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Pasadena Center Operating Co., Other City Departments Optimistic About the Future

Published on Monday, June 14, 2021 | 5:17 pm
 
Pasadena Civic Auditorium interior. (Photo by Jamie Pham/Visit Pasadena)

Despite the pandemic and the loss of Transient Occupancy Tax revenue, the Pasadena Center Operating Co. (PCOC) presented an optimistic picture for fiscal year 2022 to the City Council at its budget hearing Monday.

For 15 months, business at the Convention Center and Civic Auditorium was devastated by state regulations that prohibited most indoor gatherings, including more than 300 scheduled events.

But now events are being scheduled and PCOC CEO Mike Ross is excited about reopening and getting people back into the city.

“As with most departments we had a significant downturn since we were closed at the Convention Center for about 15 months,” said Ross. “But we’ve got good news: moving forward, we saved over $7.8 million.”

The PCOC, which manages the Convention Center, the Civic Auditorium and the Pasadena Ice Skating Center, was forced to lay off employees. Ross said he hoped to get them back as soon as possible.

The PCOC has also sent FEMA a $1 million bill for the unused overflow hospital established at the Convention Center during the pandemic.

The Convention Center and Civic Auditorium will fully reopen for public events on Tuesday. The first half of the 2022 fiscal year will feature small meetings, consumer shows and tradeshows.

The council on Monday also heard presentations from the Planning, Water and Power, Transportation, and Fire departments, as well as the Pasadena Community Access Corp., PCAC

“We found that during the pandemic we had our employees staying home and so we bought them better computers so we could produce our programs from home,” said PCAC CEO George Falardeau.

Falardeau said the employees would examine their performance and see how they could improve post-pandemic.

The Transportation Department is proposing a $37 million budget.

“What we have done is we have really sharpened our pencils and looked at areas where we could be more efficient without reducing services we provide to the customers,” said city Transportation Director Laura Cornejo.

Acting Public Works Director Kris Markarian presented the department’s budget and called its services essential.

“During this past year this was really highlighted with Public Works maintaining its level of services and providing additional services to our community during the pandemic,” Markarian said.

New Fire Chief Chad Augustin said the department’s budget this year will be $56 million.

“As we move out of the COVID pandemic we are seeing a sharp rise back to the normal call volume we would expect to see,” said Augustin.

The department currently has 139 full-time employees and 25 vacancies. Filling those vacancies is our top priority, said Augustin.

“We can do better in our recruitment and retention efforts,” Augustin said, adding he planned to increase the number of women in the department and better represent the city.

At the Convention Center and the Civic Auditorium, business is expected to boom in January and beyond in 2022 with larger consumer shows, corporate meetings and several conventions.

The Pasadena Ice Skating Center reopened on April 26 and is already seeing business return to pre-pandemic levels. Hotel occupancies and rates also continue to increase.

“The idea is to hire back people and then to promote the city, to get visitors back to restaurants, hotels and museums,” Ross said.

Due to the pandemic, the PCOC will lose $9 million, which includes a Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) shortfall of $7.1 million in fiscal year 2021. The PCOC will self-finance these losses using its rainy-day reserve funds.

TOT funds are collected from people staying at the city’s hotels, which have been closed during the pandemic.

Money-making events, including conventions, were shut down during the pandemic. Despite the shutdown, the Convention Center was able to host some essential events, including the L.A. County Vote Center for the Presidential Elections; city essential interview and testing events; jury empanelment; filming and television productions such as “America’s Got Talent,” commercials for Buick, Evian, and a TBS show.

Back in 1983, the city established the use of TOT to preserve the city-owned asset and stabilize the PCOC and its critical role in bringing consistent overnight visitors and their money into the local community.

In 2006, the City Council unanimously approved the use of TOT funds to finance the expansion and modernize the Convention Center, which opened in 2009. In 2016, the amount of TOT allocated to the PCOC was capped to cover only the debt service for the expansion of the Convention Center, plus an additional $500,000 annually for maintenance, repairs and capital improvements to the city-owned facility. The remainder of TOT goes to the city’s general fund.

“We’re optimistic about the next fiscal year for the Pasadena Center Operating Co. Though this has been an unprecedented year, we see a path to recovery,” Ross said in a statement on Sunday.

“We have a strong team in place that has been working hard through the pandemic in preparation and is ready to meet the challenges ahead. And we have a robust tourism recovery plan to support our hotels, restaurants, retail and cultural institutions,” he said.

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