Tacoma Tall Ship Event

[hurricane]

Here's an interesting article on the tall ship problems for Tacoma. Guess we'd better all hold our breath...

-- Hurricane

It’s time to kill the Tall Ships Festival

DAN VOELPEL; THE NEWS TRIBUNE

Last updated: January 28th, 2005 08:50 AM

Should Tacoma pull the plug on the 2005 Tall Ships Festival?

Somebody needs to ask the question. Before it’s too late. Before the planned summer parade of sailing ships from around the world breaks the city’s bank account. Before Tacoma falls flat on its new civic face.

Despite genuine enthusiasm and good intentions from a stalwart team of local nonprofit organizers, genuine enthusiasm and good intentions remain the event’s most significant assets.

That’s far short of what’s needed to float the Tall Ships Festival.

“The event is going to happen,” said Doug Miller, the former city councilman now in charge of the Tacoma Events Commission. “It’s too late to say, ‘I wonder whether it’s going to happen, because it is. Now, it’s up to us whether we want to present a Rolls-Royce event or a Lexus event. We would like to present a Rolls-Royce.

“Our biggest obstacle is an attitude that lends doubt rather than inspires people to believe it’s happening or could happen successfully. The worst thing that could happen is to plant doubt in people’s minds.”

But facing tough, unanswered questions with a positive attitude won’t make the obstacles disappear by the festival, which begins June 30.

Organizers face unresolved, critical gaps in funding for security and support services, in parking logistics and in potential hotel availability that suggest, I hate to say, Tacoma can’t yet pull off an international-scale event like this on its own.

Organizers have outlined a cumbersome plan that calls for visitors to park throughout downtown Tacoma in city-owned parking garages and other surface lots, then wait for a shuttle to take them back and forth to the Foss Waterway. Yet three days of the six-day event occur during the work week when those lots are near capacity.

Worse yet, the Tacoma Police Department fired an unheeded warning shot more than three months ago. The 24-hour-a-day security costs, preplanning, public works and fire services for a six-day event with homeland security implications would cost the city nearly $850,000.

Since then, the City Council passed a budget with just $100,000 earmarked for police expenses related to all special events in Tacoma over the next two years.

Just this week, the council’s Economic Development Committee instructed the police department to direct the full $100,000 to the Tall Ships event. Yet Tall Ships organizers have no intention of cutting a check for the balance.

“I am 100 percent certain $100,000 will not totally cover the cost of our resources,” assistant police chief Jim Howatson told the council committee Tuesday. “This is a big event. It will need security for 24 hours a day and overlaps with the Fourth of July, which stretches our resources further.”

In fact, Tacoma police will send a letter in the next few days to the chiefs of every police department in Pierce County asking them for a list of officers available for hire to supplement Tacoma’s force.

Organizers believe the police department estimated costs based on too much uniformed security. Miller said the events commission submitted to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security a detailed security plan that relies more heavily on trained volunteers and less on uniformed cops.

The feds have not blessed the plan yet – and might not accept it without upgrades, Miller acknowledged.

Miller also has drafted, but not yet delivered, a request to the Pierce County legislative caucus in Olympia for nearly $1 million in state funding for dock construction, security and transportation, plus authorization for policing assistance from the Washington National Guard.

How should events like this work? Take the Pacific Rim Sports Summit – 900 athletes from nine countries coming to the Puget Sound region in June with gymnastics set for the Tacoma Dome. Tacoma police say the U.S. Olympic Committee has agreed to pay for security costs provided by local police.

Meanwhile, on Jan. 11, Tall Ships organizers handed the city a list of services – including safety and security – they expect your City of Tacoma to provide at no cost to the organizing committee for the entire six days of the event: parking and transportation, trash receptacles, portable toilets, street barricades, fire support on Commencement Bay and Foss Waterway, printing and promotion.

Miller reiterated the request this week to the Economic Development Committee.

The $100,000 in security funds will help, Miller said, “if we, as a nonprofit, can have the assurance (from the city) that we won’t get a separate billing for police, fire and public works services.”

The council committee members stopped short of committing more money to Tall Ships, yet Kevin Phelps made his position clear: “My expectation is we would do whatever we can as a city to make this event happen. This is a once-in-a-decade opportunity to showcase what Tacoma is about. My hope is that our public works department, fire and police will do what they can.”

