City Loses JW Convention-Parking dispute:Two versions-Guess who lied? (page 3)

snowbird

Huntsville would have been a better choice. It's a much safer city.

True that.

The comments on the story at al.com were very, very interesting.

Sylvia

V

"Grizzle estimated that some conventions attract as many visitors as members." Yeah, right.

"No offerings are collected during the conventions, which include lectures and Bible dramas." So misleading. Contribution boxes are placed throughout traffic areas and are staffed with attendants.

If someone puts money in a box during the program, isn't that true, "offerings are collected during the conventions"??

Me thinks Gerald Grizzle is in the business of mis-information.
"Gerald Grizzle said Monday from the convention office at the Jehovah's Witness world headquarters in Brooklyn, N.Y. "

minimus

The Watchtower never lies. You know better than that, Andersons.

AudeSapere

dinah wrote: I had no idea some venues actually pay the WT to choose their facilities.

I didn't get that they were actually 'paid' to choose the facility. My understanding is that there was some form of rebate or kickback. (ie: Pay the venue and the dept of tourism will reimburse part of the cost of the venue.)

Would be interesting to get more detailed info, though.

-Aude.

AndersonsInfo

Here's the latest from today's Huntsville Times. It appears to me that it was an editiorial.

Losing a convention

Thursday, October 02, 2008 Huntsville Times

The city takes an economic hit; it should try again next year

Like an iceberg, the situation that has led the Jehovah's Witnesses to cancel three summer meeting in Huntsville next year has two layers - the tip you can see and the murky depths where much lies obscured.

The clearly visible part is this: Because of a dispute over a total of about $22,000 in off-site parking fees for the three summer weekends that the Witnesses would hold their meetings at the Von Braun Center, Huntsville stands to lose close to $9 million in economic activity that the meetings generated.

Just in terms of taxes, the meetings, which have been held here for the last dozen years, generate more than $700,000 in sales tax annually and some $5,500 in hotel taxes each year.

So looking at the situation from the standpoints of economic activity and tax revenue, the image of self-inflicted foot wounds is hard to dispel.

But there are other issues to consider, some more relevant than others.

While not dismissing the importance of Witnesses' meetings, the head of the Huntsville-Madison County Convention and Visitors Bureau notes that the three meetings account for only a 3 percent in total convention delegates in Huntsville in 2009. So the city is still doing well as a convention-hoster.

That's playing with numbers. And the key one is that $9 million in economic activity that's not going to happen.

There's also another factor to consider: the uncertainty of the national economy. How many of the bookings for next year might be affected if the country, as some predict, enters into a deep recession? Our convention economy may not look as good as predicted.

The Witnesses say they had a "proposal," which included the parking fees, from the city. The city says it had an "agreement." So why didn't both sides have a contract? Wouldn't that have solved the problem?

That's an unanswered question, but note that even with a contract, forcing a group to attend meetings in a city it has decided it doesn't want to go to might, in the long run, be against the city's best and long-term interest.

At this point, however, it wouldn't be sensible to try to make a legal issue out of this, even if one could be made. Let the Witnesses take their 2009 meetings to Birmingham, as they now say they will do, and work with them to get them back to Huntsville in 2010.

Why couldn't someone find a way to reach a compromise that would have been satisfactory to both parties?

The Times' report by Lee Roop and Kay Campbell noted that a three-person negotiating team, representing the VBC, the Convention Bureau and the city's parking division, tried to work out a compromise and failed. This despite sharp reductions in fees for parking that would have been parlayed with actual cash outlay from the Convention Bureau to make the meetings more economically attractive to the visitors.

Are the Witnesses ultra-hard line negotiators who tried to squeeze every drop of concessions from the city and wound up going too far?

Or did the city fail to go just a bit further and wrap up the negotiations so that the city would continue to reap the sizable economic benefit from the Witnesses' meetings?

It's that last question that continues to resonate.

Why did a partnership that worked so well for a dozen years suddenly turn sour? And was there no possibility for someone in high authority in city government to broker this deal to the city's economic advantage?

Until more details emerge - if they indeed do - Huntsville's position on enticing the Witnesses back to the Rocket City is remarkably similar to the attitudes of all the Major League Baseball teams that didn't make this year's playoffs: Wait until next year and try to do better.

By David Prather, for the editorial board. E-mail: [email protected]

ESTEE

The Spin Doctors are at it again . . . one story for the public . . . then the real story. Sheesh!!!

I've seen it over . . . and over . . . and over . . .

ESTEE

bobld

So one city loses JW suckers is another city gain.What I don't understand is the WBTS/GB wants to rent a city facility for free.Yet the R&F must pay rent for their circuit assemblies and SAD days that are in their own paid for Assembly Kingdom Halls.

Bob

PS I know,just joking

Sam Beli

I knew Gerald Grizzle as a very hard working CO nearly 40 years ago. He was actually a pretty nice guy then as far as I could tell.

Octarine Prince

EXPOSED!!!

City Loses JW Convention-Parking dispute:Two versions-Guess who lied?

Losing a convention

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