Humorist Chad rails against sports stadiums

[Scuba]

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/120580544.html

Humorist Norman Chad takes on new Sports Stadiums, with our without (yeah, sure) taxpayer dollars.


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No cost to taxpayers?

For starters, AEG wants a special exemption from the state's environmental quality act. OK, California is $26 billion in the hole - we don't even have a budget in place this year - and we're already spending legislative time and money to roll out the red carpet for a billionaire investor.

Further, for this stadium deal, AEG wants to lease prime downtown property for $1 a year. Uh, wouldn't that fall under the umbrella of "unrealized municipal revenue"? Note: I made up that term - it sounds very authoritative.

Finally, the city would lease land to AEG and float a $350 million bond to tear down part of L.A. Convention Center and rebuild it as part of the new stadium.

I now turn over the column briefly to L.A. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, who, according to the Los Angeles Times, recently posed a couple of questions about this $350 million bond: "How is it possible to contend that no public money will be used while at the same time ask the city to sell bonds?"


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Recommended reading: "Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit," by Neil deMause and Joanna Cagan.

[xchrom]

1. Corporate bribery.

Promise businesses or investors incentives at the expense of the taxpayer.

Voila! Everything is hunky dory - except it isn't.

[DCKit]

2. As a resident of DC (the new home of the National's $650M Stadium)...

I wholly concur. Given the rate that property taxes are rising to pay the tab, their timing couldn't have been worse.