Do's and don'ts in the land of the Free

In Tim Newman's world, you can put away that wallet. The tickets are comped and the drinks are free. Somebody always picks up the check.

It’s a world of corporate tents and arena suites, a world some of us get to see sometimes, if a friend of a friend shoots us an invite. But it’s fun when it happens, because who doesn’t like getting stuff for nothing?

Free is the fuel that revs the hospitality world. It’s what clients expect in the tents at big events. It’s what event organizers expect from the cities that woo them. And it’s where Newman, head of the Charlotte Regional Visitors Authority, excels.

Newman is tasked with bringing visitors and events to the arenas and convention centers the CRVA runs. And while some might debate how much our city wants or needs showpieces like the NASCAR Hall of Fame or 2012 Democratic National Convention, this much is true: Newman gets Charlotte things that other cities want.

He does it, in part, because he knows the power of Free. Take a peek at the CRVA’s expenses, and you’ll see some fine wooing – concert tickets and lavish parties for people who might help steer something to Charlotte someday.

It’s a necessary but sometimes unseemly endeavor, which is why some cities set up their CVRAs as private nonprofits, which have looser rules and harder-to-find financial statements. In Charlotte, however, the CVRA is public, and right now it’s a public mess.

The Observer, in recent weeks, has told you about some ethical iffiness at the tax-supported CRVA, including most recently how Newman has graced dozens of Charlotte business leaders, public employees and CRVA board members with gifts. Among the eyebrow raisers: $4,600 worth of tickets to see the New York Yankees.

Newman defends those gifts, saying they help people in Charlotte get enthused about Charlotte, and that’s good for everyone.

That’s the problem with Free – it’s easy to rationalize. Sure, it’s Public Employee 101 that you don’t take gifts from people who want to influence your decisions. But what if those freebies are coming from the chief of a public body, who just wants to say attaboy?

And if you’re a CRVA board member, what’s the harm in using the CRVA suite for a Bobcats game or concert? Board member Anthony Lindsey did so out of duty. He told the Observer he wanted to see how the arena worked, and he did some thorough investigating, using 44 tickets in two years.

Now, board members have concluded it might be a good idea to look at exactly how things work at the operation they oversee. They’ve hired a consultant – PricewaterhouseCoopers – for $25,000 plus expenses to report on how CRVA compares with everybody else operating out there in the Wild West of hospitality.

“We’ve got to know what the rules are,” said board member Geoff Durboraw on Wednesday, at a CRVA operations committee meeting. “We can’t come to you and tell you that you broke a rule if we don’t know what it is.”

Might that be something the board would want to know, say, back in 2004, when the CRVA was formed?

The board will provide PricewaterhouseCoopers with everything from financial statements and code of ethics to the employee newsletter. PricewaterhouseCoopers will get back to the board in mid-June, a remarkable turnaround for a critical report, which might make you wonder if this is one more check that shouldn’t have been written.

Because the CRVA already should know what it shouldn’t be doing.

You don’t offer public officials and employees gifts for doing something that’s part of their job.

You don’t allow board members to accept freebies from the people they need to supervise and, perhaps, discipline.

What you do is remove the temptation of Free. Because in Tim Newman’s world, someone actually is picking up the check.

That somebody is us.