More Donner-related ESL intrigue

I talked to Monroe County Legislator Paul Haney tonight about the financial mess at the ESL Centre, especially about the role Steve Donner played in it.

First, a quick recap: the publically-owned, four-rink ESL Centre, which opened in 1998, is more than $7.2 million in debt, and because the thing can't pay its bills, it's starting to literally fall apart maintenance-wise. Steve Donner was heavily involved in the construction and early management of the facility.

County Legislator Jack Driscoll, the chairman of the centre's board, asserts that things are being straightened out by Advanced Arenas, an Illinois-based management company, and that the centre is actually making about $300,000 a year now. However, Driscoll has accepted at least $10,000 in campaign donations from that company and its subsidiaries.

Now for some new stuff. Haney says the early management of the ESL Centre is extremely hazy. "There's a black hole at the ESL Centre (around that time)," he said. "From the information I've seen, everything went to hell in a handbasket."

That included the centre defaulting on its construction bonds. In addition, Haney said, "the books were so chaotic that they couldn't figure out who was owed what."

Haney said Donner was definitely on the centre's board of directors at that time and had a role in managing the facility.

However, around 2003-ish, Advanced Arenas was brought in to straighten things out. One of the casualties was Donner. Haney said the company's representative "stepped in and started to reorganize the thing (and) ... Donner was showed the door."

The centre's board apparently determined that the facility owed a total of nearly $2 million to various parties, although no documentation exists to nail down details. However, Haney said he believes one person who was owed money was actually Donner (and/or his teams).

But Haney also noted that David Christa, the guy who built the thing, was owed megabucks, and probably still is. Remember that in 2002, Christa successfully sued Donner for more than $24,000.

I would dearly love to talk to David Christa ...

(Many, many thanks to Paul Haney for speaking with me.)