Looks like the $7.1 million grant was for COVID relief; it could have been used for maintenance but I think they concentrated on using it to pay staff and more generalized maintenance. This isn't gonna happen again. Presumably it replace lost revenue generated by events.
The hotel tax is only paid by those who stay in hotels; its not incurred by Jeaux Lafayette Citizen.
That leaves 250k from the State (a nominal amount) and 600k from the CITY (the folks in the Parish do not contribute to this).
Should the Cajundome put money away for a larger ongoing maintenance issue like this? Absolutely. But (as has been pointed out), we do a bad job of considering maintenance once we've built something (Moncus Park, anybody?).
My point was just that I don't think there is this huge bucket of public tax dollars available to the Cajundome administrators to run and maintain the facility.
Its all good.
Make no mistake. We got a dirty roof. While I agree that it is something unique to our local climate, it frustrates the he'll out of me that maintenance and ongoing expenses of what we build isn't a consideration.
We are so short-sighted in this. That's why we end up with roads like Ambassador, Congress, S. College....5 lanes of concrete with minimal effort to install sidewalks or consider greenspace.
Because if we have wider sidewalks with a little greenspace and a road with a median, we would have had to buy additional right-of-way AND cut the grass later.
Sorry, but we just don't build anything we can take pride in cause it costs more than we are prepared to pay.
Everybody wants something for nothing and you get what you pay for.
And not directed at you...just a general rant.
Greg Davis consistently turned down multi-day religious conventions because they insisted on brown bagging it, and the Cajun Dome insisted on open concessions.
The hotel and restaurant tax revenue this greedy but foolish practice discarded could pay for many roof restorations.
I remember the Sunbelt Lodge in Abbeville filling up from hotel overfow from one of these conventions.
I would think all sporting events would request some sort of concession stand comfort.
From conversations, I do know the Superdome, the arena in Lake Charles and the Raising Canes Centroplex all rent out their facilities without demanding that they earn concession money.
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