Tour of Missouri gets support of tourism commission
JEFFERSON CITY — The Tour of Missouri is likely to roll on in September, but a dispute over how state money is spent to support the September bike race is simmering beneath the surface.
Today, the Missouri Tourism Commission voted 7-0 to make cuts elsewhere in its budget rather than to sacrifice the $1.5 million dedicated to the tour. Commission members said the race is too important to economic development in the state, and it’s too close to its start, to cancel it now.
Ultimately, the question over whether to cancel the race belongs with the Tour of Missouri, Inc., a non-profit organization set up by Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder to run the bike race. It’s the non-profit, and not the state, that has contracts to produce the race, and officials from the administration of Gov. Jay Nixon want to know how the money is being spent.
Earlier this week, Nixon budget director Linda Luebbering told tourism director Bob Smith that the state would not approve the $1.5 million payment to Tour of Missouri, Inc. And in a memo to Luebbering, economic development director Linda Martinez recommended that the funding be cut from the budget.
Nixon is facing a budget shortfall because of declining state revenue and he’s asked every state department to propose millions of dollars in cuts.
When the memo was made public, Kinder and others began a full-fledged public relations campaign to convince Nixon to keep the Tour of Missouri money in the budget. Nixon spokesman Jack Cardetti said the decision hasn’t been made yet.
On a conference call today during a tourism commission meeting, one of Martinez; deputies, Katie Steele Danner, told the commission that the governor’s office is seeking more information on the Tour of Missouri contracts before it approves the money.
“I am very interested in getting the information from you to help me make your case,” Danner said. Both she and her husband, Adjutant General Steve Danner of the Missouri National Guard, volunteered on the first race three years ago. “I’m just trying to get my arms around the structure of this,” Danner said.
Kinder and other commission members, including state Sen. Jack Goodman, R-Mt. Vernon, said the race is too important to cancel.
Tell Governor Nixon why Missouri needs the Tour
http://www.tourofmissouri.com/savethetour.html
Governor Plays Petty Politics
http://mopns.com/2009/07/10/governor-plays-petty-politics/
Missouri has had enough of Jay Nixon..
According to my figures which I believe are correct, 32 million people attended this event last year. The records show they spent a little over 352 million dollars.
I can understand budget director Linda Luebbering concerns, but economic development director Linda Martinez, who recommended that the funding for the Tour be cut from the budget, must be oblivious to the economics involved.
When an investment of a mere $1.5 million reaps over $30 million dollars in revenue, the state eventually sees that money in the form of state taxes. Since so many different aspects of our economy are positively impacted by the revenue the race brings, taxes from hotels, gas stations, restaurants and retail benefit not only the local government, but the state as well.
How much will CANCELLING the Tour cost us taxpayers, with all the contracts that will be breached?
By the way, I voted for you, Jay.
I heard Peter Kinder on the radio yesterday. He is the Lieutenant Governor, but Nixon has only spoken with him once since the election and that was 2 days after when Kinder offered to work with him. Seems like Nixon is being a cry baby, treating Kinder as a foe instead of a co-worker and dismantling a good program for political reasons.
OK, enough fuzzy math is enough - is it 30 million dollars, or ten times that, at 352 million dollars? The proponents are in such a spittle-flecked desperate frenzy that they cannot keep their phony numbers straight.
One figure is clear: $1.5 million in taxpayer money to underwrite a bike race event, now in its third year and still unable to sustain itself financially.
Peter Kinder, our lieutenant governor, is about to have his contorted, liverish-colored head explode in the Wrath of Beelzebub. He is wasting still more taxpayer dollars by having his staff burning up state-owned keyboards to stir vitriol toward a governor who is actually balancing the state budget that Kinder claims to want to protect (”Every Dollar Counts” was Kinder’s duplicitous campaign slogan).
Well, at least Kinder’s staff isn’t looking at child porn during working hours, like his last chief of staff pleaded guilty to doing in state court.
These guys are pathetic. The Post-Dispatch should investigate which Kinder cronies are getting rich off the Tour of Missouri.
I think Danforth is on to something. The state is not on the hook. It is Kinder’s Tour of Missouri, Inc that gets the money. Take a look at who is on that board-all of KInder’s staff at the Lt. Governor’s office-this thing stinks big
The Lt. Gov and the Gov are each elected separately. Kinder is a republican and Nixon is a democrat. Race should be organized by and funded by a REAL non-profit organization. As for note that 32 million watched and spent $350 million .. do you realize that just slightly over $10 a person. Insignificant! Also .. 32 million watched when population of the entire state is only 5.5 million? Do you really believe those numbers?
They are both frauds.