DEFAULT IS NOT IN OUR STARS, BUT IN OURSELVES: Part 5 — Machiavellian Mind Games…Or Just Ugly Little Lies?
In the first installment of this saga, published on December 19, 2023, I queried Christopher Girard, Bay City’s 6th Ward Commissioner, about the genesis of State Theatre’s sudden financial instability.
On June 26, 2020, in his role as then-President of Bay County Growth Alliance, Christopher Girard signed an $800,000 commercial mortgage, naming the State Theatre, 913 Washington Avenue, as the borrower.
Girard was quoted in a November 24, 2023 MLive article, excerpted below:
“Growth Alliance has the note for the State Theatre,” Girard said. “Technically, if they defaulted on the payments, the Growth Alliance could foreclose on the State Theatre.”
The State Theater has repaid some of the principal, but the balance is still outstanding, Girard said in the MLive report. He could not provide the still-owed amount, nor confirm the State is behind on payments.”
Although Girard ducked my email query so quickly I could almost hear quacking, I have discovered that the State Theatre pledged “virtually all the Theatre’s assets” to obtain that $800,000 future advance mortgage provided by the Growth Alliance.
And where, you may ask, did I find that information?
In an official City of Bay City document, obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request. (An excerpt from the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020 is shown below.)
In late December 2023, I requested the State Theatre financial documents “mandated by the June 19, 2017 Maintenance and Management Agreement For Wenonah Park”.
As shown in the excerpt below, I requested “all audit reports, beginning with FYE December 31, 2017 through December 31, 2022”.
In her January 16, 2024 response to my December 26, 2023 request, City of Bay City Manager Dana Muscott confirmed that State Theatre audit reports the “years 2021 and 2022” do not exist.
So here’s where I’m going with this: in June 2022, the City of Bay City submitted a grant application requesting $900,000 from the Revitalization and Placemaking Program (RAP) for a multi-phase Wenonah Park project.
Administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) on behalf of the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF), “this tool provides access to real estate development gap financing in the form of grants between $500,000 and $5 million per project for real estate rehabilitation and development, grants between $500,000 and $1 million for public space place-based infrastructure per project, and grants between $500,000 and up to $20 million to local or regional partners who develop a subgrant program.”
With “The State Theatre” and “Mike Bacigalupo” front and center as the focus of this $900,000 request, where did the City of Bay City grant writing team get the seemingly non-existent 2021 State Theatre financials?
How were the figures cited in the project’s description, including “renovations to the 42-year-old bandshell, including an expansion of the state and a “Hollywood Bowl” redesign look, and a remodel of the dressing rooms for a total investment of $1,500,000 and was completed in 2021” derived?
Just where did those numbers come from?
Was this really a grant application…or a Bacigalupo bailout?
