Looking at major projects, programs, and government regulations with a multidisciplinary approach produces astounding success that can be leveraged up to unlimited heights in a once-in-300-year socioeconomic and political upheaval.
Along came the Aurelius Principle and things might be changed forever.
The
Aurelius Principle
A Multidisciplinary Approach
Works Wonders
“Let it be your constant method to look into the design
of people’s actions, and see what they would be at, as often as it is
practicable; and to make this custom the more significant, practice it first
upon yourself.”
– Marcus Aurelius
On Tuesday evening, September 17, 2013 Mayor Deke Copenhaver in an Augusta City Commission meeting challenged me to supply my “credentials.” He cut me off and would not let me respond. Since he asked for it – here goes.
Fact of the matter is I don’t really have any credentials. I have something much more effective and powerful that I call the Aurelius Principle. What the principle stands for is looking at major transactions globally or taking a multidisciplinary approach. Clients get a whole lot of angles on a problem in one pass that just an accountant, lawyer, administrator, engineer, planner, procurement agent, or other professional cannot provide.
The Aurelius Principle works this way: it uses an opponent’s own power, authority, records, and documents against him. If you think about that, it is something that the very best attorneys use. If one does it really well, he might find himself with a new lucrative line of work. For example, the in depth study of the Augusta convention might lead to marketing the same strategies that the management company there used to secure $3 million a year taxpayer subsidy.
The Principle is time-tested and simply does not fail, because it works on all sides of valuable transactions. The technique has been leveraged up to ever higher planes. It worked well enough for me to hardly hit a lick at a snake and retire early. I don’t have a lot of references, but I do have the Mayor’s records. He will find those a lot more convincing than “Credentials”.
Let’s try to weave an aspect of the principle into the question that Deke Copenhaver asked. Marketing personally to Fortune Magazine listed company executives was nearly impossible but then I sent a letter to them, with a great white shark eating their precious logos in a window envelopes! It worked! CFO’s whom I needed to spent $50,000 on to contact contacted me!
The renegade marketing added to an enquiry list from potential and eventual clients of Cost Recovery Works, Inc., its predecessors, and mine that included these names, which just might be impressive even to the Mayor.
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Tenneco
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Fort Sterling
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Maryland Cup
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Procter and Gamble
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USG
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Hanes Brands
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Sara Lee
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Con Agra
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National Gypsum
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Georgia Pacific
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Lilly Tulip
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3M
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Sunbeam
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McDermott
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Johnson and Johnson
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Fulghum Industries
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Lowes |
Medimmune
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Home Depot
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Corning
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Bass Pro
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CarMike
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W.R. Grace
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Eli Lilly
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Bristol Myers Squibb
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Intel
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St Joseph Foods
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Georgia Iron Works
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Boise Cascade
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Stone Container
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Fort Howard
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Weyerhauser
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Willamette
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Packaging Company of America
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Temple Inland
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Fluor
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Lenzing Fibers
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Kahn’s |
General Electric |
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Hillshire Farms
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Fort James |
Unilin |
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Jacobs
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Fulghum Fibres
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Donahue
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| Duke Energy | Sweetheart Products | Hoku Corporation |
| BCE Outdoor | Control Plus | Arale Woods LLC |
I performed work for 29 of those companies over the years as an employee, contractor, or subcontractor.
Leveraging up the Aurelius Principle in Augusta and Georgia has made for amazing findings and real results, especially during the Augusta Project since 2011.
To sum up, I knew I might be rusty and used Augusta like my very own laboratory to sharpen my skills. Not many rats escaped.
– AG
The author was President of Cost Recovery Works, Inc., a provider of multidisciplinary contract cost avoidance, cost recovery, and public policy services to industry and government. Cost Recovery works is no longer in business, as of December 31, 2020.
Originally posted March 12, 2013
Are the Falcons underestimating the Atlanta City Council?
By Al Gray
As University of Georgia grads know, an untimely tipped ball tantalizingly close to the goal line can kill championship dreams. The Atlanta Falcons have executed a well-orchestrated plan over the last two years to carefully plan and execute the win of a free $1.2 billion new stadium. Now the weakened opposition is down to an unlikely, untested, last line of defense called the Atlanta City Council. Its members were spectators suddenly called into a game with no advance preparation. Only a disaster can stop the Falcons now. Surely a bunch of city council members can’t muster anything heroic. Everything has been so perfectly played that half of the backfield has been cloaked with invisibility.
Political maneuvers bail out GWCCA, get Falcons to first and goal
Moments after the opening whistle in 2010, the Georgia World Congress Center contingent on the team realized that they had a huge problem. If they fully surrendered stadium operations to the Falcons, not only would GWCCA be giving up $20 million a year in hotel motel tax funding (Consultants’ numbers lead to totals of $1.2 billion over 35 years), it would be giving away $15 million a year in net income on a successful Georgia Dome operation. If someone only looked at the financials there could be trouble. A worse problem was the $2 million to $3 million in GWCCA overhead that the Georgia Dome has been absorbing for years. Then someone realized that money is fungible and that the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACV partnership with GWCCA could be used as a conduit to shift costs equivalent to those then covered by dome operations. In 2011, the team got a new 1% hotel motel tax passed worth $6 million a year to expand the ACVB’s marketing of events in the World Congress Center and elsewhere. About $4 million of the new tax appears on the GWCCA’s 2012 FY financial statements. That might have tipped some people off, so GWCCA’s Frank Poe proclaimed, truthfully enough, that the new tax was not going toward stadium construction. The contract between ACVB and GWCCA was modified in 2011 uneventfully. The cost shift will be a handy tool.
