BELMONT PARK REVENUE SCANDAL

 The lease leaves no doubt. Section 4.2 requires the operator to submit Monthly Gross Revenue Reports to the City by the fifteenth of each month. Section 4.3 requires a Certified Annual Gross Receipts Statement within ninety days of the close of each lease year. These are mandatory filings. Without them the City cannot calculate or collect its percentage rent.

City officials admitted in writing that these reports do not exist. That means the foundation of the lease has been broken. Section 4.5 requires the operator to pay Percentage Rent on all Gross Revenue including food and beverage rides alcohol retail and subleases. With no monthly or annual reports the City has been cut off from millions of dollars that should have gone to taxpayers.

The lease is even more direct on what Belmont Park can and cannot do. Section 1.4 defines the only permitted uses of the property. Section 1.5 prohibits all other uses. Restaurants retail and amusement rides are allowed. Concerts raves and ticketed events are not. That means every dollar collected from these events is unlawful under the lease. One hundred percent of that revenue is owed to the City.

This is not oversight. This is not error. This is a pattern of missing reports uncollected rent and unauthorized events that likely add up to tens of millions of dollars withheld from the public.

No monthly reports. No annual statements. 

No percentage rent. No authorized events. No accountability.