Nick Reed 03.25.26 - Convention Center Talk with Mayor Schrag & Greene County Commissioner Bob Dixon

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Springfield's Talk 101.

My name is Nick Reed.

Welcome to our number two as we stream online, YouTube as well.

Springfield's Talk 101.

This is the first time I've said that, and you've not waved to the camera over there.

Well, I don't have my camera on this.

That's right.

That's right.

Well, what a great way to mention that we've got in studio guesses we've mentioned.

I think it was last week we had CEO of Visit.

Springfield on talking about the convention center.

Got a lot of great feedback on that.

What will be should the voters decide the convention center coming up?

And then in studio, we've got Mayor Schragger, Springfield, and then presiding commissioner Bob Dixon, Green County.

And so some of the questions will be the same, but there will probably be some different questions for them.

And then a lot of, I know I've seen the sheets out there as many of you may have as well.

The myths versus facts in terms of some of the taxes and so forth.

So we'll let them lay all of that out.

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There are some rising concerns across the Ozarks and Missouri as a whole over potential impacts to childcare.

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Springfield's talk 101.

I am Nick Reed, and coming up just a couple of weeks.

We've got sample ballots.

Do we have sample ballots?

Yes, and those are sponsored by Brad Pistol and Safe Money Radio.

Oh, right.

So we have those up as usual.

And I think most people who are aware that there's anything to vote on, particularly in Springfield,

know about this convention tax or tourism tax.

I don't know the best way to frame it necessarily.

A lot of people had practice.

They already voted November.

So they're like, wait a minute.

We see this again.

Of course, that has been online.

A lot of people like, haven't we already voted on this?

But there are some differences.

And we've got Mayor Schrog here, along with presiding Commissioner Green County Bob Dixon.

Talk a little bit about this.

And I erroneously said, I think Schrag or something.

And then you were kind enough to correct me off air.

And you said it doesn't really matter.

I'm like, what does it's your name?

I should at the very least get that right.

Which this is the first time you and I've met.

So it's good to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Of course, I've known Bob Dixon for, I don't know, 15, 16 years.

I suppose somewhere around there.

All right, who wants to start?

And I've got questions.

A lot of which just sort of openly asked is even before November.

But I want for the two of you or however you want to do it, sort of lay out your case for this to start off.

Well, we thumb wrestled earlier and I won.

So we're going to congratulate you.

Congratulations.

Yeah, so it's true talent.

So what the city is asking voters for is permission to increase the hotel motel tax by 3%.

And to use that money to build an events and convention center in downtown Springfield adjacent to the existing expo center.

Part of this would be a remodel and expansion of the existing expo center.

The rest would be new construction.

As part of this project, we anticipate a private hotel.

You will come alongside this and add about 400 hotel rooms.

We don't know the fate of the university plaza hotel, which badly needs an update of some point at some point.

Excuse me, but we're not including that in the hotel room account.

That's what's basically on the ballot.

So let's talk about the hotel component to this because it's one area that I have felt is somewhat glaring as a.

Well, wait a minute.

What about this?

And it's because that consultant report had said, oh, for this to work, by the way, got to have attached connected a 400 plus, I believe hotel.

And the city has so it's read in some of the newsletter articles is like, well, that's not anything we're going to be doing.

The city taxpayers won't be handling any of that.

That will be something left up to private investors.

And I feel like there's a chicken and egg situation here where they're saying for this to work, you have to have this.

But then the other side of it is, well, for that to happen, this has to happen.

And I think the fear some people have is, well, how do we know that that will happen?

How do we know that some private investor will want to do that?

So what's the answer on that?

Well, the answer is it becomes very attractive to a private investor when the taxpayers have already put in this infrastructure.

Now to say that the city is not going to build it is true, but the city will do everything they can do to incent the developer.

And what does that mean?

Yeah, so let me go into that.

Things that are at our disposal is we'll probably be giving them the land for a dollar a year.

They probably won't pay any property taxes on that.

We'll do anything we can do in terms of if they want to add a sales tax on their own rooms in addition to that that can come in.

Things like that, anything within our regular economic development disposal, the same things we would do for a major manufacturer, we would do for them to incent them in the project.

