The Shasta County Grand Jury has raised questions about a large bailout gift given to Advance Redding, which ended up failing anyway. The Redding Civic Auditorium was on a long term lease to Advance Redding, which was unable to make ends meet since the departure of their most consistent source of income, the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministries. Last year Advance Redding said it could no longer afford the interior maintenance and utility costs that are part of the lease agreement. They convinced the City Council to give them the $675,445.57 in the deferred maintenance account, and to cancel the rent payments. In parsing through the hundreds of pages of the agenda packet that argued for the grant, the Grand Jury found only a single financial document that actually supported the amount. It listed utilities, equipment rentals and fencing purchases, with the total adding up -to the penny- to the exact amount of the deferred maintenance account. One council member called that an “amazing coincidence”, but the Grand Jury says it was anything but a coincidence, as the document was not supported by any receipts or invoices. Shortly after the grant was approved by the City Council, it was revealed that Advance Redding had donated almost $50,000 to support Measure A, the sales tax measure that would partially benefited them. That money had apparently come directly from Bethel Church, but the optics were damaging. The Grand Jury report says the public funding process should have been much more transparent. The report was completed about two weeks before Advance Redding announced that they would no longer manage the auditorium, despite the council agreeing to pay them $116,000 a month for their services.
-Steve Gibson