The Androscoggin Bank Colisee has an image problem.

Here it is, in a nutshell: Taxpayers of Lewiston know exactly what’s being put into the arena. This week, it was a $650,000 loan (or “bailout,” if you’re Mayor Laurent Gilbert). Up to then, taxpayers gritted through millions poured into the facility for its face-lift and management reorganization, upon the city’s purchase of the property in 2004.

But taxpayers are in the dark about the return on this money.

Perceived economic impacts – on restaurants, bars, lodging, etc. – are hard to quantify, and oftentimes, ambitious and overestimated. So, apparently, was the management of Global Spectrum, whose performance in selling the Colisee out, has been decidedly unequal to the flow of taxpayer dollars in.

The perception is enough to turn Gilbert, the city’s most visible Maineiacs supporter, next to team mascot Lewy, into an opponent of maintaining the Colisee’s solvency. His strong statements, and those of others, are souring opinions on Global Spectrum’s ability to deliver on promised bookings to stem the arena’s red inky tide.

Not that Global Spectrum is helping itself. A blank summer calendar makes us yearn for the rollicking Memorial Cup playoffs of a few weeks back, when the Colisee brimmed with hockey supporters and optimism that the Maineiacs’ success would breathe new life into the aging arena.

Taxpayers also see the Colisee skipped over by artists for larger venues, in Portland, Bangor and Augusta. They don’t see the shifts in the entertainment industry, and the challenges of marketing a small, hard-to-reach venue like the Colisee. These only exist behind the scenes with Global Spectrum.

None of these issues is new, though. The city has supported the Colisee for three years now; Global Spectrum has represented the facility for two. From taxpayers’ perspective, however, a status quo of putting money in, without getting something tangible out, is growing tiresome.

Yet this shouldn’t incite the city to act rashly.

Such as by selling the Colisee, requests for which are due by June 29. Or walking away from it, as closing the doors won’t recoup the millions already invested, or support the most popular game in town: the Maineiacs.

Transparency is needed. An audit of the Colisee, to identify the fields that the surging river of taxpayer dollars into the facility has irrigated. What are its successes? Upon what can a solid future be built? Good suggestions about this latter question are everywhere; they should be collected, and heeded.

With the way city officials are talking, the future of Global Spectrum – whose contract expires in 2008 – is dim. If so, now is the time for rational, practical discussions on the Colisee’s future.

They should start by showing taxpayers what they’ve gotten for their money, aside from a losing business.