But what is standard in the industry is then this hotel developer will also have the master agreement to run the event center.

Why is, and I don't know if this is standard, it's not standard, but I'm sure one of the questions will be like, well, how come no one has been like, oh, hey, we're first in line.

We want to be part of this.

Yeah, I mean, we've certainly had talks.

I just can't because they're private talks involving real estate. I can't talk about them.

So we've certainly had interest can people and get because I think this is some of the stuff that they're when you're asking people to vote for this.

And so they're going to be mulling over this stuff. Are you able to give people an odds like, well, listen, we can't talk about it.

But I'm telling you as mayor, I was like 80% sure we've got someone or we have no idea of the odds because I think people for somebody if they're voting and they're they believe there's a 90% chance.

Their vote may be different than if there's a 10% chance.

I feel good saying 90.

Okay.

I feel very good with 90.

And those are all very fair questions.

Here's let me let me throw this out to you.

Still out there is the possibility of a $30 million state match.

And as I'm new to this game here in Springfield, Missouri, St. Louis and Kansas City have gotten all kinds of state investment over the years.

We have been late to the game in getting that investment.

We have been big enough yada yada yada.

This is a new thing for Springfield to have the state investing directly in things like that.

Not in times of code, of course.

So that's another reason why we're a little bit on the clock here because we've got to get this proven to them before the end of this fiscal year.

Has this, I don't know this necessarily has anything to do with how people vote one way or another, but I'm just curious.

Has this been a challenge what I think the city was caught off guard that this did not pass in November?

I thought it would.

I didn't spend a great deal of time talking about it other than saying I'm not talking about this too much because I assume this will pass.

Springfield generally passes tax increases when they're asked to.

Then you have this would seem like a pretty short window and just as an outside observer, it seemed a little rushed to get the renderings, the drawings out.

And that may just be an incorrect assessment, but you know, it just seemed like a short window of time.

And then they are released and it's I think aspirational is the way that it was referred to as what sort of challenge has it been?

And if you had more time, do you think that would be beneficial in order to get the quote plan in place for people to have to look at and to vote on?

So first of all, I want to make sure that I was in the room when every decision was made in front of the November election.

And so the notion that our polling was good, that we didn't need to mount a campaign, that was the tremendous mistake.

We should always communicate everything with the people.

Do I wish we had more time?

Yeah, but I'm going to tell you something I've learned in business.

Waiting until everything is perfect to move forward often means you don't move forward.

So we're I do wish we had more time, but I also really want those 30 million dollars if we can possibly get them from the state.

We're talking with Mayor Schrogg and of course, presiding Green County Commissioner Bob Dixon is here as well.

A lot of the questions come from numbers and whenever these consulting reports come about, they, you know, people want to see compare and contrast.

And so they find a couple communities that they feel are as apples and apples as possible.

And so in one of the reports, they did that with Kansas City area community, St. Louis area community and showing hotel numbers.

And I think 80,000 is the number that has been predicted if Springfield does move forward with this.

And then people notice on that report, the numbers in what they say are like communities had far shorter numbers of that.

Does that gap concern you or do you feel that there's a reason that that gap is there that doesn't indicate that 80,000 is too high of a number for Springfield?

Here's how I'm going to answer that. I think that probably Overland Park and St. Charles aren't great comparisons because they're part of a larger metro that also has a much larger convention presence.

Both St. Louis and Kansas City have huge convention centers. Those are auxiliary convention centers and suburbs.

Now Spokane, Washington, Grand Rapids, Michigan, those are better comparables because they're not part of a metro.

And they have in that range that 60 to 80 plus thousand.

And again, I keep prefacing this, but you may not know the answer to this, but why would they not choose those communities then to the comparison?

Seems like it would be in their best interest to do that.

And that was from a journalist article.

Not from my understanding. It's not from the London report specifically.

It's from an article that was written about it and they interviewed someone and it was got it.

OK, so I don't know the answer to that.

Got it. OK, well, that's not that makes sense. If that's really hard.

Springfield really is the leader in the entire region.

I work with commissioners all over the country, but especially the ones here in our region.

And we have a lot to offer in this area. Springfield being a regional leader with over a million people in our MSA.

