Auction at the Met--Taxpayers Forgotten

The event was front page news in the Fresno Bee and the local news stations: "Big auction for Met memorabilia." Get it while its hot! Wonderful deals! Outstanding turnout!

I guess the auction was inevitable after the Met went belly-up after years of overbuilding and mismanagement. Nevertheless, it made me furious to think of how Met management lied to the City of Fresno in order to get its multi-million dollar loan guarantee to just "tide it over" until construction was finished and the museum would again open to sufficient paying customers to keep it solvent. What a con! And as a member of the City Council at that time, I fell for it.

Lost in all the hoopla of the auction was the fact that millions of City of Fresno tax dollars paid for a foolish Taj Majal that Fresno could not afford. Other important projects that Fresno was ready to provide citizens, particularly more parks, had to be scrapped because of the debacle. The irresponsible Met board of directors and staff should also be apologizing to the 140 city police department employees that were recently let go due to city budget constraints. And their apology will be needed again this spring when Mayor Swearengin's budget axes more employees.
I wish that I could turn back the clock to that unanimous vote by the council in 2006. It was difficult to vote against guaranteeing the loan with the council chamber full of Met supporters and the Fresno Bee editorializing about the need for "city leaders to support a downtown cultural icon" (which, incidentally, was originally given or sold to the Met by the Fresno Bee when it found the old building inadequate). The decision by the council was a poor one, based more on local feelings of sentiment and loyalty rather than hard-headed reality.

For those of you "lucky" ones that got a good deal at the Met auction, please be sure to thank the citizens of Fresno that are subsidizing your purchase. They are certainly not smiling.

Coming Soon...

1. The Fresno Philharmonic: We should be so fortunate.
2. College students, program reviews and jobs.
3. "Choice" for parents and students in our local schools.

Comments are welcome. Click on "Comments" below or e-mail abriancalhoun@gmail.com