As they strive to raise the remaining $60,000 to purchase downtown Port Angeles’ shuttered Lincoln Theater, Scott Nagel and Karen Powell are also planning how to run it as a nonprofit arts center.
Nagel and Powell, married business partners who also produce the Dungeness Crab & Seafood Festival every October, made an offer of $235,000 last winter to Sun Basin Theatres, the Wenatchee owner of the Lincoln.
The pair have raised $175,000 in pledged donations and are now seeking foundation grants, major sponsors — and people to serve on the board of directors.
This week, Powell will host the first of three forums on Lincoln Theater board development.
“This process not only enfranchises people,” Powell said, “but helps others see how a board can make or break an organization.”
The flow of individual pledges has slowed, Nagel said. He’s turned his energies toward major gifts, from local companies on up to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s rural economic development division.
First: Let's observe that, to no one's great surprise, the "flow" of "individual pledges" has not just slowed, it's come to a halt. These figures have been static for quite a stretch now.
Second: Let's remember that pledges are easy to make, but harder to collect. It's not uncommon for efforts like this to have "default" rates of up to 20% - which means you really need to raise more than 100% of your goal just to make sure you make your goal.
Third: And most crucial...Just because you might be able to scrape together enough funds to buy this white elephant, doesn't mean you have the funds to do anything with it. There still doesn't seem to be any real talk of renovation costs, or who is going to pay them. (Those costs will be much more than the purchase price.) This is like a teenager spending every last penny they can save or borrow to buy a car - leaving them without any funds at all to buy gas, insurance, windshield wiper fluid, etc. In other words, the first step, as difficult as it is, is actually the easy part.
Fourth: Has anyone associated with this done any of the studies that would show if this project is likely to succeed? Is there a business plan? A market analysis? A traffic study? Or...
Fifth: Or...Is the plan to just hope for the best and let Scott and Karen run this? The same Scott and Karen whose one signature event still runs in the red every year? Again, that doesn't exactly inspire confidence, or seem like a roadmap to success.
It sure seems like Port Angeles would benefit from less effort on private pipe dreams like this, and more effort on, say, public (water) pipes that would truly serve a need, and the entire community. So don't forget to vote, folks, and don't hold your breath waiting for the next show at the Lincoln.
The Crab Fest has not paid its utility bill from the last festival and they want to own, remodel, and operate the Lincoln Theater? What color is the Sun on the planet they came from?
ReplyDeleteYep, Nagel's once a year "successful" event still has to beg for funds just to happen, even after being around for years. It's not self-sustaining at all. So just imagine what he could do with a big building, year-round utility bills, maybe a staff member of two, and so on. He could dig a financial hole so deep it might suck in that whole block.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that's why the JFFA board has distanced themselves from this lunatic idea. Remember when they were going to run all this under their existing organization? We haven't heard that discussed for quite a while, now. Even their out of touch board must have seen the potential for disaster looming.
Yes, but we do have to remember that 30% of Americans, or roughly 100 million of us believe that Adam and Eve walked with dinosaurs only a few thousand years ago.
ReplyDeleteSeriously.
So, if you figure roughly 30% of Port Angeles residents believe Adam and Eve walked with dinosaurs in a world god created in 7 days a few thousand years ago, "Lighting up the Lincoln" and believing Scott Nagel can make the Lincoln a self sustaining arts center is right in line.
Logic and reality are one thing. Look around Port Angeles, and you see something else.
Or...
ReplyDeleteClimb a Board, Walk a Plank
Or...
Not Meaning to Sound Crabby, But...How Will You Pay the Bills???
Or...
Is this place the lunatic's capital of the world?
ReplyDeleteRecently, some people have posted here criticizing CK for supposedly "always" going over the same subjects more than once.
DeleteBut then you see mindbending articles like the one in today's PDN about the Lincoln, and you see, once again, the repetitive nature of life here on the brink. Today's article had nothing, NOTHING, different from the last two or three or four articles on this same subject. Yet they trot it out again, as though there were something new.
BUT THERE ISN'T.
Living here is like being stuck in "Groundhog Day," only without the benefit of having Bill Murray around. The same people cycling through various public offices, offering the same tired ideas to benefit their same circle of cronies. We may not be reinventing the wheel, but we're sure stuck on one that just goes around and around without ever getting anywhere.