The series of plays in the General Assembly enabling the Falcons takeover extended the hotel motel tax and, just last week, killed a conservative bill strengthening right to work laws that would threaten the, “community investment,” now needed to have any chance at victory in Council chambers.
Another saving grace in the potential damage to GWCCA’s finances is that Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, who has had a major role in the stadium negotiations, and GWCCA’s Frank Poe, now 62, will probably be retired before the harm to GWCCA becomes known in 2018. $15 million Dome annual net income contributions might be too great a loss to overcome, necessitating a state bailout.
On first down –
Tipped Ball #1 – Public costs are not capped at the $200 million advertised according to City’s and GWCCA’s own documents that are posted online.
The Falcons negotiators, Gold Dome allies, and GWCCA facilitators have stayed remarkably on message that public funds are only $200 million, while the Falcons will be paying $800 million of construction costs. When the deal with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was announced on Thursday, March 7, the press release said, “The public contribution for stadium construction is capped at $200 million.” Maybe the Mayor thinks the council won’t mind that the legal summary says:
“Budget/Contributions: Estimated $948 million, comprised of….. Public Contribution: $200 million net proceeds of the HMT Revenue Bonds”
(Editor’s Note: Legal Summary no longer available online.)
The legalese says the $200 million is an estimate, not a cap and puts stadium borrowings on the same funding stream that a Citi consultant projected would produce bond proceeds of $360 million. Even more critical is that those funding assumptions are terribly conservative, given the extraordinarily lower interest rates are available to Atlanta than the 4.15% rates used and that Hotel-Motel tax revenues are currently up 7.49% over last year.
Second Down –
Tipped Ball #2 – No one is explaining a $612 million cash gap in hotel/ motel tax funds ($211 on a debt funding basis) over the “$200 million cap” and fully funded O-M accounts (which are being ignored as a public contribution).
A key Citi presentation of June 2011, secured by agraynation.com, was integral to the planning of the stadium agreement. This agreement used the 2.7% annual growth rate in H-M tax revenues and it showed the debt service required at then-existent rates for $360 million in debt. If the debt is reduced to $200 million, where debt is to be “capped,” it leaves $612 million in cash outlays unaccounted for, or $210 million in estimated bonding potential. These public funds are being pretended out of existence.
The legal summary contains this bombshell about the extra funds, “City would agree that all HMT revenues not required under the Funding Agreement to provide for the payment in full of the HMT Revenue Bonds (including appropriate reserves) shall be deposited with a separate GWCCA HMT Fund Custodian, where such funds shall be applied to pay for any costs relating to the construction and operation of the NSP, as provided in the HMT law.” In other words, excess funds can go into stadium construction that are over and above the $200 million cap.
Third Down –
Tipped Ball #3 – The $186 million that the Atlanta agreement puts into “other event staging” through FY 2051 is to make up for the much, much higher costs the Falcons plan on charging as stadium managers than GWCCA did, isn’t it?
This one might tip off the public and Atlanta City Council that, “StadCo will be responsible for the cost (to be identified) of providing its staff and other support that historically has been provided by GWCCA.” They might awaken to the fact that Falcons costs as stadium manager are required to be built into all GWCCA events, GWCCA legacy events and Atlanta hosted events – events that now account for nearly 60% of Dome attendance! There are indications that Dome legacy events might be “not on economic terms” after the Falcons take over. Having to allocate $186 million to “other event staging” to make the existing venues and events viable reveals a controversial truth about the contract – the GWCCA won’t be staffing the stadium and will have to pay the Falcon’s cost structure, which may be considerably higher. (GWCCA’s consultant having already predicted 20% (after tax) ticket price increases and 44% concession price increases) Having to inject $186 million to make your own events “economic” after the Falcons take over isn’t a surprise to Atlantans?
Fourth down, Arthur, but don’t sweat it –
Tipped Ball #4 – The Falcons only agree to pay that which the public contribution cannot be “maximized” to cover, not $700 or $800 million.
The Atlanta agreement says, “All NSP costs in excess of the Public Contribution to be paid by StadCo” (the Falcons). Worse it says this about handling of funds when the bonds are sold in August 2013: “Invest Atlanta shall issue the Hotel Motel Tax (“HMT”) Revenue Bonds and StadCo shall establish an account into which its contribution will be deposited. ” This doesn’t even set an amount or a requirement that any money be deposited by the Falcons, only that an account be established! Beyond this, crafty lawyers restricted Falcon responsibility to “NSP Costs” which are established by a maximum price. The trouble with this is that an increase in the “maximum price” (which can change throughout the project) is not necessarily a change order for which the Falcons are responsible.