Without money? And during a week when those premium services traditionally get stretched thin battling illegal fireworks complaints throughout the city and supporting the popular July 4th Freedom Fair on Ruston Way?

The Tacoma City Clerk’s Office, which issues special events permits for events that block city streets, has yet to issue one for Tall Ships 2005 because the city departments that must sign off on the event still don’t have a clear grasp of the event demands of their services, said Clerk Doris Sorum.

The City Council couldn’t come up with enough money to keep Fire Station No. 13 open and keep a team of police community liaison officers on the street after this year. Anyone who thinks the city can come up with $847,000 for security and so many other services fails to grasp the new reality of civic finance.

This isn’t the Tacoma you can come to with your hand out anymore and expect the city treasury to fill it.

Yes, but, organizers say, this event follows an economic formula: 400,000 visitors x $69 spent per visitor = $27.6 million spent in six days.

Opting to invest in activities that provide Tacoma a positive return on investment makes a good rule of thumb for local government. Take the convention center, as a good example.

But Tacoma won’t see nearly the full predicted return on an investment in Tall Ships. If you read between the lines of the festival’s Jan. 11 update to the city, that $27.6 million will get spent throughout Pierce County.

During the heart of the Tall Ships schedule – July 1-3 – Watchtower, the religious organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses, comes to Tacoma with an estimated 9,000 members for its annual summer gathering at the Tacoma Dome. Typically, Watchtower’s arrival during this peak travel weekend results in a near sellout of Tacoma and Fife hotel rooms, according to local host industry sources.

The new Courtyard by Marriott hotel, which hasn’t opened yet, projects near-capacity crowds for Watchtower and already-booked wedding parties – without factoring in the Tall Ships visitors, said Lisa Wolch, sales manager.

The Sheraton Tacoma Hotel has roughly 60 percent of its room capacity still available and hopes Tall Ships visitors take it. But the Silver Cloud Inn on Ruston Way, Days Inn Tacoma and three Fife hotels already show as sellouts on Expedia.com.

So where will the out-of-towners stay when they come to see the Tall Ships? Out of town at hotels Federal Way and Lacey, which doesn’t benefit Tacoma proper.

What about the ships?

Eighteen ships have given verbal commitments to the commission, said Miller, who expects at least two more to commit.

National Geographic Traveler magazine, Miller said, has informed him Tacoma’s Tall Ships Festival will make the April edition as one of the summer’s Top 10 must-see events.

Does that mean the event has so much momentum that it will occur, somehow, and box City Hall into providing the support services and paying the invoices generated by the Tacoma Events Commission?

Miller announced this week that one of the highly regarded Japanese ships Tacoma hoped to woo here now plans to sail for a more lucrative offer in England instead. Queen Elizabeth is hosting a yearlong celebration for the 200th anniversary of Britain’s famous Battle of Trafalgar, including a summer tall ships events.

“She can outspend us,” Miller said of the queen.

Let her.

[the Royaliste]

On behalf of the organizers, ASTA,(who have been doing this like forever) it is hard to imagine them in a role of 'paying' to provide the Tallships necessary for these events. ASTA see's little money, other than our paltry membership dues, so....maybe Tacoma isn't ready to grasp the concept of 'Tallship Gams'....too bad, everyone should have a chance to see vessels in my opinion. The lack of coordination when I first inquired up north, with no real way to generate any profit(We do need fuel and such) convinced me to start here in SF, instead of beating north to Victoria for the run downwind....things could always change...One of our local events tied to this in the spring has lost steam also, so that just leaves 'Sail San Francisco 2005'...

[hurricane]

The location there is horrible, even for a relatively small event. We've done the Commencement Maritime Festival there and parking and access, even with buses, is mighty poor. After all, it is a working waterway, so there are plenty of businesses down there with private parking lots that are usually closed off to the public. We had a terrible time with access when we were performing at the smaller festival.

They say they have lots of in-kind money to promote the event, but I don't see a lot of cash going to support the ships or crewes while they're there... and Homeland Security hasn't even approved their security plan for the duration.

Knowing Tacoma I don't think they can handle this either. It bankrupted the group in Seattle who tried it in 02... and that too was a less ambitious plan...

Guess we'll see but I'm glad our band of entertainers already turned down going there.

-- Hurricane