Music Hall dumped from icon tax

Months of planning, politicking and bickering over a sales tax to renovate Music Hall and Union Terminal ended Wednesday when Hamilton County commissioners voted to support only Union Terminal.

Commissioner Greg Hartmann cast the deciding vote to a chorus of boos from the packed commission office.

"The request for us to include Music Hall is a bridge too far for me," Hartmann said.

The decision to dump Music Hall from the levy means county residents will vote in November on a quarter-cent sales tax increase that would cover about $170 million of Union Terminal's $208 million renovation. The sales tax would run for about five years.

The vote left supporters of both historic buildings unhappy and stunned Union Terminal officials, who immediately said the plan is unworkable and unreasonable. It also left the future of Music Hall in doubt, since no other viable alternative has been put forward to raise the more than $100 million needed to fix the 130-year old building.

"This is a politically-chosen number. This has no basis in research," said Doug McDonald, CEO of the Cincinnati Museum Center, which is located at Union Terminal. "This is disappointing for everybody. There are no winners here."

Supporters of the original $331 million plan to fix both buildings said the 2-1 vote by commissioners is a missed opportunity that will come back to haunt the community for years.

They said Hartmann and fellow Republican Commissioner Chris Monzel, who drafted the Union Terminal-only plan, showed a lack of leadership with their vote Wednesday. Commissioner Todd Portune, a Democrat, voted for the original plan to fix both buildings.

The commissioners' approval of an alternative plan put Union Terminal officials in the awkward position of speaking out against a levy meant to help them. They said they warned Monzel earlier this week that his plan was based on assumptions and his numbers were unreliable.

"This is certainly a failure, an abdication of leadership," said Francie Hiltz, chair of the Museum Center's board. "This was something thought up overnight."

She said she won't know if the Museum Center can back the levy until Monzel finalizes details of his plan.

Levy opponents, including representatives of anti-tax groups, praised the decision, saying county taxpayers shouldn't take on another big financial obligation.

They had argued for weeks against the original plan, and Monzel's alternative bears a resemblance to a plan some tea party groups and others pitched last month.

"Music Hall should not be included. It's just not reasonable," said Dan Regenold, who led the charge against the plan to fix both buildings.

Levy supporters, however, questioned Monzel's math, saying he is wrongly assuming tax credits and private donations that were in the original plan would still be there for only Union Terminal.

Scott Provancher, who helped raise almost $40 million in pledges for the original plan, said Monzel shouldn't count on the $7.5 million he's budgeted from private donors.

"Turning their back not just on that (original) plan, but proposing an alternate solution that won't solve either problem will result in the withdrawing of all philanthropic support," Provancher said.

Hartmann, who was expected to be the swing vote, said he struggled for weeks with the decision. Ultimately, though, he voted against funding Music Hall because the county doesn't have a history of supporting that institution and because he wanted a bigger investment in the project from the city of Cincinnati.

"It's a bad time to ask the county to take on new liabilities," Hartmann said. "I've got a long list of capital priorities."

Monzel said he sought an alternative plan because county taxpayers shouldn't be asked to bail out Music Hall.

"Everyone in this room has a lot of passion and commitment to saving Music Hall and Union Terminal," he told the standing-room-only crowd at the commissioners' office. "In the end, passion and zeal are trumped by economic realities."

After the hearing, Monzel said his plan is a good thing for county taxpayers, but he conceded he still needs to work out several details. Those include the scope of Union Terminal's renovation, which now may get less money if it loses private donors, and the pursuit of philanthropic gifts, naming rights and user fees.

Monzel said his plan was intended to limit the requests for help, or "the asks," for both buildings to just Union Terminal, knowing some details would have to be worked out later. "For me, it is not about the plan. It is about the asks," he said.

He said criticism of the vote Wednesday is unfair because commissioners last year asked for help planning the renovation of only Union Terminal. Instead, he said, the Cultural Facilities Task Force, led by former Procter & Gamble CEO Bob McDonald, came back with a plan to fix both Music Hall and Union Terminal.

"Some good-intentioned individuals said let's do both," Monzel said. "It goes too far."

Bob McDonald, however, scolded commissioners before the vote for considering a last-minute substitute for a plan that he and dozens of architects, engineers and accountants had spent eight months creating.

"Numerous people have come forward with what they call plans," McDonald said. "There is no alternative plan. This is the plan. We can execute this plan."

Portune also made an impassioned plea to his colleagues to consider renovating both buildings. He said delaying repairs on Music Hall amounts to kicking the can a few years down the road, when costs will be even higher.

"There's no reason to believe we won't be having this same conversation a year from now," he said.

Music Hall officials said they are scrambling to come up with a fallback plan. They said most of the private donors who had pledged to the combined levy supported Music Hall, and they hope they can count on that support, along with help from the city, to tackle renovations.

Otto Budig, president of the Music Hall Revitalization Company, said the group will try to prioritize the renovations and complete them in piecemeal fashion over several years.

"I would like to think the community will respond in a way that will allow us to do most of this work, but only time will tell," Budig said.

Portune said the work needed at Music Hall, including new stages, lighting, heating and air conditioning and better handicap access, is essential. To emphasize his point, Portune, who suffers from a serious spinal condition, removed his leg brace and held it up for the audience to see.

"For me, accessibility is not a want," he said. "It's a necessity."

The vote Wednesday was the culmination of several months of intense lobbying by both opponents and supporters of a levy for both buildings. Fans of the levy heavily outnumbered critics at every public gathering, including Wednesday's meeting, but the opposition pushed hard on Republicans Monzel and Hartmann.

Hartmann, though, said the deciding factor for him was taking on another sales tax obligation for Music Hall, a building he considers the city's responsibility.

He had negotiated with Mayor John Cranley in recent weeks for more city money, and Cranley delivered on a promise for $10 million over the next 25 years for maintenance. That's in addition to $10 million the city already had promised for Music Hall's repairs.

When Hartmann demanded more, Cranley balked and accused him of making the city a scapegoat. Hartmann struck a conciliatory tone after the vote, saying he understands the city has it's own financial problems.

"The city's got a lot of other priorities as well," he said. "This is not about the city versus the county."

Cranley was in a less forgiving mood. The mayor said he resented the commissioners' dismissal of Music Hall as only a city problem, arguing the city and county both have roles to play.

"I am deeply offended we are being treated like second-class citizens in our own county," Cranley said.

Portune said his fellow commissioners missed an opportunity to not only fix two iconic buildings, but to begin an era of closer cooperation with the city.

"This issue is much bigger than just the preservation of these two buildings," he said. "We'll feel the reverberations for generations to come."

Staff writer Sharon Coolidge contributed.

How they voted:

Greg Hartmann: "Yes" for a plan that drops Music Hall from the levy and raises $170 million in sales tax money to help renovate Union Terminal. "The request to include Music Hall is a bridge too far for me."

Chris Monzel: "Yes" for the Union Terminal-only plan. "In the end, passion and zeal are trumped by economic realities."

Todd Portune: "No" for the plan. He backed the original proposal for a longer sales tax duration that would raise $225 million to help renovate both buildings. "There's no reason to believe we won't be having the same conversation a year from now."