So I would agree that's that we've got to look at that in a unique light.

If we're going to talk about something like major economic development.

And if you compare regions like ours, we're actually way behind.

And we're leaving $125,000 a day in economic development on the table.

Much of that is actually as we've found and discussed with some of the leading industries that are headquartered in the region.

They to get all their people together, they actually have to leave the region.

They'd much rather bring their people in from around the world here.

And we're just throwing that money away today.

That's almost a million dollars a week in economic activity.

When we had the CEO of Visit Springfield on, one of the things he noted was it's not just Springfield, but Branson.

There's for a lot of people a real selling point, but they have a convention center as well.

Is that considered to be a potential competitor, I guess?

And I'm just curious, have they been like, hey guys, don't do this.

They haven't called us and said that, but would it be a competitor?

Yes, because I can tell you of some local events that no longer can do their event in Springfield.

What Branson has is larger than anything we have in Springfield now.

So these events have gone to Branson, which has been great for them.

I anticipate we would bring them back.

Well, I guess that was actually my question.

Not so much now, but with the convention, do you think that the convention center here would draw away from them

or that their convention center would draw away from us or it would be sort of a draw?

Arzo be bigger.

So for those people that need flexible, need larger, yes, we would pull from them.

They've got their own amenities, they've got their own thing.

There's also, I've noticed this in groups I've been a part of, they like to rotate their conventions.

People fill out a form and have to wear it and say, oh yeah.

I'm here to go into the lake. I want to go to here.

And so that will be tremendously to our benefit in the beginning as we're just trying to get established.

It is, oh, we haven't been in Springfield because we've never had a place.

Some of the, a lot of this is based upon I think four voters.

They hear, okay, well, how much money are we being told it's going to bring in?

And you can correct me if my assessment of this is wrong,

but it seems to me as if a lot of that is based off of events that the convention center will host

that are bringing people from outside in because you've got the different types.

You've got those that, you know, it's local stuff.

Great place, great venue for people to hold local events.

These are people who are anyhow versus people bringing money in.

And it seemed as if the report didn't differentiate between that type of foot traffic.

So how is a dollar amount assessment done when there isn't a differentiation between people

who are bringing money from the outside in versus those that are already spending the money here anyhow?

Yeah, that's an absolutely great question.

And some of it, you're absolutely right.

If there's an event that's already here that's just growing or moving to that,

right, that's not generating any new revenue at all and you're wise to point that out.

But we also have a cost of not doing anything here.

Well, that event eventually get big enough that they just can't do it in Springfield anymore.

And then we're losing dollars we already have.

So there's a, again, there's a chicken and egg.

We keep going back to the chicken and that old egg today.

So is it fair to say not having a differentiation?

I mean, just has that not been done?

I know the report that it seems, if I remember right, that Hendon report said,

we didn't do a differentiation here. Has there been any?

To assess, okay, we think that 60% is going to be outside dollars coming in versus 40%

that will have foot traffic of people already here.

To be honest with you, no, I've not seen something specifically like that.

A good example of what you're talking about and going back to what I was saying a moment ago,

there are some organizations in the community that are large enough regionally

that they're not able to hold events, but they're having to split their leadership team in half.

I'm thinking, you know, for example, our hospitals, they have these regional clinics.

So they're doing their events in Springfield, but they have to do multiple events.

Okay, so that wouldn't be new.

But you have, for example, the assemblies of God in order to get all their people here

and many of them come from around the globe, but around the country,

they have to fly their people from here out of here to have a meeting or a convention.

And I can say with confidence that I'm sure they'd rather pay the 3% hotel tax than on the airfare.

And then we're also benefiting from that economic development that we're not getting now.

But we have larger employers like a Riley, Bass Pro.

It's, we have to basically, I looked at the ballot question as a question of,

are we going to grow up?

Are we going to grow up and be the big city that we are, the regional leader that we already are,

but we have some of these kind of things holding us back.

That, honestly, that's why I'm here supporting my friend Jeff and Springfield with this effort.

And, you know, just looking at, I mentioned the million dollars a week in increased economic activity.

Let's look at that.

Let's look at what that does for the taxpayer in Green County.

Obviously, that income or that economic activity is going to be onsite in Springfield.

