Show Me Center board inactive for over 4 years; university officials say agreement with city outdated

The people entrusted by the City of Cape Girardeau and Southeast Missouri State University Board of Governors to set policy for the Show Me Center and provide accountability for events there have not met in more than 1,600 days.

Southeast Missouri State University has taken several new security measures in the last four years without input or direction from an appointed public body, Show Me Center Board of Managers. The management shift is a significant departure from an agreement approved by the university and city in 1984 adjacent to a bond issue passed by voters. The Board of Managers’ inaction calls into question who is ultimately responsible for strategic planning and performance evaluation for the facility.

University officials indicated in interviews with the Southeast Missourian that the Show Me Center is now operating exclusively under the university’s charge and following the university’s business policy and procedure manual. The Board of Managers was never disbanded — in fact, it is fully appointed — and the agreement that established the board has not been discontinued by a vote of the City Council or the university’s Board of Governors.

Neither Cape Girardeau city manager Kenneth Haskin nor Mayor Stacy Kinder would comment publicly about the Board of Managers’ inaction.

“Once we have a board meeting, I will be better able to speak to the facts,” Haskin said.

He declined to elaborate.

Haskin is one of the city’s three appointees to the Board of Managers. The city’s website, which has a page devoted to the panel, says that the meetings are held quarterly, as called by the Show Me Center director.

Pandemic, shooting

The four-year period in which the Show Me Center Board of Managers has not met includes the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and Cape Girardeau Central High School's graduation in May, when two people were shot, sending thousands of Show Me Center attendees into a frenzy. Two men were wounded by the shooting in the concourse area, where a fight had broken out. The gunshot, which was fired as the valedictorian finished remarks, cut the graduation short, sending graduates and their families scrambling to exit the building. The shooting forced officials to suspend the event and schedule a second ceremony.

The Show Me Center Board of Managers has not convened to review the circumstances around the graduation shooting. A public records request revealed that no communications about the shooting were sent from the director, Wil Gorman, to anyone on the Board of Managers. Nor was the board involved in making decisions on protocols during the pandemic, even though the Show Me Center was used to dispense vaccines.

The board last met Jan. 23, 2020, according to documents obtained by the Southeast Missourian through a public records request. No one on the board at that last meeting remains on the board. The director, Gorman, called the meeting to order.

The minutes from that last meeting included information regarding attendance from several events, including a Luke Combs concert, the annual VintageNOW fashion show and the MSHSAA volleyball championships. The minutes included a list of future scheduled board meetings for April, July, October and January. No COVID discussion was mentioned, as the illness had not yet reached the United States. Those planned quarterly meetings did not happen.

On the day after the board's last meeting, Jan. 24, 2020, the CDC confirmed its first travel-related infection of the virus in the United States. COVID’s spread eventually took over the country, as the government discouraged indoor events as one of the many ways to slow the virus’s spread. The Show Me Center Board of Managers has not met since. University officials say the pandemic disrupted operations, and the meetings have been overlooked since then, as the board had a complete turnover in members, who are appointed to three-year terms.

Importance of the facility

The Show Me Center is one of the city’s most important tourism facilities. It can hold as many as 7,600 people — 19% of the city’s population — for events such as concerts. It’s hosted entertainment legends such as Bob Hope, Tina Turner, George Jones, George Strait and Willie Nelson. The building’s flexibility also allows it to host conferences, meetings, galas and special events such as the university's annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., dinner with special speakers and the Southeast Missourian Christmas Basketball Tournament, which includes 16 area high school teams (along with their fan bases). Its primary purpose is to provide a facility for the university to host men’s and women’s basketball games and other university events for students. It hosts a handful of graduations every year, including winter and spring ceremonies for SEMO, and high school commencements for Jackson High School and Cape Central High School.

The facility was built to offer solutions to both the university and the city. The university wanted to upgrade its basketball facility, and the city wanted an arena that could increase its tourism draw and provide meeting places for its residents.

The Show Me Center represents a large component of the city’s priority on tourism dating back several decades. Multiple generations of municipal leaders continued to emphasize the importance of Cape Girardeau's regional hub status, convincing voters to approve other entertainment venue projects, such as Osage Centre, Cape Splash Family Aquatic Center, SEMO's River Campus performing arts facility and Cape Girardeau SportsPlex. Drawing visitors for entertainment gets them into town to shop and dine at local businesses, contributing to the sales tax that drives the city’s services.

The city’s contribution to the Show Me Center was the passing of a bond issue in 1983, which provided $5 million (about $15 million in today’s dollars) toward the construction of the facility, according to newspaper archives. In exchange, the city, facing intense pressure from naysayers, told voters the city would have a say in how the Show Me Center was managed through a partnership agreement. This board would consist of six members, three from the city and three from the university. The city did not want to be in charge of operating the facility — the university would handle day-to-day decisions. But the city wanted influence with policy in exchange for its investment, including the scheduling of public events. Newspaper archives from the time explained that municipal leaders wanted to have some assurance that the Show Me Center would be used for general public purposes, not just for university events.

Other SEMO-city partnerships

The city boasts a healthy relationship with the university in many areas. The Show Me Center is not the only university facility the city has helped build with tax revenue.

