White Plains CitizeNetReporter - <i>Theatre Inside Straight:</i>Amendment to RFP Made Stimac & Rosenstock Legal

WPCNR STAGE DOOR.By John F. Bailey. June 16, 2003: The impression going around town that the designated producing duo of Stimac & Rosenstock was the inside straight in the collection of theatre hands contending for the plumb of the new White Plains Performing Arts Center was confirmed by Norbert Mungeon, Vice President of Professional Facilities Management, Providence, Rhode Island on Friday, with the surfacing of an amendment to the original Request for Proposals that Mr. Mungeon received.

Mr. Mungeon told WPCNR by telephone that a new Amendment to the original city Theatre Request for Proposals was sent to him dated May 21, response due back May 31. He said it was dated two days after the Council heard all three theatre hopefuls (Westco Productions, Centerpoint Stage, and last week’s designated winners, Tony Simac and Jeffrey Rosenstock), and six weeks after responses for proposals were due.

The amendment requested his Professional Facilities Management firm to fill out a newly formatted financial report grid for the first two years of the theatre operation, and was sent out 6 weeks after the original deadline for the Responses to Proposals, April 4, and invited other groups not previously responding to the proposal to apply at that time.

A "Fold" From the City.

Mungeon said he did not complete the amendment because he had been lead to believe Monday afternoon, May 19, (the afternoon of the evening the Council was to hear all three applicants), the city was not interested in his programming-only request which was what Professional Facilities Management had proposed.

Mungeon revealed to WPCNR that on Monday, May 19, the city lead him to believe they were looking for a full-time operator of the theatre. Mungeon told WPCNR said his firm had a previous commitment that day (May 19) and could not attend on what he described as short notice. Mungeon said the city seemed to believe that Professional Facilities Management programming was more geared towards larger houses, (though PFM programs a 500-seat theatre, the Vilar Center in Vail, Colorado, about the size of the 425-seat White Plains Performing Arts Center). Mungeon said he did not know if this amendment was sent to all 15 groups originally sent the Theatre Request for Proposal.

Amendment fills the Inside Straight.

Mungeon read a portion of the Amendment to WPCNR over the telephone which contained a statement reading “those who had not done so (sent in a proposal to operate the theatre) could now apply, and are invited to do so.” This statement clears the way for Stimac and Rosenstock to operate the theatre after the fact when they presented to the council on May 19. Stimac and Rosenstock were reported to be in the running for the first time on May 8, five weeks after Responses to the RFP were due. Whetfher or not the Amendment to the RFP was created specifically for Stimac and Rosenstock, and the information the Amendment requested was essential for the council to make a choice, is open to conjecture. (An Inside Straight, in poker is a hand of 4 cards, needing a card of interior rank to make a straight, such as 9-8-6-5, the “7” being the Inside Straight. )

Cleared for Command?

As of Monday, June 9, one week after being granted the right to run the theatre, Jeffrey Rosenstock, Executive Director of Queens Theatre In the Park, speaking to WPCNR said, he had not received clearance from his Board of Directors chair of the Queens Theatre In the Park to work with the White Plains theatre. He told WPCNR he was going to talk to his Board Chair last week. Rosenstock also said he was deeply involved in lobbying the city of New York for funding for his Queens Theatre In the Park all last week as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was negotiating the city budget for the arts. Rosenstock said he would be “sitting down with Tony (Stimac)” last Friday to discuss White Plains Performing Arts Center issues.

City Be Able to Walk in Year Three

Despite the memorandum of understanding language giving Rosenstock and Simac the option to renew the contract after three years, Councilman Boykin told WPCNR that “safeguards” would be built in to the Stimac-Rosenstock contract to enable the city to walk away in the third year and that the Request for Proposal which Boykin said called for the ability of the city to terminate the contract within 30 days would be in effect in the final contract. It is Council President Boykin’s belief that those safeguards and the original terms of the Request for Proposal setting the rights of termination will be adhered to in the final contract, despite the copy in the Memorandum of Understanding to the contrary.

However, that is not what it says in the Memorandum of Understanding made public at the June 2 Common Council meeting.

Commissioner of Planning Susan Habel told WPCNR Tuesday evening at the Council of Neighborhood Associations that the contract was being drawn up and it would be ready “when it’s done.”As of Friday, WPCNR was told by City Hall spokesperson Paul Wood the contract would not be signed Friday, “Not to by knowledge,” were his words.

Design by Abramowitz, Gretsas, Habel , Nicoletti.

Habel cleared up the shroud of mystery concealing what the new theatre would look like. She said that she, Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti, Commissioner of Recreation & Parks Arne Abramowitz, and Executive Officer George Gretsas had made the taste choices as to the colors of carpet and the decoration of the theatre. She also said that no detailed interior sketches or models had been made of the theatre that it was all in architectural blueprints.

Habel said she would show the blue prints of the theatre to WPCNR Friday afternoon but did not telephone WPCNR when she would be available to show the “hush hush” designs. The architectural design of the theatre has been shown to the Council, but appears only in blueprint form. Schematics of the theatre do not show a detailed mockup of the interior or vestibule of the theatre.


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