And it's going to be things that also create additional jobs, your restaurants,

your, not just your hotels, but all of those businesses.

And they may even say, you know what, I'm going to add on a couple of days beforehand,

or I'm going to tack on to the end of this convention and take my family,

and we're going to go up and maybe sail at Stockton, or we'll go down to Branson,

or we'll go see some of the sites and, you know, this area has a lot of caves.

There's so much to see.

They're going to pay sales tax on all that.

That's money that is funding infrastructure and services.

I don't know exactly what the dollar amount on that additional million a week,

52 million a year, is to the city of Springfield,

but I can tell you what it means to Green County citizens.

Our sales tax, general sales tax rate is 1.75%.

That's an additional million dollars a year in general revenue that is not coming

from Green County taxpayers.

So that is, and I can tell you, we run a very tight shift,

because we have no online or, you know, internet sales tax.

So our sales tax base is actually shrinking as people buy from Amazon for convenience.

This helps to fund local services without burdening local taxpayers,

and they don't even pay the hotel tax.

Now, I can guarantee you right now I know our listeners, some of their mind,

they're going, well, if all that extras coming in, are we going to get a tax cut?

We're going to have all that extra revenue.

For Green County, I can tell you that we are, we are hunting every day

for savings in our budget to stave off tax increases,

because the sales tax base is actually shrinking.

And so, and we can go into that maybe another time,

some of the savings we have done.

But to me, this is an opportunity where we can actually fund services

without having to go to voters.

Mayor Schragg with us, presiding commissioner Bob Dixon with us,

going to take quick break traffic, we'll continue on.

Can we have you for a bit longer?

Sure.

I put you on the calendar till eight.

I didn't ask. I hope that's all right.

Good to me.

Okay, excellent.

Springfield's talk, 1041. I'm Nick Reed.

Springfield's talk, 1041.

The first alert forecast from Ozark's first meteorologist, Tom Schmidt,

sponsored by JNS Automotive.

Today, we'll see sunny skies with a high-near 84.

Tonight clear with a low around 64.

For Thursday, sunny with a high-near 89.

And for Friday, a 50% chance of showers before 1pm.

And then partly sunny with a high-near 60.

Springfield Mayor Schragg in studio along with presiding commissioner Bob Dixon

Green County talking about the upcoming just a couple of weeks away.

The vote again.

I say again, so actually I'll let you address the difference because there are some differences.

In November, people are asked for this hotel motel tax, as it's oftentimes referred,

for the purposes of funding a convention center.

And then a lot of people are saying, well, we already voted on this.

Why are we doing it again?

And there are, for some people, it may not make much of a difference, but there are some differences on this vote.

Yeah, a couple of differences.

The one that has a sunset, a 35-year sunset, that came out of these community listening sessions

that our city manager did.

Additionally, at the first, we were like, well, it's going to go downtown.

We own lots of land downtown.

It's going to go on one of those sites.

So we chose to, let's just say exactly where it's going to go.

Let's get farther into the weeds on some concepts.

Let's make sure we can show people that the size we're talking about fits on the space we're talking about.

And so there's just additional information that we did this time that we didn't do last time.

We should have done it last time.

You were talking earlier.

You mentioned, I think, a million dollars a day revenue, or what was that?

So the lost economic activities, $125,000 a day.

Got it.

It's actually a little more than that, but that's almost a million dollars a week.

Where does that, how do they come up with that number?

The reason I ask is going back to the lack of differentiation between the foot traffic that is expected to come in from the outside,

bringing additional dollars versus people who are already here.

So how did that number develop?

Nick, as we're talking this through, I think I might have answered your earlier question.

So that's based on hotel room nights.

And then they've got this research that says somebody who comes into town that rents a hotel room,

generates an extra, extra amount of dollars for the community.

Sure.

So when they're talking about that money, they're only talking about people who would rent a hotel night.

Well, and so then that goes back to my question.

How do they know that number if they aren't differentiating people coming in versus those who are already here as a draw for the new person?

Yeah.

So they're using a number that says an event, a booked event, typically is this many days,

again, these national averages, and that results in this many room nights.

So that's their number they're basing on as this national average of room nights.

