The Bill Ahtes Scam

This coming Monday, Bill Ahtes will present a package to the City Council in which he has used another gentleman who has been working for years on the "Children's Theater." For many years now, Carlos has be putting off shows locally and he has always sold out his 200 seat shows without any advertising.

He has worked out a deal for a 7.5 acre parcel of land on Rt. 13 and Foskey Lane in Delmar. His goal is to sell off 2 acres of the land to a franchise restaurant to help offset the cost of purchasing the land.

I put up a Post and a link the other day to his Website and it clearly shows an 800 seat Theater, not a 140 seat Theater. "You cannot put off a Broadway Show in the Old Firehouse." There simply won't be enough seats.

On the other side of the coin, why is Bill Ahtes asking Carlos to get involved in Salisbury? When I asked Carlos that question he said that he had clearly told Bill that he will not go into a partnership with anyone. This is a Children's Theater in which Carlos hired a company called Design Atlantic to put his package together. In order to achieve the proper Grants, you have to be in a small enough community and Salisbury doesn't fit the criteria. However, Delmar, MD. does.

I personally believe Bill is using Carlos to show there has been interest and the funny part is, Carlos has been completely successful ON HIS OWN! He does NOT need Bill Ahtes and it's sad to me to watch Bill use Carlos like he's about to do.

A Theater in the Old Station 16 is NOT big enough. There has also been talk about Bill needing to raise some $5,000,000.00 to complete a renovation of Station 16 and I've been told by professionals that it would actually cost less than $1,000,000.00 to do what Bill wants done. However, why do it there when they would out grow that location the very first day they swung the doors? Carlos if pulling off sold out 200 seat shows right now at the Chipman Center!

So Ladies & Gentlemen, it makes no sense what Bill Ahtes is attempting to do and I smell a serious rat. Someone wants a FREE building and even if they were to purchase the building for a low price, it's still a scam, IMO. This idea does NOT serve the public properly as they will only be able to seat 140 people or so. I can't believe they could hold that many and I'm also told the stage would only be 20 feet wide too.

So let's hope the City Council looks into this more seriously and I strongly encourage them to call me or contact Carlos and he can explain what he's doing right now, how many seats he sells without ANY advertising and what this Industry really needs. Bill Ahtes wants a building and that's all there is to it. Considering I have not done that much research and Bill has apparently hired people to consult him on what would and wouldn't work, this is flat out stupid.

This brings in NO tax revenue and doesn't help the City's debt one bit. Let's NOT forget Comegys wanted an appraisal on that Building before they did anything. Well, where is it?????

The Work Session starts at 4:30 PM on Monday. I strongly suggest as many of you as possible go there and see the package they're about to present.