Youngstown's mayor issues necessary warning to Global

Now that Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams has publicly given Global Entertainment Corp. six months to get its act together with regard to the operation and management of the city-owned Chevrolet Centre, the administration and city council should use the time to analyze the contract between Global and city government with an eye to developing a new formula for a private company running the arena. Why? Because under the current agreement, the city bears all the financial responsibilities without a guarantee of income.
There is nothing to be gained by focusing on why former Mayor George M. McKelvey, with council's consent, agreed to such a pact with Global, but it is clear that the taxpayers, who are footing the $45 million arena construction bill, deserve a better deal.
Williams, who took office in January and has just now begun to delve into the nuances of the Global-city contract, is to be commended for publicly expressing his concerns about the lack of performance on the part of the Arizona-based company.
What has the mayor worried is the lack of events at the arena for every month of the year, let alone every week. Without events, there is no income, and without income there can be no sharing of profits with the city. Such profits are important because each year City Hall must come up with $767,000 to pay the annual debt service on the facility.
Regardless of the arguments used to justify spending the $26.8 million grant secured by former Congressman James A. Traficant Jr. and other taxpayer dollars on an arena project that had attracted no private investment, city officials assured Youngstown residents that the facility would not be a drain on the public treasury. At a time of tight budgets and the demands from residents for police and fire protection, clean neighborhoods and job-creation initiatives, diverting more than $700,000 to prop up the Chevrolet Centre was never part of the deal.
That is why the mayor and council must explore the kind of deal needed to, first and foremost, protect the city's interest, and then to make it worth a private company's while to operate and manage the facility.
It is inconceivable that any company with expertise in entertainment would not jump at the chance of taking over the state-of-the-art arena -- unless, of course, the private sector thinks this project is a loser without a constant flow of tax dollars for the operation and management.
Youngstown city government cannot afford to financially support such a project, which is why every avenue must be explored to ensure its financial viability.
Mayor Williams has issued a necessary warning to Global that it must perform or it will be gone. But in doing so, he has given rise to these important questions: What happens if Global decides to call it quits? Does the city of Youngstown have a fall-back position?