Augusta civic center complex management company Global Spectrum is looking to right a past wrong.
General Manager Monty Jones wants to woo back the North Georgia Annual Conference of United Methodists, which gave up on the James Brown Arena in 2002 in one of the old Augusta-Richmond County Coliseum Authority's starkest embarrassments.
Mr. Jones, Mayor Deke Copenhaver, Coliseum Authority Chairman Cedric Johnson and Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau Vice President of Sales Peggy Seigler met Tuesday morning with Gary Dean, Augusta district superintendent for the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.
Mr. Jones said at a Coliseum Authority meeting later in the day that he's hoping the conference will reconsider Augusta now that the civic center has a more positive public image.
It's being professionally managed, and this year the state Legislature revamped the authority board, replacing all of its members and reducing the number from 12 to seven.
Should the Rev. Dean be successful in lobbying to return the conference to Augusta, the earliest the city could get it back would be 2014, Mr. Jones said.
When the four-day conference took place in Augusta earlier in the decade, it brought in 2,500 delegates and had an estimated economic impact of $2.5 million.
In June 2002, delegates arrived at the Civic Center -- since renamed the James Brown Arena -- to find meeting rooms and coliseum space filthy and littered with trash.
The group also complained of rude catering staff, late meals, and bathrooms being dirty and sometimes nonfunctional.
Conference volunteers had to help serve food and beverages.
Later that month, the Coliseum Authority voted 6-4 to fire General Manager Reggie Williams over the debacle and to refund the Methodists the balance of a $54,000 civic center bill.
But Methodist officials said they had lost confidence in the civic center's leadership and decided to move to Athens.
The conference has been held there in the Classic Center ever since.
Reach Johnny Edwards at (706) 823-3225 or johnny.edwards@augustachronicle.com.
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U mean to tell me that an event was scheduled, and when the guest arrived, the place was filthy? How can someone form their mouth to defend such incompetence? What manner of idiots were involved? Wow! And the Authority voted 6-4 to terminate Williams, well what four idiots voted against? THEY should've been fired for voting to keep such a poor manager in place. This place got some history of characters.
my ..my ..justus you are just hearing about this? It was one of the civic centers finest moments...reggie jackson and his crew of slaternly housekeepers were up to their ears in filth and seemed to think ithat the way they live at home is fine for where they work too....yes it was areally good look for the city.....................
One of the flaws of the Civic Center rental contract is that the renter MUST use the "official" concession company for any food and beverage service on the premises. Unfortunately, selection of the "official" concession provider has been fraught with nepotism, cronyism, and kickbacks for Coliseum board members in the past. The exclusive deal needs to go. People using the facility should be able to use any reputable catering company, provided a suitable, refundable security deposit is paid up front.
At the bottom of the debacle was the concession company and the director of that threw an un derling under the bus. You need one company to handle food and concessions, they just need to be properlyi managed - both from the arena management and from within. The current arena management group is doing nothing short of a stellar job, let's all just get out of their way and support them...and give them the TEE Center as well.
Would it not make more sense to develop a Trade Exhibit and Entertianment Center around the existing Entertainment Complex?
You can tell that Justus forgot that Reggie Williams is black.
Corgimom, thanks for the unnecessary race update. Justus is usually way off in his comments, but can he simply make a statement that makes sense sometime? To always comment on his racial comments, or even make preemptive comments toward him makes you just as bad as him. Mr. Jones is to be commended for his hard work. Not only is he booking acts, but he's trying to win back lost business.
I guess you haven't seen his posts on a regular basis. If you had, you would know why we all say what we do. And when he makes statements that make sense, that's not him, that's his father.
I have seen his posts. I have also seen the posts of people who say things to him before he gets a chance to post. He doesn't make sense most of the time, which is why you shouldn't give him the time of day. It's usually quite miraculous when he does make sense. I would say that the best thing the rest of us can do is try not to bring up race, especially when he hasn't and it appears to be his platform. The way you feel when he mentions race on most issues is the same way I feel when you do it preemptively against him. You feel as if it's not called for. So do I. As stated before, this is about trying to get more business at the JB Arena, not about race. I think we all agree that the way the Methodists were treated before was embarrassing. Now is the time to try to do better, and not point fingers over past problems.
Nope, that's not the way I feel. Perhaps you should mull over the concept that it's never a good idea to tell other people how they feel about things.
Certainly, the coliseum is doing much better. But I was there. It was bad. Very bad. If I went to any private business and was treated the way United Methodists were treated, I'd never spend my money there again. And so it is -- and SHOULD be -- at the coliseum. The authority should concentrate on getting new business, not that which has already been driven away.