But do we know how they got that number?

I just know from national averages.

Okay.

Interesting on some of these reports and estimates based on same size regions,

how accurate they can get, looking back at how the other ones came out.

So is that where?

I feel like I'm being real obtuse here and not getting some of this.

When you're talking about the national averages, the number is that being derived from,

oh, this is on average cities that have convention centers versus those that don't,

and that's where they get the number difference.

Boy, you're deeper than I am.

Well, yeah, because I think that's for a lot of people.

Where do these numbers come from?

Where do these dollar amounts are tied to people?

But we don't seem to know how many people are actually going to come in because of it.

And so I think that's...

No, the numbers can be complicated at times,

but some of that stuff is pretty boiled down.

Whenever I've had questions like that, Visit Springfield has done a great job of answering them for me.

That's where those come out.

So I wish you had Mark back again.

Well, he seemed to be all right with this time here.

He was a nice guy, so maybe he'll come back.

Mark is really down in the weeds on...

Well, I just reach out to him as well.

I guess he doesn't have to come in because that's...

I don't know if he said this on the air the other day when he...

I should have been listening, but...

We do have podcasts.

Okay.

Mr. Dixon.

Well, I just...

Not that you're occupied with other...

I heard him do a presentation recently,

and I was so impressed with the way he wrapped it up.

You know, Mark is from London.

You probably...

I did not know that.

Yeah.

Originally he was from...

I'm just joking.

Oh, I was thinking I'm the obtuse one.

Yeah.

So...

He came from Hamilton County, Ohio most recently, Cincinnati,

but originally he's from London,

and he wrapped up his conversation, his presentation,

by saying, you know, even...

Because he can only inform, right?

He's not an employee of the city, but he works for the nonprofit,

which is funded by the Tourism Tax Visits Springfield.

And he said, I'm not going to ask you to vote, yes, I can't do that,

but I'm going to sure tell you I really hope you vote,

because I had to swear an oath when I got my citizenship

that I would vote, and when I see a 7% turnout,

that really bothers me.

So I was so impressed with that,

and he is so knowledgeable on these details,

it would be great to have him back on.

I think that's a great question.

Again...

But it's a pretty significant one.

It really is, and I know that work has been done,

and I've got a great deal of trust for him,

just observing what he's done.

I looked into what he was able to do in Hamilton County.

We were actually there for the Chamber of Leadership visit last fall,

and they didn't not want to lose him.

We got a great hire here.

And, you know, so a lot of this for me comes down to who do I trust,

and I can tend to be a skeptic.

I've worked with a lot of people over the years,

and I'm going to say this.

I've said it before.

You know, I've known Mayor Schrogg for many years

when he was in business, several businesses,

and start-up ventures that he's done and been successful with.

So I trust his business judgment.

When it comes to the new city manager,

I will say this as well.

I knew David when he was working at Republic,

and I was so impressed with what he was doing with the culture

and the customer service mentality he brought there.

We actually brought him to the commission conference room,

and invited him to give us advice on how we can kind of transform the county

and make us more customer-facing.

That was very helpful.

I was excited when I saw that he was being considered as a city manager.

I can tell you, he's changing the culture,

and it's not a statement on anybody that's there

or the elected officials, but it's a new day in Springfield.

From our standpoint, the collaboration is much deeper.

At the trust level, I know that they've done their homework,

and I cannot say enough good about Mayor Schrogg with his leadership,

and saying, you know what, we messed up,

but we're going to go back.

We're going to listen to voters that come back with a different deal

for the voters, and I do have a high level of trust,

or I would not be sitting here, because I don't typically do this on taxes.

We're going to take a break.

I'm trying to do a really good job of hitting the breaks on time.

I normally do, but this is going to run as best of correct.

We're going to rerun this, and so hitting the break times

is much more important, particularly for the person who puts those together,

which would be Sarah over here.

And we are going to also run Mark's interview again.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Of visit Springfield.

So I think we're going to be doing those, what is the,

well, the Monday before the day before the election?

Yes.

Well, we'll have those running, just kind of FYI to people.

Of course, we do have podcasts as well,

so you can listen to those or share those if you want,

but more with Mayor Schrogg and Bob Dixon coming up here in moments.

