Gloucester, VA Public Library Debate Over Leasing's High Costs

Public libraries are a key element in promoting literacy and intellect, building a community and providing free and open access to a vast amount of information the public would otherwise face challenge and expense in obtaining. Gloucestercurrently has two public libraries where the community may access only a small portion of information actually available. The quantity of information contained in public libraries is highly dependent on local community financial investment. Upon glancing at the amount of money Gloucester annually invests in our public libraries, it is evident their importance to the community is realized by our elected leaders. Unfortunately upon a closer look at how the money is actually spent it becomes clearly evident the taxpayers are getting very little return on their investment. In fact, we are throwing away several million dollars to lease library spaces instead of owning them.

 

This year the Board of Supervisors (BOS) budgeted $996,982 to operate our two public libraries. $577,630 is for salaries and benefits and $253,226 for rent, leaving only $166,126 for library operations. The larger of our two libraries is located in the MainStreet Center and owned by the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust (GMSPT). Rental of this 24,000 square foot library space initially began in 2004 for a period of 10 years, with four five year renewal options for up to a total of 30 years. The BOS renewed the lease for five more years in 2013 which became effective in 2014. This year we will pay the GMSPT approximately $190,000 in lease associated payments to rent the library and among other things, to pay 23% of the property tax charged on the entire Main Street Center. Our second library, located in the York River Crossing Shopping Center, is rented to Gloucester under a similar lease agreement. This year the People will pay approximately $63,000 in lease associated payments for this 3,916 square ft. library space.

 

Should Gloucester continue leasing the Main Street library for the full 30 years, the taxpayers will have paid the GMSPT close to $6 million in rent. A new 24,000 square foot library constructed at $2.50 per square ft. would cost the taxpayers approximately $6 million and would convert the annual rent obligation from $190,000, to an annual library capital improvement fund contribution of approximately $50,000; rendering an eventual annual savings of at least $140,000. Similar, but smaller scale results could also be realized by constructing a second library instead of continuing to rent. Over the years Gloucester’s administration and elected leaders have made some deals and decisions that have proven to be contrary to the long term financial interests of the overall community. Just think, if the earlier decision makers had truly acted in the community’s best interest, they would have built a new library and the benefits and savings of such would be enjoyed financially stress free today. Unfortunately, we now appear to be locked into a carefully designed financial cycle that will be very hard to break without a significant cash windfall, as we currently cannot afford to rent and build a new library at the same time. The current BOS has an obligation to address this issue and initiate a process that will result in construction of the larger of two new libraries within the next six years, with construction of a satellite branch beginning not far behind. Hopefully the current BOS becomes the Board that did what was best for the entire Gloucester community; otherwise we will just keep paying more for library rent than for information quantity and quality.

 

Respectfully,

Kenneth E. Hogge, Sr.

Gloucester Point

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GMSA and GMSPT Have Created GRLF Revolving Loan Fund, Watch Your Investment Disappear?

The folks who run the Gloucester Main Street Association and the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust have developed a new way to get at potential business investors money.  It's called the GLFR, or Gloucester Revolving Loan Fund.  All hail BAAL for that.  These folks want you to invest in the dead area of Gloucester Main street.  A place with minimal parking at best, where the sidewalks barely meet residential standards, never mind commercial standards and there are areas considered potentially dangerous to pedestrians as the slopes on the sidewalks do not meet specs based on our research.  

  This is an area that has a lot of new business turnover as most people can not make a go of it here.  One must ask why.  Simple, no parking and no chance of ever attracting an anchor business.  An anchor business is pretty much a large retailer that has the capability of attracting large amounts of traffic into it's store and all the other stores in the area will hopefully benefit from the extra traffic in the area by offering complimentary goods and or services not carried by the anchor store.

  Not to take anything away from the well established businesses on Main Street, there are some wonderful shops there if you do not mind the lack of parking and poor pedestrian walkways throughout the area.  But look at what has been built in the area over the past decade and you will see that the only thing that might prove viable is senior service providers and if the population does go up with seniors, then maybe one candy store can make it in this environment.  I would not bank on anything else.  

  What also tickles our funny bone about the statements coming out of the Main Street Preservation Trust is their commitment to preserving main street.  Take a look at the present structures around the area and explain to us where preservation exists.  Look at the rents for the area and they are way to high for such poor traffic.  Most of the businesses that went out of business all complained of no customers or not enough customers to support the business.  