The Lincoln Theater is an empty building. Scott Nagel has an empty head, and a big mouth perfect for blowing hot air. THAT IS ALL THERE IS TO THIS STORY. That is all there has ever been to this story.
If we as a community do not stop getting distracted by conmen and self-serving shills like Scott Nagel, we are not only doomed, we are actually participating in expediting that doom. If more people turn up for these "be on our board" meetings than show up for a city council meeting, we can only expect continued bad outcomes.
Wake up, Port Angeles. A lack of "moving picture shows" is the very least of our problems.
I agree. The PDN, Revitalize Port Angeles, the Port Angeles City council that gives these efforts commendations and other attempts at credibility are all complicit in distracting the community from seeing and acting on the real problems that result in Port Angeles not only sitting stagnant, but declining.
DeleteHere we have yet another example, this weekend. The Big Sprint Boat Races that all the local businesses put out signs for, and the town is empty.
Not that the event did not attract a bunch of race groupies to attend the races. People did show up. When I drove by, the field was half filled with campers and trucks. Campers that did not need the hotels, motels or restaurants or Port Angeles. They could whoop it up, get drunk, and crash out in their campers, and never leave the place they parked in, well outside of Port Angeles.
As someone else pointed out, Port Angeles was a ghost town Friday night, even though Dan's Sprint Boat Races were going on. Like Dan's JFFA weekend.
When are we going to wake up?
Stop being so negative. Go for a walk along the beautiful waterfront which you paid for!
DeleteToo windy to be there for very long. And, I really would rather go out to Freshwater Bay or somewhere that doesn't have oil tankers right along the waterfront, and be dodging the log trucks loading up that ship.
DeleteIf I'm looking for "beautiful", Port Angeles doesn't come to mind.
seeing reality isn't being negative.
DeleteI am so sick of these idiots around here who think that no one should utter a discouraging word. YOU, dear, are the problem.
Most problems aren't fixed by a walk along an artificial waterfront, dearie. Most are fixed by identifying the problem and then getting mad as hell.
Port Angeles has too many lax, "stepford wives", who think that another manicure, another beer, or another shot of heroin is going to make things all wonderful.
If you read the article,you can see that it mentions that Revitalize Port Angeles has a link on their website to a renovation plan for the theater. I read it. It is actually very detailed, specific, and realistic. It goes so far as to name local business where materials will be purchased. However, the estimate for the renovation is .... $750,000. The Lincoln Theater project, in all of its glory, is a million dollar baby.
ReplyDeleteI agree it's a million dollar project - at the very least. The problem is, it's not worth it, it shouldn't be a priority, and it's a distraction from the real problems that are rapidly destroying Port Angeles.
DeleteIt's a useless building, with too high a price sold by a useless old man, with a useless crooked man trying to set up a useless board.
DeleteTear it down, and do us all a favor. I'd say burn it, but I doubt the thing can burn.
I'm praying for enough of an earthquake to reduce it to rubble.
Sixth... A bailout. Come on, you know the taxpayers are going to have to fund this "vision". God bless capitalism!
ReplyDeleteSometimes while reading this blog I am reminded of the tale in my home town. Don't know if it is tree there but must be true here. It goes like this. A police car came upon a bridge where a man was about to jump over the side to certain death. The brave young officer got out of the car and began to approach the distraught man. "Hey, wait a minute buddy, let's talk this over, it can't be that bad' he said walking out to mid span of the bridge. As the policeman got closer the distraught man leaned even further out over the abyss, don't come any closer I'll jump" he said.
ReplyDelete"Can't we just talk this over" said the policeman leaning on the bridge railing a few feet from the would-be jumper. "Tell me what is so terrible that you have to take your own life" said the policeman. The man began to pour out his troubles to the young policeman who listened intently for a few minutes and then joined hands with the man and both went over the side...
Yes, a very appropriate tale, indeed.
DeleteI know a lot about suicide. I'm a survivor, so far.
People in this town talk as if they know something about this. That damned council person, Cherie Kidd, made those stupid 8th street bridge "safety barriers" an campaign schtick. I could just scream.
