Palm Springs incentive grants show inconsistencies

A slew of lawsuits against Hacienda Cantina owner Richard Meaney raised questions about a Palm Springs redevelopment incentive program that awarded $250,000 to Hacienda last June.

The grant agreement News Channel 3 obtained says the city will release grant funds after it gets proof of payment to contractors.

City attorney Doug Holland confirmed that requirment earlier this week:

“They have to show work has been contracted for and that it has been paid,” Holland said Tuesday, adding that Hacienda Cantina met all the criteria.

“We have checks that show there we checks that were paid to individual companies,” Holland said of Hacienda, which also goes by the name Miggy’s Cantina.

When we asked Holland to provide us with that paperwork he later wrote in an e-mail that the city didn’t require cancelled checks after all.

Instead, he sent us a transaction spreadsheet submitted by Meaney and said the city reviewed that as proof of payment.

The document is dated October 2, 2014, nearly four months after the Hacienda check was issued by the city, and lists both renovation and non-renovation expenses.

The city said Meaney did not have to provide what’s called an unconditional release. In construction, unconditional releases prove a contractor was paid.

“It was clear in the city staff’s opinion that the project ultimately had expended enough on the remodel to qualify for the grant,” Holland said via e-mail to News Channel 3 Thursday. “The grant agreement did not require this operator under this situation to secure releases.”

“They didn’t do that with us,” said Neil Castren, co-owner of The New York Company Restaurant located directly across the street from Hacienda Cantina on South Palm Canyon Drive.

Castren says he had a different experience when he applied for a $25,000 grant.

“The money we got, we got after the work was done and we proved the bill was paid,” Castren said.

“How did you prove the bill was paid?”

“We had to take the invoices to them, signed invoices by the contractor,” Castren said, adding that he didn’t get the grant reimbursement until several months after opening his restaurant.

Castren was surprised to learn what kind of document the city approved for Hacienda’s grant.

“I think it’s terrible. The small businessman has a really hard time in this city,” Castren said. “The big guys get the money and the little guys like me, we have to work and wait and wait.”

Castren says he never got the entire grant he applied for and that when city officials visited his restaurant for inspection, he asked them about the business across the street.

“They said well, you know who owns that building don’t you? And I said no I don’t, what difference does it make? And they said well, it does.”

Lawsuits filed by seven companies show Hacienda Cantina owes more than $450,000 in unpaid renovation costs. In an open letter to friends, Richard Meaney’s wife Heidi wrote:

“We, as well as our partners, are very committed to make this work as evidenced by our multiple trips to the table to infuse capital. Hacienda has been addressing the past due construction debt and will continue to do so.”