  So you want to go broke trying to make money on Main Street?  There are much better options and at better prices in other areas of the county where you are more likely to get traffic into your business.  If you listen to the hype these folks want to sell you, it all sounds rosy.  Your best bet is to walk the entire Main street area for one day and talk to present business owners and actually pay attention to everything you see.  You may save yourself a fortune and much heart ache.  Just be careful around these folks who want to give you such nice loans, they can sell ice to an Eskimo and water to fish.  And they can make everything very easy and handle all the paper work for you.  Just don't miss any payments even after you have gone belly up and have nothing left.  Isn't that just great news?

http://www.mainstreetlive.net/gloucester-revolving-loan-fund/

Link to all the wonderful news.  All hail BAAL!  And you even get to bow before the great BAAL when entering their office at their wonderful BAAL shopping center on Main Street.  Where our public library is as well.  That's just so special how they thought of all these wonderful ideas ahead of time.  Just remember, anyone after your money is going to be very helpful and offer more than you ever expected, that is until all your money is gone.  Then you get to see they are not sheep.  And you thought they were as gentle as lambs?

Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust Assets Located

Digging through public records we have the information regarding the real estate listed on the 2011 tax forms of the Main Street Gloucester Preservation Trust also known as the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust.  The following is what we have dug up from public records.

  This is the majority of the property we believe to be under the Trust.  So what we see is that the Trust receives payments from Gloucester County under a lease agreement for space used by the public library.  Your tax dollars funding a part of the secret shadow government infiltrating Gloucester county government.  Gloucester County pays out about 20 thousand dollars a month for leased space in both locations in the county as found on the county's own yearly budget information.  The Main Street location being much larger of the two, we are sure that the majority of the lease payments under the 20 thousand goes to the GMSPT, a non profit, Trust,  fraternity according to their own records.


The library shopping center on Main Street

                                                                                           

Map#          Last Name        First Name     RPC    Land Value   Improvements   Value

32A2(9)-1A GREGORY YVONNE          33565  $500.00            $0.00         $104,500.00

32A2(9)-2A GREGORY YVONNE          41228 $1,023,200    $255,100       $1,278,300

32A2(9)-2A THE MAIN ST. TRUST        41227      00             $1,201,500    $1,201,500

32A2(9)-3A GREGORY YVONNE          41229 $10,600          $0.00             $10,600

Map              Last Name        First Name     RPC    Land Value   Improvements   Value

32A2(9)-2A GREGORY YVONNE            41228 $1,023,200    $255,100       $1,278,300

32A2(9)-2A THE MAIN ST. TRUST          41227     00             $1,201,500    $1,201,500

32A2(9)-3A GREGORY YVONNE            41229  $10,600          $0.00             $10,600

32A2(1)BK A-3A THE MAIN ST. TRUST 42949  $58,500          $0.00              $58,500

32A2(1)BK A-3G THE MAIN ST TRUST 13876   $760,600      $2,459,000      $3,219,600

32A2(1)BK A-3J THE MAIN ST TRUST   42950    $22,000         $0.00            $22,000

32A2(12)-1 THE MAIN STREET TRUST  35133   $1,800            $0.00              $1,800

 -Map 32A2(9)-2A is the parking lot area of the library, health dept., etc.

-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3A is a corner lot located in proximity to the grass area between Main Street and the library

-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3G is the property the buildings sits on. The property is much larger than the building.

-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3J is a property behind the meeting place building

-Map 32A2(12)-1 is a very narrow property between Map 32A2(1)BK A-3A and Main Street.

The above numbers would seem to agree with yesterday's posting information and tax returns information.  The link on yesterday's post shows 2012 figures but no tax returns.  The above figures are right in line with 2012's information.

  So the income for the trust, from what we can gather, comes in the form of lease payments from the ownership of the property known as the Gloucester Main Street Shopping Center.  This is the same property that they depreciated over 1.7 million dollars on for 2011 as seen in their tax form filing.  How they did that we have no idea.  How they get away with not following what other business owners must now follow thanks to the GMSPT involvement with the county is also highly questionable.  How is it that they have not been forced to tear up their parking lot to put in flower beds?  

  Also, according to the 2011 tax form from the Main Street Gloucester Preservation Trust, they did not pay out any grant money to any businesses.  So where did the money come from that the local paper keeps reporting that the GMSPT has awarded?  State or Federal funds that the GMSPT brokered on behalf of those local businesses and take credit for?  We don't know and there is no way to tell.  The 2011 tax form left it blank where the GMSPT or the MSGPT is supposed to show grants held and then paid out.

