Ravena Health and Fitness Center: Year One = Miserable Failure!!!

Village of Ravena Mayor, Village Council Continue to Do Voo-Doo Management: Ravena Health and Fitness Center Deep is in the RED; Cathy Deluca’s the Only One Smiling on Her Way to the Bank!!!

In late 2012, former Mayor of the Village of Ravena, John T. Bruno (defeated), his hatchet woman Nancy Biscone-Warner, and the morons on the former Village of Ravena village council, Nancy Biscone-Warner, Martin Case (defeated), Rocco Persico (defeated), William “Bill” Bailey, in a behind-closed-doors conspiracy with Cathy Deluca, wife of former disgraced Coeymans cop “Dirty-Hands Jerry” Deluca (now the CEO/Exec. Dir. of the New York State Association of Fire Chiefs), decided to purchase  used fitness equipment more than $40,000 in taxpayer dollars  from a Ravena insider, Robert “Bob” Fisk (His son is now operating the new Fisk’s Variety garbage shop on Main Street, Ravena, site of the former Teen Center. Josie Biscone-Bruno of Prudential Real Estate, made the deal with the Teen Center on behalf of Fisk. A real insider operation if there ever was one.). The public was not consulted on that purchase. (See our article, for example, “A Senile, Demented Brain Gives Birth: You Pay Again!“)

Total Income for the RHFC for 2013-2014 Doesn’t Even Cover Cathy Deluca’s Salary!!!!

Cathy Deluca on the way to the bank while Ravena taxpayers look on.

Then in 2013, again behind closed doors Bruno, Warner, and Deluca got together to create the Ravena health and Fitness Center in the space previously occupied by the RCS Community Library, and after a scandalous and disgraceful dog-and-pony act, raising the library’s rent for the space more than $700 a month and under threats of eviction, the library’s new home was final finished by Don Persico (cousin of the then sitting Ravena village council member, Rocco Persico), and in May, 2013, the Ravena Health and Fitness Center had its “open house,” and the appointed insider director, Cathy Deluca, managed to open her big mouth and expose the village of Ravena to a potentially very expensive lawsuit. (See our article, “Criminal Complaint: Catherine M. Deluca a.k.a. Cathy Deluca, Claude A. Wheeles, Ravena Health and Fitness Center“)

Later, the gang of five calling itself the Ravena village council, submit incomplete and fraudulent paperwork to get Cathy Deluca a non-competitive civil service classification to be director of the Ravena Health and Fitness Center. Cathy Deluca had no qualifications to be director and, by the way, had already mismanaged at least two previous “health clubs” to ruination and failure, including the very health club run by Bob Fisk and the source of the used fitness equipment purchased with taxpayer money but no public inputs. (Read more on this at
Who is “Cathy Deluca”? and “Bruno, Deluca, Warner Squirming to Cover It Up“)

In the 2013-2014 Village of Ravena Budget, the Gang-of-Five approved more than $105,000 of taxpayer money to fund the Ravena Health and Fitness Center, paying Cathy Deluca more than $30,000 a year plus full benefits.

The Village of Ravena village council under mayor William “Moose” Misuraca and his running mates councilmen Joel Coye and Keith Mahler and two leftovers from Bruno’s scandalous quarter century in office, Nancy Biscone-Warner and William “Bill” Bailey, approved the 2014-2015 Village of Ravena Budget, allocating another more than $105,000 to fund the Ravena Health and Fitness Center and, in that same budget, approved a pay-raise of more than $900 for Cathy Deluca.

Misuraca, Coye, Mahler Ran on a Promise of Financial Responsibility, Accountability, Transparency BUT ….

It now is obvious that only the faces have changed. After a really disappointing kick-off of the Centennial celebrations with an embarassing so-called parade that was preceded by an embarrassing watermain break on the parade route (Cathy Deluca chaired the Centennial Committee that organized the parade), we have been provided with documents secured by a resident under the provisions of the New York State Freedom of Information Law, that clearly show that the Ravena Health and Fitness Center MUST GO!

According to the monthly reports prepared by Cathy Deluca and submitted to the Ravena village council, the Ravena Health and Fitness Center is failing badly and hemorrhaging money…hemorrhaging money right into Cathy Deluca’s pockets. Here are the figures (available to anyone on demand in the Ravena village clerk’s office):

Cathy Deluca and an Ignorant Village Council Hemorrhaging Money

(Editor’s Note:  The figures for May 2014 were not available so in the table above, to be fair, we took the average figures for the previous 11 months and used them for the month of May 2014. This was really very optimistic—and very generous—, considering the drastic decline in membership figures over the period.  Not included in the above figures is $2,040.00 for “Tabata Bootcamp” in March 2014. According to unconfirmed information, an employee of the RHFC is being paid extra to do that class. Although we have attempted to include everything possible in the figures above, the picture is bleak, very bleak.)

