This week was busy with another non-profit merger;
The Butterfly House & Aquarium has raised $4.2 million toward its capital campaign to expand aquarium exhibits, which can be applied toward the project, Otto-Pepper said.
Of course the Butterfly House is merging with the Zoo and it seems they have raised a lot of money.
LSS is also merging with the Multi-Cultural center, which I fully support, and probably is long past due.
But you have to wonder what is going on with their bank accounts.
As you know, the Levitt has yet to release numbers from their 2021 season even as their 2022 season has been finished for over a month.
The Denny Sanford Premier center is up for contract renewal and they are taking in millions in profits and commissions.
According to the Pavilion’s annual report in 2021 they had over $5 million in the bank. This is after basically skipping a year due to Covid. You also have to remember that we not only give the Pavilion a yearly operational subsidy but we give millions each year fixing the building due to the poor construction of the facility to begin with (windows, roofs, etc.)
Maybe it is time the city council takes a hard look at how much we are subsidizing these facilities taking into consideration how much is in their bank accounts. Do we really need to subsidize the Pavilion, the Zoo, the Denty and other facilities when they may have millions in their bank accounts. I don’t think so.