Councilman questions Porter Opera House spending

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Biggs

Updated: March 7, 2012 8:02AM

An anonymous letter alleging improprieties in Porter County government, squabbling public officials and a paper trail of no-bid contracts have converged for a lively election year debate.

Porter County Councilman James Biggs received an anonymous letter calling attention to alleged discrepancies in the operation of the Porter County Memorial Opera House. Despite the letter’s absence of a named author, Biggs pursued its claims..

“Every now and then something comes along that is uncomfortable to deal with, but you have to deal with it,” Biggs said. “I’m not going to go around accusing people of doing things they’re not doing, so I went to the Auditor’s Office to check records to see if the anonymous letter had merit. I thought the records verified it.”

What Biggs found is a public record of $222,640 spent in 2010 and 2011 for goods and services to Michael L. Anton, of Dyer, and his companies, Unified Strategies Agency LLC and 101 Event Productions LLC.

About $200,000 of that amount was for the purchase and installation of sound equipment in 2010 and 2011, with none of it put out for public bid.

Biggs also questioned the role of Brian Schafer, who serves as Memorial Opera House business director and executive producer and manager of the Porter County Expo Center. Schafer’s role as head of both the Expo Center and Opera House played a part in a recent Internal Revenue Service penalty and determination that the county cannot hire the same person for two jobs.

This led to the current arrangement where Schafer retained his job managing the Expo Center and the county contracted with Next Level Productions LLC to operate the Opera House.

Next Level Productions is owned by Schafer and employs Schafer to carry out the managerial duties at the Opera House. In this arrangement Schafer is technically a county employee at only the Expo Center.

According to John Evans, North Porter County commissioner and board of commissioners president, “That’s the way the IRS said to structure it.”

No bids, but money saved

Shafer also hired Anton, a professional entertainment engineer who designs and operates lighting and audio systems.

Anton recalled being sent to the Opera House by another vendor “to help Peter Pan fly in their production of ‘Peter Pan.’ ” Anton designed the aerial rigging.

“From there Mr. Schafer asked me how to help turn the Opera House into a professional theater. Up to then it had been more of a community theater,” he said.

Anton claims to have an advantage over hiring another company to conduct design work “that would probably cost $30,000.”

“A design contractor needs to know the problems and details of the venue. Fortunately, since I was involved with Brian for a lot of the little stuff, I knew the facility. A consultant would have doubled the cost of the contract,” Anton said.

When asked about the issue arising from the anonymous letter, Anton said, “I can see where the confusion can come in. We have a relationship with various vendors, and we know who has the best value.”

Further, Anton contends, between the time of contracting for the equipment and actually getting the equipment, technology had advanced to make better equipment available for less.

Anton cites the front of house sound control system as an example. The design originally called for a 32-channel system but a 48-channel system became available at no additional cost.

“The system they have in there now is awesome. They can do anything they want with it,” Anton said.

Evans does not see a problem with the sound system installation because it was Next Level Productions, not the county, who contracted for the sound system, even though payments were billed to and paid directly from the county.

“There is nothing criminal in nature at all,” Evans said. “He (Schafer) did his due diligence. These guys are musicians and craftsmen. Brian Schafer is one of the best county employees we have.”

“I don’t know if anybody could have done it for less,” Evans said. “He probably saved us a ton of money.”

But, he said, “In retrospect, we probably should have gotten bids.”

Laura Blaney, at-large County Council member and liaison between the council and Opera House also defends the arrangement. “I don’t know that putting it out for bid would have saved us anything. This is a highly technical area, not many people do it. In hindsight we probably should have put it to bid.”

“I think the county wound up saving money,” Blaney said, adding she is confident “the county got the best possible deal.”

“It’s a campaign issue,” Blaney said.

Best use of county money?

Echoing that view is Schafer, who describes the issue as “political grandstanding.”

Evans and Biggs, both Republicans, have filed for the North Porter County commissioners’ seat currently held by Evans.

“It’s an election year. I think I’m being targeted by some of this stuff,” Schafer said. “I strongly believe there has been no wrongdoing, nothing has happened. It was all ultimately reviewed and approved by the commissioners.”

“I’d like to think I’ve saved the county a chunk of change over the last six years,” Schafer said, defending the cost of the sound system. “It would have cost double the amount if we had hired a consultant to tell us what we needed.”

Porter County Prosecutor Brian Gensel agrees.

“What I can tell you is the documents presented to me about the contractual relationships and payments show no improprieties,” he said.

Whether the money spent was for the best purpose is a separate issue. Biggs questions the spending of county funds on the Opera House, especially in tight financial times. “Should county government be in the entertainment business?” he said.

Still, a majority of elected officials in Porter County have committed to spending public dollars on the upkeep, maintenance and improvement of the Memorial Opera House.

“At the end of the day it may have cost more if it had been put out to bid,” Biggs said. “But how do we know there wasn’t a significant markup? We don’t know.”