Revisionist History from Monona Terrace

Today's Wisconsin State Journal had an article about the impending retirement of Monona Terrace Director Jim Hess.

The online version (but not the print edition) includes this little nugget about the highlights of Hess' tenure:

683 conventions and conferences - including a national conference in 2002 for mayors that required significant security and offered a big opportunity to showcase the center - with an economic impact of over $300 million.

Funny, I seem to recall that the security concerns pretty much kept all the attendees locked down in the convention center (and the public far away), turning downtown into a ghost town and bitterly disappointing the area businesses who had hoped to benefit from the convention. The city received very little economic impact for the money it had to shell out for security.  The fiasco helped to end Mayor Sue Baumann's political career.

I'm surprised that Monona Terrace's press release bragged about that unfortunate bit of history.  Of course, it wasn't in the print edition of the paper; no doubt there simply wasn't space.