We'll build whatever we can afford: that's what we know for sure about Renaissance Square.

And what we can afford, we're told, is $230 million: the original construction cost of the project.

In a January 20 "Speaking Out" piece in the Democrat and Chronicle, County Exec Maggie Books insisted: "I firmly believe that we must not deviate from this budget, and the final design and construction of the project will adhere to it."

That's a promise she can keep, obviously - although given the increase in the cost of construction materials, it'll be interesting to see how much the final building looks like the Moshe Safdie design that got us all so excited.

But Brooks and other officials have also insisted that beyond the construction, taxpayers won't have to pay for anything. Brooks repeated that pledge in the "Speaking Out" piece: "the facility," she wrote, "must sustain its operations without any additional taxpayer dollars."

Balderdash.

First of all, Monroe Community College is a public institution. Student tuition doesn't pay the full cost at MCC; taxpayers help. And we'll pay more for a bigger facility.

We don't have a bus station now. Somebody's going to have to pay to operate the station at Ren Square, and that somebody sure won't be the bus riders.

Beyond that, it will cost money to "operate" the public spaces in Ren Square: to heat, light, and otherwise maintain the public spaces leading to the theater, the college space, the bus station; to repair roof leaks, clean the doors: that kind of thing. Who's going to pay for that? The tooth fairy?

And then there's the theater. County officials are still sitting on this information, but Stuart Low's January 17 article in the D&C reported what many of us have figured all along: whatever theater is built will require operating subsidies.

The theater's principal user, the Rochester Broadway Theatre League, can not on its own pay for this thing. It won't use the theater year round; it doesn't bring in enough attractions. And even if RBTL is able to rent out the place every night that it doesn't need it - a big if - the theater will still need subsidies. These kinds of facilities always do.

Who's going to provide those subsidies?

My hunch is that when county officials finally fess up, they'll say that private donations will foot the bill. That's a mighty big gamble; this community isn't awash in money.

But there's another concern: This community has lots of arts organizations. All of them need money every year for operating funds. They'll be competing with RBTL for increasingly fewer available public donations. So, by the way, will the United Way. But as RBTL goes out for money - for construction of the theater, for an endowment, for annual operating funds - it will have the clout of county government behind it.

This is just nuts.

I don't object to spending taxpayers' money to help RBTL or any other arts organization. I wish we spent more. I do object, though, to government officials saying something's not going to cost taxpayers anything when they know (or certainly should) that it will.

And I also object to county government placing one arts organization high above all the others, with no study or public sentiment determining that it's the most important.

It was interesting to learn, by the way, that RBTL will operate the theater. I hadn't heard that. But in his "Speaking Out" piece in the January 20 D&C, RBTL president Don Jeffries identified his organization as the theater's "future operators." This means that RBTL will determine when other arts groups can use the space - and how much they'll have to pay.

Maybe that makes sense; RBTL is experienced in that kind of thing. Still, it gives that one organization a lot of clout. Anybody concerned about that?