know the CCC is short of funds and the city had reached an "understanding" with the CCC to provide financial support. City council members could not be reached for comment late Wednesday.
"I don't think anyone envisioned that this was going to be a problem," Tevlin says.
To the contrary, CCC organizers and city officials expected the major problem to be one of too many people rather than a looming financial failure. Tevlin says the CCC -- made up of volunteers -- tried its best to create a fun, exciting, family event in downtown Phoenix.
"You don't say to a citizens' committee that really spent a lot of time and effort that when things turn sour that 'Hey, we'll have no part of this,'" Tevlin says.