I'm Nick Reed.

Springfield Mayor Schrogg and with his green county presiding commission

about Dixon and with us talking about the convention,

the upcoming vote on the convention center,

what would be in Springfield.

You were talking about the ACGU, or AGCU,

which is a, is a assembly of God.

And the vastness and how it is that, you know,

when it comes to looking for convention places,

they have to keep in mind as so many other businesses organizations do

that they're bringing people in from all over the country.

In my assessment, being in the middle of the country,

that it's certainly beneficial to be in the middle of the country

if you have people spread out all over.

Sure.

Someone had made a comment that I had never even thought of before.

And they are involved in, you know, conventions.

And they said a challenge for Springfield is lack of direct flights

into Springfield from around the country,

which makes it a bit of a mark against coming to Springfield.

You know, because you talk about things that are missing right now,

the convention center that can accommodate this stuff,

but they also look, okay, are people spread out across the country

going to be able to get in directly here?

And that isn't something Springfield has that a lot of other communities do.

And I had not thought of that as a component to this.

That's a great observation.

And I would just say that probably is,

I mean, I guess that that's more of the chicken and the egg thing.

Because I think you'll see that with the center,

that will help our airport folks be able to attract more of those.

Because it all comes down to volume and seats that are filled.

Do you think it's a challenge that so much of this is,

I think people will hear, build it, and they will come as opposed to,

well, there, because one of the things that Mark talked about,

he described it as it, it wasn't so much build it,

and they will come that there are, that there are some wanting to come here,

but they don't because it's not built.

And so seeing a built in there as opposed to no one ever thought about Springfield before,

but now that we have this suddenly,

oh, direct flights will start coming here, and conventions will start coming here.

I mean, that's a challenge.

I don't know that it's quite as simple as that movie line,

but I would say the airport's already made some strides.

I sat down and listened to our report recently.

Yeah, but adding some direct flights even recently,

but I think you'll see that as more fuel in the tank.

The guy sitting next to me here who's started a bunch of businesses,

probably understands that given taking and what you have to do better than I do.

I might back up on two different things.

I see this much more as a driving regional destination than a flying destination.

Absolutely.

The assembly of God is able to turn and host a national event now in Springfield

that they had to have in Nashville or Atlanta or somewhere else.

Yes, well, let's test some flying.

But again, I look at these hubs like, I'm sorry, they're hubs,

but these comparable cities like Spokane, Washington, and Grand Rapids, Michigan,

they've got the same difficulty.

And there is a great deal of regional use for things like this.

And we talk often about conventions and we think about,

oh, the association of whatever coming to an ex place.

There's a whole other levels of use for a center like this.

There's people who are interested in cats or quilts or cars or different things.

And those things rotate around the country and they entertain a region in a place

and they go to the next region with a place.

And exhibitors travel with them or do certain ones.

There's a whole, there's lots of levels to this.

And in business, what I always say is, you know, you open a muffler shop

and you think the money is going to be in mufflers.

But as you get in the business, you get talking to people, you realize,

no, really it's in doing oil changes.

And so you pivot your business.

There's lots of subtext to the convention and event business

that Mark can speak about very intelligently.

He's shown me those lists of places that would like to come to Springfield.

I shouldn't say places, entities that like to come to Springfield,

that just cannot.

And there are wide variety of things.

So his understanding of the deep economics of the industry are far exceed mine.

One final thing.

When I look at this and I look at the amount, not final thing,

but one point I want to put a bow on is I say,

okay, what if Hunden's off by 20%?

Is it still a good deal?

What if they're off by 25%, what if they're off by a third?

I contend it's still a good deal.

And I don't think that these consultants, you know,

if you're gaming for the 100% that they're saying,

you're going to be in trouble if you need that revenue to make it work.

What the city has done is identify the natural growth rate in hotel motel taxes.

And what we have existing and say,

this is how we're going to fund the basic infrastructure.

We're not betting on new income funding the infrastructure.

I think what I hear you saying is that it's not like a traditional business where

we're going to build this business.

This is exactly how much it's going to cost to run the business.

So that means we have to break, just to break even this,

but we'd like to make more that they're,

it is a little more complicated than that.

