Now I think you have to tweet a little dumb.

It is 7.01 p.m.

on Monday, April 13th, 2026 in the City Council Chambers for the Committee on Finance.

In attendance, we have Council of Ward 2 Scott Humpton, Councilor of Ward 1, Leo Cap, Councillor of Ward 6 of City Council President.

Why are you counter at Lodge James Ball?

And Councilor at Lodge Naomi Carney, you also myself.

We do have two letters to be run into the records.

We do.

This one is uh from Councillor Gomes.

I am writing to inform you that I will be unable to attend tonight's meeting due to a prior commitment and a conflicting schedule.

Please read this letter into the record to make my colleagues in the public aware of the reason for my tardiness, but I'm assuming it's absence.

Right.

Okay.

Um this one is from uh Council Abrew.

I am writing to inform you that I will be late in attending tonight's committee meeting due to an out-of-work commitment.

Please read this letter into the record to make my colleague in the public aware of the reason for my asking.

Can we also this meeting is being live streamed and recorded recorded?

The city council and committee meetings can be viewed on the City New Befort's homepage under quick links, then meetings.

Before we start number one, can I get a motion to receive in place and public communication from the Victoria Theater?

Made by Council Royce, second by Council uh Choquette.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Oppose the ayes have it.

Item number one is written motion, Council Forever Carney and Council President Burgo requesting that representatives from of the Z appear before the Committee on Finance to report the financial and operating expenses of the Zaitarian Theater.

The matter was referred here on July 22nd, 2025.

Motion to receive and place on file made by Council Pereira, second by Council Carney.

All those in favor, opposed the ayes have it.

Rosemary, would you like to go to the podium, please?

Oh push you.

Good evening.

Councilor Pereira?

I don't need to.

Oh yeah, I would be good.

Thank you.

So uh uh as a maker of the motion, um Rosemary, thank you first for providing this information and being here.

So one of the concerns that uh when that we discussed uh back when we were discussing the support agreement with the Zaitarian was uh well the increase in the support uh agreement what were my concerns were uh uh you know making sure that the money that the city is providing to the Zaiterian is going towards uh uh insurance of the building, maintenance for the building, um utilities of the building and such, uh that uh as stewards of a city-owned building that you are, that the money we're giving you is going to maintaining that building.

So uh one that that for my sake and my constituents' sake, I know that the m uh funds, taxpayer funds are being spent properly, and two that an investments in a city-owned building is being maintained, right, by maintenance of the building and such.

Um can you explain can you uh uh go based uh a little bit off that and speak to a little bit of that?

Sure.

I guess I actually should have uh given you a little bit of an overview.

What I passed out um to you all today is something that we sent um both President Virgo and uh Christina Connolly as an action uh a requirement of our support agreement.

We're meant to report on an annual basis, so we sent this last summer when our financials were complete.

Our fiscal year ends on December 31st, so it is different on yours, so it takes us a little bit of time to do that, but you would have received this narrative as well as a full accounting of our financials at that time.

I didn't bring that this time, but it it would have been sent to you at that point.

What I've brought to you tonight is not only the the uh narrative, but also the financials to um December 31st of 2025.

And so that's about that represents six months of our fiscal year.

And I it does a nice job of kind of capturing what our expenses are, where our income is coming from, etc.

Although you'll notice that we don't have much income because other than the uh the support agreement funds and and um some contributed income because we were still closed until January.

When we came before you initially for the support agreement, we thought we would have been open by August August the earliest, if not October.

So the 495 for the first two years was going to, as if you recall, was going to enable us to keep all of our staff while we were raising the $37 million and while we were planning to bring this building back online.

And uh so the addition to there, but the the spirit of this money is to support the Z in its efforts to steward the city owned building to pay for some of the expenses that the city was paying for the building prior to us obtaining the 99-year lease.

And so things like insurance, because the city was self-insured prior to us leasing, but we we are required to have um liability insurance and utilities prior to the lease, the city was paying all of the utilities.

Additionally, the city was maintaining the building.

We were maintaining it like up from a custodial point of view, but any large or even you know small like plumbing or electrical things, the city um DPI was coming in to maintain the building.

Now that we have the lease and uh you know we're in the building, we have those expenses.

So we've had to, we've never had uh like building operations staff before.

And uh if you if you're not aware, they're kind of expensive.

Actually, all staff is expensive these days.

But um so we've had to hire for those kinds of positions, more custodial, building operations, building management, things like that, and that's uh where the vast majority of of this money is going to.

Fantastic.