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Pretzel Logic
Kudos to Gov. Tom Ridge for his decision to veto House Bill 907, the back-door funding measure dubbed the “Immaculate Deception” that would have given Pittsburgh state funds toward the construction of two sports stadia.
And shame on the legislature for not taking the time to read the bills on which it was voting.
Actually, the stealth legislators did us a favor.
We needed a time-out in this rush to spend more than a billion to fund arenas in the state’s two largest cities.
This rush was precipitated largely because the Pittsburgh Pirates began clearing land for a new stadium even before state funding was in place. Now team owner Kevin McClatchy is kvetching that, if there is no funding in place by Dec. 21, there is a loophole in his contract that says he can sell his team to owners who might move it elsewhere.
To that we say: Have a nice trip.
As Pittsburgh activist Gary English points out, the taxpayers in Pittsburgh still owe about $38 million for Three Rivers Stadium, home of both the Pirates and Steelers, that was built in 1970 at the cost of $35 million. Since then, two separate bond issues added $30 million for maintenance and upgrading.
English, who has been fighting against having taxpayers pick up the tab for such large-scale corporate welfare, raises an important question.
If taxpayers still owe $38 million 28 years after the construction of a $35 million stadium, how much will we be in hock for four stadia costing about $300 million apiece?
Granted, as far as stadiums go, the Vet, that great cement bialy at Broad and Pattison, is a toilet. The turf is deadly, the sight lines opaque and it has all the ambiance of a crater. And that doesn’t even take into account that the home teams are sports effluvia.
Granted, too, professional sports franchises offer a benefit to the public psyche, and a greatly overrated benefit to the public trough. Studies show, for example, that at most, only about 15 percent of people visiting sports stadiums spend money in the surrounding community. And the vast majority of jobs created are low-paying seasonal positions.
So for all this, should taxpayers, the vast majority of whom will never be able to afford to watch a game in these new palaces (let alone afford the licensing fee charged just for the right to buy a seat), pony up as much as $200 million per stadium (the rest, theoretically, coming from the teams) so that the owners of the Eagles and the Phillies, as well as the overpaid players, can increase their riches?
We think not.
And not just because the teams stink.
Take a look around this city.
Visit any classroom in any public school.
You will see thousands of ways to spend those millions of taxpayer dollars.
Sure, none of the things we really need to spend money on will draw cheering crowds.
And maybe none can bring people together the way even a putrid Eagles squad does on Sunday afternoons.
Do we risk losing the Eagles or the Phillies if we don’t kowtow to ownership’s threats to build them sparkling new stadiums or else? Absolutely.
That would be a shame.
But it is far worse that we are losing hundreds of families each year because our underfunded public school system is so abysmal.
Let Jeff Lurie build his own stadium.
Let the Phillies build theirs.
Let taxpayer dollars be used for taxpayer needs.
If you would like to respond to this Slant, or submit one of your own, contact City Paper news editor Howard Altman at altman@citypaper.net.
