Candidate’s Forum Bruce Barrows

Question #4
Should the city consider a public/private partner ship pertaining to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts?

During my first election, in 1994, there were two candidates who supported selling the Theater as a way to eliminate the operating subsidies. Although there wasn’t a good answer to how do we sell a building at a price that would recoup the money invested by the City, it was just lets sell it and ignore the potential loss. The major question that no one has been able to answer is; if someone were to buy/invest in the theater, they would need a return on their investment – where would it come from, when we, with no debt to pay, like all theaters, aren’t able to generate a profit.
Although I wasn’t on the City Council at the time of the building, I was involved during my 6 years on the Planning Commission. What stands out, to me, wasn’t the risk nor the boldness to build our award winning theater, but the way it fit into the plan for the town center.
This City Council initiated project considered the whole of the Town Center (once referred to as the Golden Triangle). After considerable analysis, the City’s consultant confirmed the Council’s vision that buying the whole center and leasing the ground to owners of the office and retail buildings would generate significant income. The ground rent, the sales tax income and the property taxes all generate enough income for Cerritos to not only cover the operating expenses of the theater each year, but to generate a profit for the City. The Theater was used to induce other businesses to come to Cerritos and the Town Center. It should also be noted, the more shows the Theater schedules, the better the businesses perform and the greater the value of the Town Center becomes.
In closing, we paid cash for the Theater, which means there is no debt. Our Theater, when looked at as part of the whole Town Center is a successful money making project.