Detroit: Why is there over a half billion dollar stadium deal being approved in a bankrupt city?

[RandySF]

Though they are important, let's be honest: Municipal budget figures can be mind-numbingly boring. Even in high-profile, high-stakes dramas like Detroit's bankruptcy, the sheer flood of numbers can encourage people to simply tune it all out for fear of being further confused.

Thus, in the interest of not putting you to sleep or further perplexing you, here are three painfully simple questions about Detroit's bankruptcy. Though these questions have mostly been ignored, continuing to ask them can at least highlight the fact that something nefarious is happening right now in the Motor City.

1. Why are Detroit officials simultaneously moving to cut municipal workers' pensions while spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new professional hockey stadium?

Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich., and his appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr are pleading poverty to justify cuts to the average Detroit municipal worker's $19,000-a-year pension. Yet, they are also saying they have plenty of money available to continue a planned $285 million taxpayer subsidy for the construction of a new hockey stadium for the Red Wings. Economic data over the years suggest that that paying pension benefits is often a far more powerful tool for economic stimulus than financing stadium subsidies. That's because pensions reliably pump resources into a local economy while stadium subsidies often end up a net loss for taxpayers. So why is Detroit prioritizing stadiums over pensions?



http://www.nationofchange.org/three-questions-about-motor-city-1386949240

[NYC_SKP]

1. Bread and Circuses?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

[jsr]

2. Because a half billion dollar stadium creates a half billion jobs.

That's how taxpayer-financed stadiums work.

[MrScorpio]

3. Because the Billionaire pizza company owner wanted one. nt

[leftyohiolib]

4. how any detroiter can step foot into that stadium is beyond me and anyone who does should be shamed

into not doing it again

[Egalitarian Thug]

5. Those No Billionaire Left Behind policies are working like a charm.

Trillions for Wall Street, fuck all for Main Street, welcome to the corporate states of America.

[BobUp]

6. Why is there over a half billion dollar stadium deal being approved in a bankrupt city?

Probably for the same reason/s my state shoved a new stadium with tax increases down our throats, to fund it in my state....for a team of losers.

A taxpayer at least has some right to vote as to whether they want it or not, we would think. The only answer I can come up with is pandering to a certain type of voter for brownie points, whatever it takes to make a politician look good.

[Vashta Nerada]

7. Are you in Minnesota?

Because the same thing is being done to us. The taxpayers are footing the bill for a new stadium for a horseshit football team all in the name of "job creation".

[BobUp]

11. Not Minny

but close to you, wisconSIN.

here's the story in part;

http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2012/07/27/murphy%E2%80%99s-law-the-eternal-stadium-tax/

In 1995, the state legislature passed a law creating a new five-county sales tax to underwrite a new stadium for the Milwaukee Brewers. At the time, the tax was expected to sunset in 14 years, in 2010. Yep, that was two years ago, and the sales tax just keeps getting collected, and its sunset date moved back.

The tax has operated as something of slush fund that can be grabbed to pay for everything from a new scoreboard for the Brewers, installed in 2011, to $1.6 million worth of PR help for the public stadium authority. A year ago, Tim Sheehy, head of Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, floated the idea of extending the tax to pay for new NBA arena, which could cost as much as $500 million.


idiots

[Crepuscular]

8. Because it makes economic sense to do so.

The redevelopment of a 45 block area of Detroit's core, financed through long term bonds, with private capital contributing 60 cents on the dollar in overall investment, makes a great deal of economic sense if the goal is to cure the cities economic woes and revitalize the Detroit Economy. The alternative is to watch the Red Wings move outside of the city to a suburban location, while the city center continues to disintegrate into a wasteland of uninhabited structures. Ford Field and Comerica Park draw millions of people a year into the downtown area, many of whom have no other reason to travel downtown and spend money. The new hockey arena will provide a similar draw.

[jehop61]

12. Check with Atlanta

They tried a redevelopment stadium project downtown in 96 and are now trying to get a wealthy suburban county to build a newer stadium in the burbs even though no public transportation goes there. Too many of "them" downtown doncha know

[Crepuscular]

13. We don't really need to look at Atlanta

as there are already two examples of successful stadium projects spitting distance from where this new arena will be located. I doubt many would say that it would have been better for the Tigers to move out of the downtown to the burbs or for the Lions to have stayed in the Silverdome, instead of investing in the downtown arenas that those franchises use. This project is much more then just a hockey stadium, it also includes the development of a surrounding arts & entertainment district that will bring an estimated 8,000 permanent jobs to the downtown area.

[SheilaT]

9. Because this sort of thing has been going on

probably for a good half-century. There is ALWAYS the claim that many, many jobs are created. No. There are those jobs during the construction phase, but those end. During the playing season there are some seasonal jobs: ticket takers, concession stand workers. But few if any of these are permanent, probably none are full time with benefits.

I have lived in cities with and without major sport, and I vastly prefer without. Currently I live in Santa Fe, and the entire state of New Mexico does not have a single major league professional sports team here. Yay! Those who want to follow a team elsewhere do so, and good for them. Meanwhile, there are not ludicrous tax concessions or false job claims connected to the pro team's presence. Best of all, while the local papers do cover professional, college, and high school teams, there's not the absurd over-identification and out-of-proportion coverage that I've seen in other cities, especially if there's football involved.

If any hostile nation ever wants to invade this country, just do it on a Super Bowl Sunday. If your planning is fortuitous enough, that year the Washington Redskins will be in the Super Bowl and it will be exceptionally easy. That nothing like that has ever happened is clear proof that those who wish us harm truly do not understand our culture, especially our football culture.

[broiles]

17. Not to worry, Washington doesn't win enough.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I would not be reflexively against the idea. Of course individual projects like this have to be

judged on their own merits. But if the goal is to economically revitalize the area whether its a stadium or a convention center or a major museum or a new airport or some other major project - something like this can play an absolutely essential role in revitalizing a local economy. I don't know enough about the situation in Detroit and the role a new stadium might play in economic rebirth so I can't venture an educated opinion on this particular project. But in principle major projects can make all the difference in the world in getting an economy moving.

[badtoworse]

14. The bonds are being issued by a state agency and no new Detroit tax money will be used.

[RC]

15. So the whole state will be paying taxes to support the stadium then?

Okiee dokee then.

[badtoworse]

18. They're revenue bonds. They'll be repaid out stadium revenues.

[davidn3600]

16. How much is the owner or the NHL paying for it?

You gotta love those deals where the taxpayer pays the entire cost of the stadium while the owner collects all the profits from it.

[Aerows]

19. If the city can't afford to pay workers

Who exactly do they think can afford to go to the games?