Roller Hockey, The Colony Theatre And Shady RFP’s, Oh My! 

Well, this all feels very familiar. 

Like, VERY familiar. But I’ll get to that in a minute. 

And if I start to use all caps, please forgive me. I’ve got some feelings. 

Y’all know the Burbank Center Theater, right?
No?
Yeah…that’s because it’s The Colony Theatre. 

If you are not paying attention to what’s going on with The Colony Theatre here in Burbank, you need to be.

I’m still catching up, myself. But here’s the gist… 

The Colony Theatre rents out the space where it is, from the City of Burbank. They’ve been in business nearly 50 years with 20 of them being here in The Media City, with a multi-year contract. The city, now, has put out an RFP (Request For Proposal) to seek a new partnership…well, it seems just because? I doubt it. But, okay. 

I’ve just sat through a City Council meeting from August 22nd (you should watch it HERE and starting at 02:46:16 item #13) and it’s clear to me that the RFP process is shady as hell and again, my gut tells me I’m looking at some sort of a backroom deal. 

It’s like Groundhog Day. I’ve seen this before. 
Take, for example, this flyer I made in 2016.

Back in 2016, the highly successful Roller Hockey program here in Burbank was quietly notified of their contract ending an entire year early with the city of Burbank and that an RFP was going out to seek a new partnership.

Say what? This made absolutely zero sense to anyone, like none. The Roller Hockey program, run by Community Sports, was bursting at the seams with 690 kids and 2,320 adult participants from all walks of life. It was HUGELY successful. 

And that was the problem.

The owner/operator at the time had rescued the program from the YMCA and the City, both whom tried to run it, after it had been sitting 6 years unused. They were desperate to make use of the facility, and quite frankly, didn’t really have confidence in this new, outside vendor’s success, so the contract was simple and basically didn’t allow the city enough financial benefit from said success.

How do I know this?

Well, because a prominent member of our elected officials at the time approached me at the grand opening of our Grocery Outlet (as I was currently fighting this publicly) and said to me directly, “Jessica, someone is making money off of that rink, and it isn’t us.” 

They wanted to change the operator’s contract for a higher percentage of his financial success or bring someone new in, who could contribute more income for the city off the bat.

I made a lot of noise when we found out they were terminating that operator’s contract. They gave all sorts of reasons why they were making such a move, but none of them were legitimate and the program director had receipts to back it up. I was there. I even filled out a Freedom of Information Act and got all the records from the department on the hockey rink and went through them carefully…with a dad on the hockey team who was an attorney.

The minute I filed that FOI, Parks and Rec took back the threat of termination of the contract early, but still put out the RFP, which, as planned I’m sure of it, went to the LA Kings Ice Center, who’s running it today. 

At that time Judie Wilke was the Parks director and Marisa Garcia was assisting.

And now, Ms. Wilke has moved on up in status and Ms. Garcia is the current director. But what I just saw Ms. Garcia do at the podium, is exactly what I saw her (and Ms. Wilke) do in 2016 when we were hit with a surprise RFP out of nowhere to a SUCCESSFUL program in the City of Burbank…manipulate words and avoid answering questions directly by doing a lot of ‘explaining.’

There is absolutely something back door going on here.

The RFP process as demonstrated by our Parks and Rec calls into question their business model and is highly unprofessional, but more importantly…REEKS of shady behavior.  

Ms. Garcia couldn’t clearly answer why the RFP was done in the first place. She couldn’t clearly answer how the questions were developed for the interviews. She said that one of the companies that submitted a proposal and was in the running, was ‘non-responsive’ and didn’t fill in their application fully, FOLLOWED BY a representative from that company coming to the microphone and negating it all. 

Ms. Garcia could not possibly be more full of bologna if Oscar Meyer, himself, sent her a lifetime supply.

Not only that, city council members Takahashi and Perez seem to ask questions to the staff that completely PASSIVELY talk to the community by saying what they want to say without making a statement themselves. So gross.

For example, Ms. Takahashi asked of the board, “How many RFPs the does city do every year…like thousands?” with her hands up, shrugged. The implication of this question is that this is an everyday thing. You know like getting bids for paving the roads is the same as getting a bid to replace a long standing and successful, established theatre company.

And when asked if it was common that the current operator is awarded the RFP after the process, city staff responded,

“Frequently happens…so somebody having a contract already, um, and then an RFP’s put out and they’re hired back again, this is not an unusual thing to happen. You want to do a competitive process regularly, right? Because sometimes what happens is you end up with the same vendor at a better price, because they know that they’re having to compete to keep your business. So that’s the importance of the competitive process. Uh, it’s not just about we want to change vendors every so often, it’s we want to make sure that the vendor that we’re working with is offering the absolute best product to the tax payer at the best ultimate price. Ultimately we do often end up with the same vendor, but we’re able to negotiate a better deal.”

But earlier in the meeting, Ms. Garcia herself said “We’re park and rec. We’re not here to make money, we’re here to provide services to our community.”

Say what?

Also taken directly from the council meeting, per Ms. Garcia…

“Although staff has been very thoughtful with this RFP process, we do acknowledge that the initial lack of communication prior to issuing this RFP has caused some to question the integrity of this process. 
In retrospect, staff could have solicited feedback on the community’s vision for the use of this facility and how it can meet the needs and desires of the greater Burbank community in an open forum, prior to issuing the RFP….while it is not the city’s practice to explicitly engage the community, including our boards commissions and committees, prior to releasing RFPs of this nature. This process has identified an opportunity for the city to consider shifting our practice as we move forward.”

Is this what they mean when they say it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?

The audacity it takes to make a current operator actually FIGHT TO KEEP the successful program that THEY have spent years building, is beyond disgusting. It was clear with the Roller Hockey rink way back then, that no matter what the operator did, the department of Parks and Rec had already been planning what they wanted to do, so they tried quietly releasing the operator from his contract and in the same quiet fashion, put out an RFP. They just didn’t anticipate the community fighting back so hard so quickly.

Go grab some coffee or a bowl of popcorn and watch the Parks department present their report to council on the Colony Theatre and then watch everything that happens after.

Link to meeting >> WATCH HERE starting at 02:46:16 which is agenda item #13.

Ultimately, as I said, the roller hockey operator lost that fight, but this is exactly what I see happening right here. I’d put money on it that there are ulterior motives at work, there are officials and people in positions of power that have made plans already… behind the scenes, because there is absolutely an agenda. They just didn’t plan on the community fighting back this hard…and bringing the receipts to go with.