Salisbury Mall Parking Proposal Reeks (Letter to the Editor)

Rick Pollitt wet his finger and stuck it someplace other than in the wind if he believes any of the nonsense that was printed in Sunday’s newspaper over his signature. His gauzy reminisce about events from decades past struck a nostalgic note; too bad very few of these events appear with any regularity at the Civic Center; it’s mainly devoid of activity.

He spewed hyperbole and speculative comments and generated a whiteout of verbiage lacking facts and puffed full of rhetorically dubious reasoning that made this weekend’s snowstorm look like a dusting of flurries in comparison.

The Civic Center is a building that is showing its age in a number of respects. Recognizing that, Pollitt with great fanfare appointed a distinguished panel of community leaders quite a while back and asked them to report back with recommendations regarding its future or potential replacement. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but I don’t recall any concrete news from the commission in the interim. Is the current parking lot proposal a precursor to an announcement about the need for even more land for a new and exciting Circus Maximus?

Civic Center manager, and Sol Hurok wannabe, Gary Mackes always has some notion for expanding his empire and building his pyramid. Too bad we live in a smaller community with iffy average incomes. The bleat that the only thing standing between sellouts of extravaganzas, professional hockey teams locating here and making the Civic Center cash flow positive on a recurring basis has been lack of parking space. It is a bogus argument.

Overflow parking, already owned by the public and off the tax rolls, is available at the County Stadium and at Wi-Hi (which has two lots) and at the ball field on Civic Avenue, not to mention at Twilley Center (which is on the tax rolls) a block away. The fact of the matter is that the Civic Center rarely hosts events which draw a full crowd….and when it does folks utilize the spaces noted above. Folks have also used some spaces at the Salisbury Mall location across time, both when it was functioning and since then.

Mr. Pollitt feels paying $300,000 an acre to purchase 5 acres at the old mall site for a total outlay of $1.5 million is a prudent use of public funds. He dwelt at length on the source of the funds and basically said “As long as the money isn’t coming from your (individual citizen) or our (Wicomico County) funds, what do you care how much we pay?” This is the state of mind that blithely approves expensive brass-plated trash cans, et al since it’s on the public dime.

Somewhere in the flurry of lousy arguments supporting this assault on the public dollar I recall the phrase “highest projected use” or such, being proffered as the reason for the high private appraisal of the value of the contemplated parcel. In plain English, the appraisers acted as if there was some present value to the land beyond being old, crumbling asphalt. They took the putative developers rosy vision for the revenue to be reaped from the parcel and endorsed it as if it were fact or a likely near accomplishment. Guarantee the appraisers would not buy land for themselves, out of their pocket, on a similar premise. So why should the county? Why should the state? Tell us Ricky!

Salisbury Mall Associates paid $4,060,000 for the two mall parcels totaling 56 +/- acres in late 1997. The property had the ailing but functional Salisbury Mall on its premises. Purchase price, per acre, was $72,500. Now in his unrebutted opinion piece Mr. Pollitt, who claims a family inspired ability to divine the value of things since he’s oblivious to their price, feels paying 4 times as much per acre for this land is visionary statesmanship of the highest order. He is just plain wrong since the above figures only relate to the purchase price of the old mall land and structures. Ooops! That’s right; he neglected to mention he wanted to pay 4 times more per acre than it cost the sellers.

Current assessment value of the two parcels is $2,191,300, or $42,487.50 per acre. So if paying more than 4 times the purchase value/acre is an act of statesmanship, what is the intellectual rating ascribed to paying over 7 times the current, state assessed value. Genius, pure genius! Oh, how the rarified air of the third floor clarifies the mind! Yikes! He forgot to mention that paying 7 times the cost was better than paying 4 times the cost. Thank goodness for Ricky math which understands the true value of expenditures, rather than small-minded concepts like their cost!

Back to the Civic Center proper for a moment. Another bleat is that selling booze would transform the white elephant into a cash cow. The deed restriction prohibits selling booze there, from all accounts. It hasn’t prohibited groups from serving alcohol there as long as they were not selling alcohol; I’ve attended some of those events when companies held events there before prohibitive pricing by the center sent them elsewhere. Not to mention the creation of an on-site, government run catering operation that was incredibly expensive, in addition to banning private caterers from serving the events. Way to support the local tax-paying food service businesses! So you’d think Sol Hurok, Jr. would have tried selling two tier tickets; regular for whatever $ the event commanded, and BYOB for a stiffer $$ (pun intended) price. That way he’d have the coveted revenue without having to purchase, inventory or dispense the juice. Patrons could check their hooch at a booze-check (like a coat check) and return as they wished to refill their glass. More revenue could be generated by selling the setups. Problem solved.

In sum, regardless of the source, using public money for this purpose is foolish, and the foolish rationale that if we don’t squander the public dollar on it some other city or town will get to squander it instead of us is an argument without a leg to stand on. It is definitely a losing argument in Wicomico County 100% of the time, even in good times!

Council members…..this is a very bad deal for the public masquerading as a very bad deal for the public. Please turn it back.