But is there, because I think in people's minds,

they think, well, how is it going to be paid for?

Are we going to be on the hook as taxpayers for it?

And so in that, there's this formula that people think exists or should exist,

that here's what we assess this is going to cost,

even after it's all set up, but just to run.

Is there a number that says for that to work and not put taxpayers on the hook,

this is what has to happen in terms of money coming in.

Is that a simple formula that exists for something like this,

or is it more complicated than that?

It's complicated, but Hunden does go through and look at it.

So some of those costs are fixed costs,

and some of those costs are variable costs.

And so to the extent that you can in a project in advance,

we've identified those fixed costs and found funding mechanisms for them.

And variable costs, as the word says, they vary.

And so that's the harder one to get at,

but the city has not committed to those variable costs.

And when it comes to the fixed costs, and you note that there are mechanisms

to fund that people wonder, okay, so are those taxpayer funded?

Are they currently taxpayer funded, future taxpayer funded?

It's two different levels of hotel motel taxes.

Because that is a very true people are coming here

for the hotel motel industry based on this.

And so it's a very true taxation.

I'm going to get one more traffic update, quick break.

And then I'm just going to ask, it's such a broad question,

but I know you must hear it all the time, as Dewey is,

well, why can't this, why can't the private sector build this?

And then final thoughts from one or both of you,

as we wrap up the hour here with Mayor Schrog of Springfield,

Green County Presiding Commissioner Bob Dixon.

I'm Nick Rhee.

I got just a few minutes left.

I want to thank both Mayor Schrog and presiding Commissioner

of Green County Bob Dixon for coming in and talking about the convention,

center of the upcoming just a couple of weeks.

Unless you're listening to this on best of, then it's tomorrow that the vote will be,

because this is going to air again,

because we're going to have it off the Monday before the election.

But outside of that, final question,

and then any wrap up thoughts that you all have,

and well, why can't the private industry build this?

So I asked that to Mark Hecky in anticipation of this interview,

because I thought, you know, that would be a question that might come up.

And he estimated that less than 1% of convention centers in America

are actually owned by the private industry,

and that 99% are owned by municipalities or counties

or some governmental quasi-governmental entity.

Was there a reason for that?

No.

I don't know the answer to that, except for,

in my, in my pea brain, I say,

that the revenue generated is so widespread,

that it becomes so hard for an entity to capture their revenue.

So when we talk about the sales tax benefit to the city or the county,

you know, we capture like 8% of them purchase,

but they're 92%, that goes to the gas station

or a restaurant or the coffee shop or whatever.

But I also thought about, well, why don't the airlines just build their ports?

And why don't the shipping lines just build the ports?

And those are generally infrastructure things paid for by governmental entities.

And there must be a reason I gave one that I thought of,

but I can't tell you the academic reason for it.

And then final thoughts in the last minute and a half?

Well, I just want to say again, it really is a new day at Springfield.

I'm so impressed with the leadership, the city manager,

also Mayor Schrog with, with his business background.

And I've had many friends at the city over the years,

but there really is a new culture that's being cultivated by the city manager.

And my trust level is very significant or I would not be sitting here.

You know, something was said earlier about the private investment with the hotel.

And I had asked this question before, but it is kind of a chicken and the egg deal.

That was a real concern in the November vote.

And I think a lot of citizens became more skeptical because they couldn't talk about it.

The city, the council, I think took a major step forward with this new vote in saying,

this is where it's going to be.

But as the mayor pointed out earlier, the real estate discussions, you can't do that.

And I just want folks to know that demonstrates integrity to me

because when you have a closed record under state law,

if you have a closed meeting and say, I disclose something that that is a felony under state law.

So this is integrity demonstrated right here that folks may not even realize.

And it just speaks to my trust level for not only the leadership, but also this proposal.

Appreciate it, gentlemen. Please vote.

Please vote.

Please vote.

Cast educated ballot. Please vote.

And I've already voted yes.

Yes.

Sample ballots, a KSGF.com mayor, Schrogg, and presiding.

Green County Commissioner Rob Dixon.

Thank you both. Appreciate it.

And we've got news coming up in 60 seconds.

I'm Nick Reed.

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