I know these people think they are helping, but they really have no clue how hard it is to keep the urge to make it all just stop, under control. It has nothing to do with goddamned barriers.
These "well intentioned" people have no clue of the overwhelming reality of hopelessness. That girl stood up awhile ago, and asked for the local leaders not to sell us out. To give us hope. And what happened? More of exactly what she was talking to. They formed some fucking group of the same stupid people who just don't have a clue.
You want to join hands with me? At the bridge? Or the harbor? Or out in the quiet forest?
Nah, suicide is like walking out on a movie, you don't get to see the end.
DeleteHopelessness doesn't come from other people, although it might seem that way. It's from within. No matter how many times I think about doing myself in, I think about why. The real reason why is because it's easier than making a difference.
Lighten up. If nothing else have fun with the losers in our government, and be a pain-in-their ass. Speak up, act out, and get mad.
What do you have to lose?
Not to push it, but, just to say. You don't know, cuz you speak like it is a rational, reasoned thought process, and it is much more than that.
DeleteYeah, people survive in situations a lot worse than PA or Port Townsend or Seattle. Even ultra rich people with the power to buy what ever they think they need, choose to die. Hopelessness is internal, but it is so totally affected by external conditions.
Lighten up? You obviously don't know the scene.
But thanks for trying.
Right. I don't "understand" because only YOU get it? Its only about you, is that it?
DeleteSuicide is rarely an irrational solution. IT IS a rational, reasoned process that takes years to cultivate.
It is well documented,that it is a decision that people are motivated to over a long period of time. There is usually a catalyst: illness, financial loss, some imagined loss. The decision is never last minute, most suiciders have had a great deal of thought, time to toss and turn various options, and "reasons" in their heads. There is always a rational reason -- one they've been looking for for their "ah-ha" moment. The sign, the solution, the great reason.
It is the destructive inner-voice, that finally wins out, after years of argument.
But it is all a negative thought process.
People who get caught up in this negative thought process spend much, too much, time thinking only of themselves. They're very self-focused. Everything is a big deal. Everything is seen as "the last straw". They walk around with a chip on their shoulder, always.
The "hopelessness" you describe is probably better phrased as: poor me. woe is me.
Self-centered, egotistical, and hypersensitive. People who jump to everyone/thing is against me and being hurt by small, insignificant slights and imagined wrongs. Most suiciders considered themselves (and others considered them) to be loners, introverts. They identify with helpless -- a leaf pushed along by the wind.
Overwhelming them is the sense of being trapped, which is related to an insufficient capacity to solve problems, combined with cognitive rigidity. Things are black/white, right/wrong. The only solution is self-harm.
So, no, hopelessness is not affected by external conditions. It's cultivated in the person's rigid thoughts. The only way to break this cycle is to change the thinking.
And, yeah, I know the scene. I know it way too well. Suicides run in my family -- like a bad genetic code. The culture of suicide attempts, threats, and talk has been a pivot point my whole life.
So, shut the F*** up, and go out and find something to do besides whine about how you are so special. You aren't. And, this helplessness is learned. You can unlearn it. Outside, external conditions, have nothing to do with the internal dialogue.
Next time you think about doing yourself in go visit a pediatric cancer ward. There are people dying to live, so why are you living to die?
As a survivor, I won't "shut the fuck up", as much as you might want people who don't fit into your view, to do.
DeleteSorry to hear that you have had this in your family.
But it doesn't sound like you learned as much as you might have. Like, not everyone is the same?
Reading what you write, culminating in your "Shut the fuck up" comment shows you're not interested in other people's realities. I could quote all kinds of academic research studies on hopelessness, but you're not interested in hearing anything,
You think you know, and you clearly do not.
And...We're ending this particular line of discussion now, okay?
DeleteThey've taken a year to (not even) come up with the purchase price. It's been a real struggle. So, where is the money coming for the building upgrades? Where is the money coming for the monthly $$$ nut to keep the lights on?
ReplyDeleteWhy are we even participating in this charade?
When will we have enough of snake-oil salesmen, con artists, and other bullshit buddies?
This is what is killing this town. Its been heading downhill for the last three decades, and all people can see is the smoke and mirrors.
There are so many layers of wool pulled over the idiots eyes they'll never see daylight again.