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Expect the great Falcons special stadium team to pick up the tipped ball and run in for the score. The officials will push the ball carrier across the goal line. “Whatever it takes,” is the Georgia and Atlanta politicians’ motto.
After the victory is scored, the Falcons can proceed into the construction phase of revenue enhancement, where the next $50 million to $100 million in public funds lay waiting.
Why not make the full agreement open for public scrutiny instead of just the legal summary? Why not make this process easier on all concerned and just ante up another $250 million, that is perfectly justifiable under sound strategic planning and will make this project palatable to the public?
Another $250 million from the Falcons remains a bargain, Arthur.
-AG
Update: The Atlanta City Council has since voted to approve the Falcon’s New Stadium Project
Friday, May 25, 2012
Evans, GA
By Al Gray
New Year’s Day in the year 2000 did not find this writer worried about the world’s computer systems crashing because of the Y2K or much of anything else. Two new clients and two projects in Missouri – a state-of-the-art hot dog plant and a deli meat production facility beckoned. It was a very lucrative contract that took me away from the Augusta area, as nearly all of them have. A most successful bowhunting season had just been concluded. The parents were still able to take care of themselves. 1999 had been good, but 2000 would be even better. It did not start that way, January 1 pleasantries not withstanding.
Sometime in February, after trudging through 15 inches of snow in St. Joe, MO, I returned to my motel room just in time to catch a call from my parents. It seems that they had gotten an official notice about an ‘overlay’ zoning ordinance to cover something called the Evans Town Center Overlay District (ETCOD). It concerned them that the county was looking to pass some sort of control over their commercially zoned property on Washington Road. We were not totally surprised, having attended one of the planning meetings for the town center at Savannah Rapids Pavilion.
Actually seeing the map of ETCOD was an eye-opener. It was a gerrymandered map that looked like a headless woman in a dress stumbling like a zombie. Then there was the matter of the text of the proposed ordinance. It banned any store over 30,000 square feet, imposed expensive architectural upgrades, and made plans to completely rework the zoning map via overlay zoning to impose government land use planning instead of free market economics. It was aimed straight at our family, who had decades long plans for a major shopping center to the west of Ronald Reagan Drive. Worse, it would have ruined decades of planning along with previous county officials which included gifted water and sewer easements and providing for a road into a subdivision.
The night of the first Planning Commission meeting, the elite of the Augusta and Columbia County development sector was in attendance. Your scribe had never made a public speech before. Knees shaking from fear and voice quavering, my speech might have gotten off to a disastrous start, but the first order of business was to loosen things up by poking fun at the gerrymandered map. The room exploded with laughter. A key point was made that the map was discriminatory, lacking uniformity of application. The county attorney would later agree, forcing new notices to be sent to everyone in a 3500 acre circle. Up behind the lectern, a transformation took place. The meek accountants knees were still knocking, but the cause had turned from fear to RAGE!
Things have not been the same since.
When the county was forced to make ETCOD a uniform circle, the action resulted in our family gaining scores of new allies against ETCOD. Even one of the chief proponents realized our position because her family’s land was now in the overlay zone! She exclaimed in a meeting. “We don’t want those rules on OUR PROPERTY!” Neither did a lot of folks. When the planning commission decided to ram through ETCOD, two of the commissioners stayed home in fear. The 3 left decided to ram the vote for the ordinance through. The entire room, it seemed, leaped to their feet and shouted “NO!!!!!!” It was the closest thing to a riot that Columbia County has seen in a public meeting in modern times. The county commission appointed a citizen’s committee headed by contractor Ron Cross to work out a compromise. The Evans Town Center Ordinance was birthed eventually, but the baby was a lot trimmer and caused less labor pain.
There were other battles to come. They are best left to another day.
The salvation of our family came in the form of gifts from our founding fathers. The 5th and 14th amendments to the United States Constitution provide each of us, as citizens with guarantees of Equal Protection Under the Law and that we cannot be deprived of property without Due Process of Law. More recently Columbia County implemented Corridor Overlays, Lincoln County did the same, and last year Augusta attempted to enact a flawed Laney Walker Bethlehem Overlay District. In each instance it was a privilege to help fellow citizens being assailed with threats to their rights from overlay zoning.
Pertinent to today’s events, in which the diabolical Agenda 21 plan is infiltrating all levels of government, the Evans Town Center Plan developed by consultants Rosser- Lowe, was even then replete with references to “smart growth” and “sustainable development.” You have to remember that Columbia County is a solid Republican County, not a place one would suspect that a socialist agenda could take root in. We have to be constantly vigilant everywhere.
The Evans Town Center Plan was supposedly based upon town centers in Redmond, Washington; Reston, Virginia; and Smyrna, Georgia. A key component of largely defeating ETCOD was this analysis comparing those places with the Evans Town Center.
When one can dissect the planner’s plans and turn the evidence against them, he can win huge victories against the odds, for the truth overwhelms the planners and allies arrive in droves.
A County Commissioner and two Planning Commissioners said that the ETCOD was a “Done Deal.”
Well, it came UNDONE.
Thanks founders, for the Constitution. Agenda 21? That’s just another undone deal of our making.***
AG
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