  Does anyone find this suspicious?  And we want these people promoting Gloucester why?  Are they pocketing fees for brokering services and farming those jobs to themselves through their own businesses not shown to be in connection with them?  Legal fees to Ingles law firm maybe?  Again, we do not know.  We can only ask the questions based on what we see.  According to the GMSPT website, they seem to be brokering commercial real estate.  We have no problem with them brokering real estate unless of course they are collecting extra fees and sending business to certain buddies of the GMSPT and they are the only ones who can handle the business.  Even then it may be okay as long as they are not purposely playing interested parties and milking extra fees from them.  But again, there is where questions come into play.  Are certain people using the GMSPT as a front for other activities?  As a non profit Trust fraternity that has no other source of income other than real estate lease payments, it looks very strange at best.

  And why does a Gloucester County Board of Supervisor need to sit on the Board of this organization?  Again, based on what we see, there is no real reason for that.  And we must continue to ask, why is this Trust Fraternity so interested in making plans that affect taxpayers and businesses within the county?  They are not a charitable corporation like others in other areas are.  So again, this makes no sense.  You have to ask a lot of questions based on the public information of this and it's sister organizations, The Gloucester Main Street Association, supported in part by the GMSPT, and the Cook Foundation.  The folks who brought us the Beehives that polluted the county landscape then the landfills.

  Anyone know how that Beehive deal worked?  We found out.  Here was the deal as it was explained to us.  You had to buy the Beehive and decorate it yourself  at your expense.  You then had to give it back to the Cook Foundation once it was decorated.  If you wanted it back, you had to pay for it again.  No joke.  They pulled that off and had those Beehives everywhere for a year.  But hey, it was for charity.  Who's benefit is the question however.  You can still buy the Beehive posters at the county Welcome Center located in the historic Courthouse Circle, if you are so inclined though.  A reminder of those fun times and the landfill deposits.  

This is an inverted image of one of those Beehives mentioned above.  They were about 4 feet tall if memory serves correctly.  There were hundreds of them around the county and now there are hundreds of them in the local landfill still waiting to decay.  How green was that move?   

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Ted Continues Rant Over Edge Hill Service Station's Potential Demolition

Ted continues his rant over the potential demolition of the Edge Hill Service Station.  He sent us the following two links.

http://www.gazettejournal.net/index.php/news/news_article/enhancement_grants_approved_for_mathews_gloucester
is the first link.   Here is the second link.

http://www.gazettejournal.net/index.php/news/news_article/help_sought_with_grant  

We see issues with the stories at these two links, however, that has not been our focus.  We reported on the potential demolition of Edge Hill Service Station as we found documents on the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust site that clearly shows optional plans for the Stations potential demolition.

We did not create these plans, they are public on the GMSPT's site.  Ted is upset that these plans have been made public here.  His argument shouldn't be with us but instead the GMSPT who's plans they are.  So we are going to help Ted find his way as he seems rather lost.  What you need to do Ted is go to the GMSPT and get them to issue you a legal statement that they no longer back these plans if that is the case.  You will also then want to get them to update their site that shows they are no longer backing these plans if that is the case.

  You will then also want to find out if the GMSPT has filed these plans with the county.  If so, you will then need to do the same thing with the county and get legal statements to show that these potential plans are no longer being considered by the county.  Once you have done all of this, you may want to go to the paper and have them publish a story that the plans are no longer supported.  We have seen nothing that legally retracts these plans.  These are all current plans on the GMSPT site.  It's just wonderful that the Fairfield Foundation has plans for the site.  But that could be a problem for Fairfield that you really should address there Ted.

  Get back to us when you have completed all of these steps and are able to show that they are legal and not just hearsay talk.  See ya in about 6 months or so if you can ever get that done.  Hope that clears Ted's confusion.  We hate to see him like that.

Free MP3 Download - Sandrine Erdely Sayo -  Listz Hungarian Rhapsody No.12 is the track here to help calm poor Ted's nerves.  It's a nice classical music piece.
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Gloucester, VA - Edge Hill Service Station Stays In The News

Ted sent us a very hilarious comment the other day and now we just have to share it with everyone.

