Leach Advisory Board Needed

Everyone knows that the Northwestern has been down on Parks Director Tom Stephany for quite some time now, but I think today's hissy fit editorial did little to contribute to a meaningful community discourse about the best way to guarantee public control and use of a venue that they (the public) are paying for.

The motivation for the paper's angst over this matter is revealed in this sentence: "A city councilor and professor of small business known for couching criticism looked startled that Stephany came to the podium Tuesday largely empty, a laughably tiny $3,000 marketing budget plan to show off Oshkosh's $6 million diamond on the Fox River. His best strategy to market the venue was to create a tri-fold brochure."

Hmmm . . . seems like that "laughably tiny $3,000 marketing budget plan" represents little coin for buying Gannett advertising.

I don't think anyone on the Council has been more critical of Mr. Stephany than me, but the very fact that the parks department will manage the Leach in 2009 means that the facility will for the first time be accessible by the general public. Now that the facility is no longer held hostage by PMI's unreasonable rates, citizen groups for the first time will be able to use the facility for very little cost. That's what I thought the Leach family had in mind when they gave us the facility as a gift. And while no one was awed by Mr. Stephany's presentation on Tuesday night, the fact is that the 2009 event agenda appears to represent more activity for one summer than PMI gave us in three. Let's hope the paper's gripe with Stephany doesn't result in downtalking the events or discouraging people from utilizing the facility. Citizens should see 2009 as an open window for the Leach that privatization forces will try to shut before we even get a chance to enjoy the breeze.

What's frightening about today's editorial is that it seems to send out a signal that the paper is willing to use Stephany as a convenient whipping boy to back up a privatization agenda: "At some point, it's time to lean on the business connections and marketing savvy of a professional promoter to leverage this jewel of a public venue and mix in top-notch, bigger-ticket acts."

Sorry, but we've just been through three years of "business connections and marketing savvy of a professional promoter." The result? Community groups had the facility stolen from them while promises of "cha ching" economic impact gave way to infrequent, sparsely attended, too expensive concerts. And community groups were told the facility was off limits unless they could come up with hundreds (in some cases thousands) of dollars.

There are real concerns about Mr. Stephany's ability to manage the facility. But even if there were no concerns, it still makes sense to create a Leach Advisory Board to work with and monitor the parks department's Leach management performance in 2009. Absent such a group, there is a very real possibility that the Northwestern and others hostile to the idea of public management of the facility will create conditions in which the Council next year will face enormous pressure to once again sign over the facility to a "professional promoter."

For obvious reasons, private management of the Leach will result in higher citizen costs to use the facility. Therefore, the debate over the next year ought not be over the benefits of public vs. private management, but over what kind of public management we want. We've already been through three years of private management, and the experience should have been a wake-up call. Perhaps a Leach Advisory Board could help give the idea of public management a fighting chance.