---

Back in July 2013, in our article, “Ravena & Risk – Taking: Is it really the role of municipal government?” we wrote:

“Just to break even, the fitness center would have to attract about 425 – 450 paying members; that means, Ravena and the surrounding area would have to attract at least 425 persons who would be willing to fork over between $250–300 a year to join the fitness center, which pales in comparison to other local chain centers with all the facilities like tanning, certified trainers, fitness programs, ultra – modern equipment, men’s and women’s changing rooms, showers, swimming pools, etc. The Ravena Health and FitnessCenter has none of these but membership is far more expensive than any of the major local clubs. So where are these 425 – 450 members going to come from in Ravena or Coeymans? Answer: They aren’t!”

Now we can write:

 In the First Year of Operation Deluca has Attracted less than 3% of Ravena Residents; Total income for the RHFC doesn’t even add up to Deluca’s salary for the period.

The membership numbers in the above table are a very misleading for the months of May 2013−February 2014 because Ms Deluca did not break down the membership figures into 12-month, 6-month, per-visit, etc. but lumped them all together, giving the false impression that people were actually joining. In March and April 2014, Deluca started breaking down the “membership” figures, and it looks like 1 year memberships for Marchtotaled only 97 members  with only 1 new member in March, and in April 2014 the RHFC had a total of only 103 1-year members. (The 11 new members shown in the table for May is our overly-generous manipulation of the statistics to guestimate a number for May, based on the average for the preceding 11 months. Obviousy, 11 is much to high!)  There were 16 six-month members in March and that figure remained unchanged in April 2014. There are several other “categories” of members that go into Deluca’s misleading totals but the bottom line is that in the first year of operation, memberships are dropping and so are revenues. In the entire first year of operation, the Ravena Health and Fitness center has attracted less than 3% of Ravena residents to join. The numbers don’t lie: Out of about 1930 Ravena residents in the age group eligible for membership (18-65 year olds) Deluca, despite her spending on advertising, has been able to attract only about 100 members (some of whom are not Ravena residents). In percent of eligible residents that’s only 5% or 1 out of every 20 eligible residents, who would likely use a fitness club,. That’s pretty paltry performance.

Do the math: It’s costing Ravena $1,000 a year for each of Cathy Deluca’s members who are paying only about $250 a year in membership dues and purchases at the RHFC. Does anyone see a problem here? Obviously, Mr Mayor “Moose” Misuraca doesn’t . Mr Misuraca: What if at the Ravena Halfway House tavern you had to pay $10.00 for every $2.50 your customers spend? How long would you stay in business?

But instead of spending more time trying to make her RHFC playpen work, she’s grabbing other things, like trying to be chairperson of the Ravena Centennial—and screwing that up, too!

In fact, for the entire year of operation the total deposits made by the Ravena Health and Fitness Center are less than what the village is paying Cathy Deluca to mismanage the faclility! Deluca is pulling more than $30,000 plus full benefits; the RHFC brought less than $29,000.00!!! And that doesn’t include other salaries, equipment, operating expenses. The RHFC doesn’t even pay rent or utilities and it’s still losing more than $75,000 of taxpayer money in the first year!!!

ONE GLARING QUESTION YOU ALL SHOULD BE ASKING YOURSELVES: WHY IS THE RAVENA HEALTH AND FITNESS CENTER STILL THERE???

Why is it still there Mr Misuraca, Mr Coye, Mr Mahler, Ms Warner, Mr Bailey?

THE EDITOR

Don’t you ever wonder why the Ravena News Herald and the Albany Times Union never seem to pick up on these stories. They sorta get swept under the carpet. Why not ask  Bryan Rowzee, Melanie Lekocevic, Marlene McTique, or the head honchos at the Johnson Newspaper Group, John Johnson or Mark Vinciguerra why they don’t come clean with some investigations and some reporting on these crooks?

“Qui tacet consentire videtur ubi loqui debuit ac potuit.” “Silence is admission when when the accused ought to have spoken and was able to.” Special Notice: We make every effort to be truthful, complete, fair, and balanced on this blog; therefore, if you see anything that you know to be false or incorrect, or if you have additional information to clarify any issue, please let us know by e-mailing your information or by leaving a comment. It’s very important to us that we don’t fall into the same category as those whom this blog is intended to expose. Thank you very much in advance for your coöperation and assistance. Graphics and Images Disclosure: Unless otherwise noted and credited, all graphics used in this article are the result of a Google image search, and at the time the images were collected and used in this article, no conspicuous or visible copyright notice or other proprietary mark was shown. Please communicate any claim or corrections to rcs.confidential@gmail.com All images are used in good faith for non-profit, public information and public service purposes.