"Attacks? You really must have a thin skin. I'll let you know the source of my inside information. The Gazette Journal. You really should get a subscription."

This is the person whom we have been showing his comments to our posts and his most recent response to us.  Ted claims that his inside source is the local paper.  Nice try there Ted.  We read the paper every week and though late reading it this week, we found what you knew in advance which confirms our statement, inside information.  Let's look this over shall we?  Page 13B, Thursday, May 2nd, 2013, $53,000.00 + Awarded In Main Street Grants, is the headline.  Bottom left hand column of the of the article.  Fairfield Foundation received a grant for the continuing restoration project of the Texaco station building at the Main/Route 14 intersection, with the recent grant for installation of the lighting and fixtures suited to the 1930's when the building was erected, $4,704.54. (It does not state they actually received a check or any other form of payment, just a grant).

  Now the above statement is not clear as to whether Fairfield received a check for this amount now or if they are subject to the rules of having to complete the work first to get this grant.  Next, why is the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust giving the grant to the Fairfield Foundation?  The Fairfield Foundation does not own the property.  We showed in an article posted yesterday that the business that owns the property is the Fairfield Edge Hill LLC.  A separate entity.  Now for arguments sake, they may be tied together, but for legal purposes, they are clearly separate entities.

  Now let's go back and look at our friend Ted's first statement.  "Please keep posting stories like this. They prove that you have absolutely no idea of what you are talking about.

The restoration of the station has hardly begun with much work left. Check your facts before you post alarmist articles. I'm guessing you have not spoken with the owners ... they would have told you what is actually going on. "

The restoration of the station has hardly begun.  The newspaper says the continuing restoration there Ted.  "Check our facts before posting alarmist articles?"  What is alarmist about showing what the GMSPT has on their site?  The date of this note from Ted was April 27th, 2013.  

April 29th, 2013, at 7:25 PM Eastern Time Ted sends this update.  "Yes, keep it going. You display your ignorance and wild leaps of "logic" which time will show are at best confused.

The station was painted white prior to being sold to the current owner who plans to upgrade the existing building and corner. This reality has nothing to do with a planning document ... say what you will about the planning document's merit ... it is not prescriptive. Not even the long arm of zoning can force a property owner to comply with a planning document.

So, like I said, keep up the ignorance and people will gradually see that you have no idea what you are talking about. I particularly like your brazen posting of my previous message and you will probably do the same with this one ... I hope. Ignorance is not bliss. "

It's interesting that this news article comes out on May, 2nd that would somehow seem to justify Ted's point.  But let's look at the wording that follows the story shall we?  MSPT presents a check for the improvements once the work has been completed which preferably will be before the end of the current calendar year.

  How did you put it Ted?  It's not prescriptive that the Fairfield Foundation will even receive a check.  Not even the long arm of the MSPT can force the present owner to comply with doing the work planned.  And again why would the GMSPT give Fairfield Foundation a check when the Fairfield Foundation does not own the building?  

  Ted's most recent post claiming he read this in the paper?  May 3rd, at 7:22AM.  Gloucester residents know that the paper is available as early as Wednesday afternoon which would have been Wednesday, May 1st, 2013.  Ted could not have read any of this in the paper ahead of time.  He started the argument on April 27th after we first exposed the present plans to potentially demolish the Edge Hill Service Station by the same people now claiming to be offering a grant to the wrong entity for the Edge Hill Service Station ownership.  Is this making sense to anyone?  These people seem awfully shifty to us.  

  However, this is the same group that is developing plans that affect homeowners, businesses, investors, and potential investors that would increase taxes and compliance issues on their own and asking the local government officials to help them with those plans.  ???  And again we point out that Louise Theberge is playing both sides of this coin.  Could someone please explain to us what a non profit organization has to do with making such plans?  

  We have been wondering if these people are violating their 501(c) 3 status and also may be violating IRS rules for such an entity.  We will have to ask the IRS to see what they think.  Something isn't right here.  Thanks for your input Ted.    We found it quite enjoyable.  Keep up the outstanding work.  By the way Ted, we know that you are sick of all the issues you are surrounded by each day, when you are ready to spill the real beans, we will be here waiting to help you expose the dirt and wash your hands of it all.  ; )

Free MP3 Download.  - The TenGooz - Lost In Translation.  A funky blues tune.  It's rather interesting.  CC Lic attrib/non commercial share alike distribution.  Our way of saying thanks for spending time with us.

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