City council withholds money from CRVA again

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - For the second straight city council meeting, members voted to withhold the $10 million the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority is expecting for its budget next fiscal year.

This as a newly released report said the CRVA is having a "crisis of credibility" with the public.

Amid a swirl of controversy, the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority on Monday released an independent analysis of itself done by PricewaterhouseCoopers.  The CRVA also released an "action plan" for how it says it will deal with the "crisis of credibility" the report says it's having.

Mayor Anthony Foxx and eight city council members weren't ready to sign off on the budget for the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority.

In a letter date June 24 to the chairman of the CRVA, Foxx outlined how the city would delay approval of funding and only approve $1.7 million for CRVA business and activities. That money "will be only be disbursed at the discretion of the City Manager on an as-needed basis, and $800,000.00 will be made available beginning July 1, 2011 for the CRVA's continuing operations."

That's exactly what the city council did Monday night.  It gave the CRVA enough money to keep operating, but not the full $10 million it's expecting for its yearly budget.

This past week, several city council members told WBTV they weren't content with the organization's behavior.

They say the original 2 1/2 page, $25,000 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers looking into how the group handles local conventions didn't go far enough.

"What we are looking for is greater accountability and effectiveness," Council member Michael Barnes said.

"We want to hear more about that report...that report left a lot of us lacking and we what they thought and what they should be doing next," Council member David Howard said.

So on Monday the CRVA released a much longer version of the report.

Among other things, it included criticism of the CRVA's projection that 800,000 people a year would go to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.  In its first year the Hall only got around 274,000 people.

The report said the CRVA did not appear to have done "due diligence" when it came up with the projections, and it said the CRVA raised the attendance projection from more modest numbers after it appeared Atlanta and Daytona were providing stiff competition for landing the Hall.

The CRVA has been scrutinized over bonus payments to CRVA execs and spending on expensive thank-you gifts to local businesses and public officials.

The city says it values the important role of the organization in promoting Charlotte but wants specific information on how the CRVA will work to improve "operations, financial controls, personnel issues and board engagement and accountability."

"None of us want to shut it down because the CRVA provides us the economy of this community a huge boost," Councilman Andy Dulin said.

In a statement Saturday, CRVA chairman Joe Hallow also said: "The CRVA board and management team has been and will continue to be firmly committed to working to resolve the issues that may exist and improve process".... "Considering we compete with cities such as Atlanta, Washington DC and Chicago on a daily basis for top tier convention business, these marketing dollars are mission critical to our success.  The hospitality industry that employees over 50,000 people in our area relies and sometimes survives by the work done by Visit Charlotte. "

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