In addition to the Show Me Center, the city contributed to the construction of the River Campus, for which voters approved $9 million in return for some public use of the facility. A six-member board for the campus consists of three members appointed by the city and university. According to the university’s website, River Campus Board of Managers meetings are held quarterly, but the last time minutes were posted on its website was from a meeting June 2, 2023. Like the Show Me Center Board of Managers, the River Campus board also proposes written policies for the use of the River Campus, which are to be approved by the city and university, according to the city’s website.

“The Board also supervises the use of the River Campus facility,” the city’s website explains.

Also, last year, the City Council, without a public election, unanimously promised a $10 million contribution to the university to help rebuild Houck Field at a payment of $600,000 annually, to come from tax revenue from Century Casino Cape Girardeau. The promise to the university came with no agreement with the university as to how the facility is used.

Outside of the agreement

Over the last four-plus years, the Show Me Center has enacted major decisions without consulting the Board of Managers, including adopting new security measures.

“That’s really something that we have made a decision at the university,” SEMO president Carlos Vargas said when asked about the new security measures across the campus. “I personally did not want to take long to evaluate and assess those needs that we have. I didn’t want a process that was going to take a little bit more time than needed. And so we have had an internal conversation, made some changes and have taken some actions. At this point, the board has not been informed. They will be informed when they meet, but not so far.”

Interviews with the director of the Show Me Center and other university officials demonstrate the university has been operating the Show Me Center without consideration of the 1984 joint agreement between the city and the university, even though the agreement states it “shall be in effect … through the life of the multi-use center.”

The City Council and the university’s Board of Governors have fulfilled their duties to appoint individuals to represent their interests in Show Me Center matters. The current members are: Kent Phillips, Bruce Skinner, Alicia Scott, Kenneth Haskin, John McGowan and Arlo Ehly.

Under the agreement, the Show Me Center Board of Managers shall:

• propose written policies for use of the multi-use center;

• review these policies annually;

• submit proposed policy amendments to the university and the city;

• appoint a director “to assist the board in carrying out its duties and to implement policies established by the board, the university and the city";

• schedule all events and ensure fair access to the facility;

• submit annual budget requests to the university.

The agreement also states the city shall have access to all university records regarding the operation and maintenance of the facility. It gives the Board of Managers the authority to dismiss the director at will with the consent of the university and city.

In an interview with university officials — Gorman, Vargas and Skinner, associate vice president of Student Life and Board of Managers member — it was revealed that Gorman does not report to the Board of Managers.

“Reporting line has been in the past to the vice president for finance and administration,” Vargas said. “We recently have made a transition, and so he now reports to Dr. Skinner. So that’s a very, very recent development.”

The agreement gives the university quite a bit of day-to-day authority over the facility. The university is responsible for the maintenance of the building. It specifically gives the vice president of administrative affairs oversight of maintenance operations, subject to policies established by the board of managers and approved by the city and university.

The university is also “solely responsible” for the cost of operating and for adopting an annual budget for the Show Me Center, the agreement says. A copy of the budget “shall be provided to the City and the board of managers”, the agreement states. The agreement requires the Show Me Center to establish a separate multi-use center fund and that the university “shall provide the City with an annual accounting of all monies received and expended in connection with the maintenance and operation of the Show Me Center.”

“Keep in mind that the Show Me Center operates within the context of the university. So financial matters, resources that are needed and all of that, that’s dealt with internally at the university,” Vargas said. “We don’t normally go to the city to ask for any funding. When you look at the original constitution of the Board of Managers, that’s a very old document and the initial funding for building the Show Me Center, that’s long come and gone.

“In many ways, one could argue that what we need to do is revisit that document to make it more relevant to the conditions and the situation that we are experiencing at this point. We work with the city in many ways, the university through the Show Me Center, when there are events or matters that they need or that we need, to schedule with the Chamber of Commerce sometimes for when Cape wants to have events there. We work with them to do that. But in terms of other decisions that are day-to-day … the director really needs the ability to be able to be prompt and agile in making those decisions.”

At the time of the agreement, according to newspaper archives, the university and city drew up a document similar to one used in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As time approached to open the facility, the former president of the SEMO Board of Regents said the university didn’t need an operating agreement with the City because it already had a policy in effect concerning the operation of university buildings. But that point of view was met with significant resistance.

In an article published Oct. 7, 1984, Councilman David Barklage insisted on having a written agreement (not just a spoken one), despite Mayor Howard Tooke saying the university could operate the Show Me Center without a formal agreement.

“I think we have a moral obligation to protect the citizens with a written contract,” Barklage said at the time. “I don’t believe in oral agreements anymore. We had been promised a written agreement before we spent one cent on it (the building).”

A formal agreement was signed on Halloween in 1984 and filed with the recorder of deeds in November of that year.

Board member McGowan, appointed by the City Council in December, said he does not have the authority to speak on behalf of the board. He referred questions to Gorman, but added that an attempt to have a meeting in January was discussed, but he had to have back surgery and recently became a widower, so he was unavailable to meet for a period of time. Aside from McGowan, Skinner and Haskin, the rest of the Board of Managers members did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The board members serve without compensation.

Gorman and university officials said the financial records for the Show Me Center are presented to the Board of Governors every year. However, a breakout of the Show Me Center’s budget was not included in the Board of Governors’ minutes posted online from the latest meeting that included passing the budget. The Show Me Center was only brought up in the context of appointing Skinner to the Board of Managers. Neither the most recent minutes nor minutes dating back a year, show any indication Gorman presented a budget to the Board of Governors.

University officials say they plan to convene a meeting with the Board of Managers soon but have not set a date.