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Graham 2018 home games


techfan
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Just read that the school board voted tonight to have Graham play 2018 home games at Tazewell. I would guess it will need to be a two year plan since the new stadium will open in 2020

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6 minutes ago, UVAObserver said:

First sentence is correct, second is not.

When are hearing it'll be completed. I was making that assumption based on this quote in the paper from the town manager

 

Town Manager Mike Watson did not have an exact completion date, but it is hoped that it could open by the spring of 2020.

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7 hours ago, techfan said:

When are hearing it'll be completed. I was making that assumption based on this quote in the paper from the town manager

 

Town Manager Mike Watson did not have an exact completion date, but it is hoped that it could open by the spring of 2020.

They’re going to shoot for August 2019, which I question as realistic.  Spring 2020 is much more reasonable, but there will be a strong push to get that facility open by next August.

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This is going to be very interesting. I'm sure that the Mercer BOE was banking on that Graham would still use Mitchell until the completion of the new Stadium. Now that it has been voted on, I can only imagine what will happen. There are so many questions that will have to be answered. What will happen with the Graham/beaver game? This year Graham is supposed to be the home team. What will happen to Mitchell Stadium? I would assume the BOE won't make BHS pay fees to use the stadium, so that only leaves Bluefield College paying the fees. There is no way they will be able to keep Mitchell open with only Bluefield college paying fees. They struggled to do so with Graham, BC, and BHS paying the fees. A lot of feathers are about to ruffled in the upcoming months. Also I would assume that Graham will have to play either on Thursday nights or on Saturdays if they are sharing Bulldog Stadium. Tazewell has a lot of home games at the beginning of the season and so does Graham. 

The City of Bluefield WV had to know that Graham was going to be building the new sports complex and then they decided to give ownership to the BOE because they saw $$$ going down the drain. 

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Did anyone else notice that Graham & Tazewell’s schedules that were posted on here in April seem to already have had the scheduling conflicts resolved? 

Example - it has Tazewell opening up at home on 8/23 (Thursday) vs. Virginia High while it has Graham at home 8/24 (Friday) vs. Bluefield, and on 10/18 (Thursday) it has Graham at home vs. Richlands and Tazewell playing at home on 10/19 (Friday). 

Seems like the TCSB might’ve had this planned for longer than most knew of. 

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Brian Woodson just tweeted this: Negotiations have been reopened between the Tazewell County and Mercer County school boards to allow Graham to play football at Mitchell Stadium in 2018. The TCSB has made Tazewell High School's football facility available to the G-Men if a deal can't be worked out.

 

Seems it may not be over yet. 

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I think people are mistaken if they think much of the money that Bluefield, Bluefield College and Graham were paying was being used for the upkeep of the stadium. It was going into Bluefield's general budget.

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10 hours ago, Bluefield researcher said:

I think people are mistaken if they think much of the money that Bluefield, Bluefield College and Graham were paying was being used for the upkeep of the stadium. It was going into Bluefield's general budget.

Of course it was going into Bluefield's "general budget."  The City owned it and operated it as a General Fund activity.  

From the 2016-2017 audit, the City of Bluefield received line item revenues of $332,350 for "Rents, Royalties, and Concessions," $506,773 listed as "Contributions from Other Entities," and $655,490 designated as "Parks and Recreation."  Impossible to tell exactly which revenues were tied to the stadium, but a quick overview suggests these as likely sources related to the operation.

Compared with $1,815,320 in expenditures for "Parks and Recreation" it appears that the facility was not generating nearly enough revenue to cover its operating, capital, and/or maintenance expenses, the schools and colleges weren't contributing enough to offset those costs, and the taxpayers of Bluefield were making up the difference.  

I'd like to be able to dig deeper into the line items themselves, but it appears that the City Manager made a good recommendation in terms of pure business analysis.

Financial information for WV cities can be viewed online at https://www.wvsao.gov/LocalGovernment/Default

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2 hours ago, 99Bama said:

Didn't the current City Manager hold basically the same position for Tazewell County a couple years ago?

Not precisely.  Jim Spencer was Tazewell County Administrator for a number of years, but is now the Community and Economic Development Director for the City of Bluefield.  The “equivalent” position in the City of Bluefield is the City Manager, who is Dane Rideout.

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On 5/15/2018 at 11:10 PM, Bluefield researcher said:

I think people are mistaken if they think much of the money that Bluefield, Bluefield College and Graham were paying was being used for the upkeep of the stadium. It was going into Bluefield's general budget.

^^^^This...all day long...^^^^

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On 5/16/2018 at 9:51 AM, RichlandsAlum said:

Of course it was going into Bluefield's "general budget."  The City owned it and operated it as a General Fund activity.  

From the 2016-2017 audit, the City of Bluefield received line item revenues of $332,350 for "Rents, Royalties, and Concessions," $506,773 listed as "Contributions from Other Entities," and $655,490 designated as "Parks and Recreation."  Impossible to tell exactly which revenues were tied to the stadium, but a quick overview suggests these as likely sources related to the operation.

Compared with $1,815,320 in expenditures for "Parks and Recreation" it appears that the facility was not generating nearly enough revenue to cover its operating, capital, and/or maintenance expenses, the schools and colleges weren't contributing enough to offset those costs, and the taxpayers of Bluefield were making up the difference.  

I'd like to be able to dig deeper into the line items themselves, but it appears that the City Manager made a good recommendation in terms of pure business analysis.

Financial information for WV cities can be viewed online at https://www.wvsao.gov/LocalGovernment/Default

I would love to know where they spent that $1.81 million for parks and rec...it sure wasn't at the City Park facility that includes the park, the trails, Bowen Field, the tennis courts, and Mitchell Stadium.  I wonder how much went into Charles Ridelhuber's pockets...

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17 minutes ago, GMan said:

I would love to know where they spent that $1.81 million for parks and rec...it sure wasn't at the City Park facility that includes the park, the trails, Bowen Field, the tennis courts, and Mitchell Stadium.  I wonder how much went into Charles Ridelhuber's pockets...

Or to a bunch of pockets (i.e. pensions)

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38 minutes ago, GMan said:

I would love to know where they spent that $1.81 million for parks and rec...it sure wasn't at the City Park facility that includes the park, the trails, Bowen Field, the tennis courts, and Mitchell Stadium.  I wonder how much went into Charles Ridelhuber's pockets...

In the local government world, non-tourism recreation usually runs at a pretty substantial loss.  I’ve been pretty hard on the City of Bluefield at times, and still have my own opinions, but if revenues/expenditures are what are purported, the City of Bluefield has actually done a pretty admirable job of running it at under a 20% loss.  Of course, they have some built-in advantages not seen elsewhere, but credit where credit’s due.

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19 hours ago, GMan said:

I would love to know where they spent that $1.81 million for parks and rec...it sure wasn't at the City Park facility that includes the park, the trails, Bowen Field, the tennis courts, and Mitchell Stadium.  I wonder how much went into Charles Ridelhuber's pockets...

Were all of the renovations to the rec center last year or the year before? I know they have made quite a few lately last time I was in there the upper room looked like a totally different place.

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On 5/18/2018 at 8:40 AM, techfan said:

Were all of the renovations to the rec center last year or the year before? I know they have made quite a few lately last time I was in there the upper room looked like a totally different place.

I think that money came from somewhere other than the City of Bluefield...

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  • 1 month later...
 
 
4 hours ago, 99Bama said:

According to WVVA the city of Bluefield has decided to keep Mitchell Stadium. 

Graham may not have to play home games at Tazewell after all which is a good thing for the Graham/Beaver game at least. 

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