“You must pay the rent…”
Reading this excellent article by Jill Terreri in today’s D&C, I couldn’t help but recall that old Vaudeville skit “You must pay the rent. But I can’t pay the rent!” You know the one where a single actor uses one comb as a mustache, a hair bow and a tie to play the landlord, renter and hero? In the end a bowtied character comes in as the defaulted renter’s hero. Monroe County needs a hero:
The construction of Frontier Field, once hailed as a project that wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything, has become a major financial responsibility of county government.
(snip)
Paying the rent
Frontier Field cost $36 million to build. Monroe County borrowed $20.6 million in bonds, and the state contributed $15.4 million. Monroe County’s total debt obligation is $44 million, when the principal and interest over the 30-year life of the bonds are combined.
If it sounds too good to be true…
the sports corporation hasn’t paid rent to the county since 2002 and it doesn’t have to because the terms of the lease don’t require it. The payment is not required if the corporation doesn’t raise enough revenue through ticket sales, advertising and concessions to both maintain the stadium and pay the rent.
Why are we subsidizing a stadium instead of protecting taxpayers? The tax burden on taxpayers is egregious yet these business deals in our area continue to be monomaniacally focused on corporate welfare as opposed to individuals. Business investment is good if it improves the economy rather than just the corporate bottom line but this lure is so sweet it turns the stomach. The cure is worse than the disease:
The 2006 financial statements from the sports corporation note that the county has not declared that the corporation has defaulted on the debt…
“The ability of the Company to continue to operate the Stadium is dependent on the County continuing not to declare the Company in default under the lease,” the financial statement reads.
A built-in deficit
So county officials are caught in a Catch-22.
If it stopped budgeting for the rent, the county would have “no basis” for trying to collect it, Gleason said. But the payments don’t come in, so the county starts every year with a built-in deficit.
What does Ms. Brooks have to say about all this?
County Executive Maggie Brooks said the county, as owner of the stadium, has a legal responsibility to pay on the debt service, whether it receives revenue from Frontier or not.
“I think we have to maintain a viable stadium infrastructure so we can have a great baseball team,” Brooks said.
“That’s a community asset, and one that I think serves a community well and one that is supported well by this public-private partnership at Frontier Field.”
Define “supported well.” I agree that it’s good to have a great baseball team but there seems to be a “build mentality” when our community cannot support these ventures. The balance of investment vs. feasibility is off, way off, and taxpayers are literally paying for this imbalance.
Monroe County needs to live within its means. Someone needs to get that message. We need someone who will focus on taxpayers’ interests, someone who invests wisely, someone accountable to the voters. In short, we need a hero. The bowtie is optional.
A way to generate more revenue for the county’s debt service would be to hold other events in the stadium in addition to the Red Wings’ 72 home games.
Like, maybe, soccer matches? Instead of building another white elephant stadium? Naah, why would we want to do that.
I had never thought of that, but it seems obvious doesn’t it? A multi-use stadium makes a lot more sense.
I think that’s a great idea and the fact that they haven’t done this points to the real lack of vision and insight in our leader(s). “White elephant” is an apt description, Rotten.
All - it isn’t about the stadium - it is about the subsidies. It is about Maggie Brooks complaining about unfunded mandates yet paying rent on a stadium. Which part of the budget is this Ms Brooks.
This is simply a bottom to top redistribution of wealth using the government as a vehicle to transfer benefit from the poor to the wealthy.
This is the stuff David Cay Johnston has been discussing in his books.
This is the home town version of George bush and the Texas Rangers.
The big question here is why are we just discovering it now????
The second slightly smaller question/rant is what does this say about the planning for RenSquare.
Good thing we don’t have a budget gap - oh wait we do. Didn’t see cutting this as an option on Maggie’s BS Web page now did we?
It is about the stadium in the sense that it demonstrates a sheer lack of forethought, a key element in poor leadership (Iraq War anyone?) that has trickled down from the national level all the way to the County level. Who needs to plan when we have the taxpayers to bail us out?
There are plenty of problems highlighted in this Terreri piece and you mention many of them, but don’t discount the incredible lack of thinking outside the box, build-it mentality running rampant in our area. We spend loosely and expect the taxpayers to lap it up. Business needs are taken care of and the individual is forgotten.
We are violently agreeing here. It isn’t about the physical stadium (multi-use , single use whatever) which was my point - it is about metaphorical stadium as enabled by subsidies.