7 ms·

Needs to be made illegal (not just stadiums) http://www.governing.com/gov-institute/on-leadership/col-economic-development-incentives-federal-law-washington-sta

• ajross 8y ago
  How would one propose to make it illegal for an elected government to finance construction of a public building? I mean, yeah, sports stadiums are wasteful. But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums? I mean, I agree with you in spirit but at the end of the day the whole point of a democratic government is that it's empowered to work to better our collective lives. And that has to include dumb-but-popular boondoggles as offerings to attract football teams.
  • jahewson 8y ago
    Simple: make them free to enter.
    • jimhefferon 8y ago
      Museums aren't free to enter.
      • blakeley 8y ago
        Perhaps they should be.
        • prostoalex 8y ago
          Libraries are, but in larger cities like LA or SF they tend to evolve into coworking spaces for the homeless, at which point they cease to be public spaces that people feel comfortable taking their families to.
          • matt4077 8y ago
            Why? Do homeless people eat children?
      • uabstraction 8y ago
        Many public ones are
        • abrowne 8y ago
          And some non-public ones, like the Minneapolis Institute of Art https://new.artsmia.org/ https://new.artsmia.org/
  • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > How would one propose to make it illegal for an elected government to finance construction of a public building? State constitutional amendments requiring a referendum.
    • ajross 8y ago
      Well, sure. That works if these things are unpopular. They're not. That's the problem. Lost in the discussion of how many hundreds of million dollars St. Louis lost in its relationship with the Rams is the fact that the city loved that team and the stadium construction was a huge deal and a big political victory. The underlying flaw in the reasoning here is that it's all based on a personal feeling that "My government is spending my tax dollars on something I don't like but other people do". Well... yeah. That's the cost of living under a government. The government's job is fairness, not pleasing everyone.
      • logifail 8y ago
        >> the city loved that team and the stadium construction was a huge deal and a big political victory Can you quantify "the city loved"? I'm sure the construction was "a huge deal", large construction projects almost always are. Something professional politicians choose to support != something that a majority of voters would choose to support, given the chance.
        • cmorgan31 8y ago
          You can’t quantify love or sentiment unless you accept brand loyalty and subjective measures. It seems like a silly thing to request but perhaps that is your point. If these were ballot initiatives for funding similar to public transport you would see a bit more rejections from anyone outside of the city centers. If we go by popular vote you will likely see most cities vote to keep their teams because we’ve all been raised to think of them as ours despite owning nothing.
          • logifail 8y ago
  • ams6110 8y ago
    > But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums Maybe we should. These days, public libraries are little more than homeless shelters. I haven't been to one in at least 5 years for that reason, and printed books are largely irrelevant in today's world anyway. Museums could be operated by private non-profits and foundations. No need to have taxpayers directly finance their construction.
    • misterprime 8y ago
      >little more than homeless shelters. Ouch. True, but ouch.
    • KingMachiavelli 8y ago
      Libraries provide dozens of services to those in low-income areas. Lots of people utilize the library for internet service.
      • dangerbird2 8y ago
        As it turns out, homeless people can't easily keep laptops on them and afford to hang out at Starbucks all day. Public libraries give them and other low income people opportunities to develop skills and education, and electronic resources to find a long-term career that can take them out of poverty.
        • scarface74 8y ago
          As it turns out, homeless people can't easily keep laptops on them and afford to hang out at Starbucks And heck, with what happened recently, neither can Professional people who are minorities and look like they don’t belong.... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/16/arrest-of-two-black-men-at-starbucks-for-trespassing-sparks-protests https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/16/arrest-of-tw...
        • prostoalex 8y ago
          If that is truly a massive trend (and it seems like it would be reasonably easy to measure), the current setup of libraries is not that conducive to employment preparation (mine still features books on Macromedia Flash and Office XP). One can probably run it more efficiently as an Internet access room at a local community center, with access to printing/faxing/tutoring/resume building and other services. And, just as you said, some zip codes will benefit from this setup more than others.
  • golemiprague 8y ago
    The government should be limited to provide things which are better as a monopoly like some roads or electric grid and for things that are essential and the market fails to provide from some reason. And yes, museums are not necessarily essential and in many cases should not be provided by the government but rather by a private entity.
  • surfmike 8y ago
    Might be a way to do it with a tax on private stadium construction. Allow deducting (private costs - all public subsidies). So for any local subsidies you receive, you have a commensurate increase in taxes. Similar problems exist with subsidies for factories, although at least those are producing something at the end of the day.
    • deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  • paulie_a 8y ago
    Pretty easy, private corporations are different than public non profit organizations. Football stadiums may weasel into non profit. But it is absolutely a for profit organization. I've never been to a library that requires an ultra expensive tickets. Museums have a reasonable rate for expenses in conjunction with donors. It's a two part but simple questions for lawmakers: are you a profit making entity or are you not. if you are, please explain the benefits you will provide to the taxpayer, and it better wow me. If it does go forward there should be contractual guarantees on jobs and tax revenue with fines for not producing. Cities don't need to attract football teams. Football teams should be begging cities to allow them there.
    • ianai 8y ago
      On jobs, I’m unconvinced that stadiums create many jobs. At least at the stadiums I’ve lived near, they seemed to be fully staffed with far fewer people than other social venues - say casinos (though I don’t see a US government making a casino) or even a mall. I’d rather localities invest in community centers, libraries, museums, etc than stadiums.
      • GordonS 8y ago
        There will be a lot of jobs during construction, but it's perhaps worth noting that those will not necessarily be for locals. In operation, I agree that thr number of jobs is likely fairly low, and mostly low wage.
        • ianai 8y ago
          Those construction jobs are invalid for inclusion because they’re temporary unless the building is going to be destroyed and rebuilt regularly. The only jobs created that can be included in the decision to build or not are the long term jobs.
  • hammock 8y ago
    >dumb-but-popular Do you have a recent example of a new football stadium that had popular support among the constituent taxpayers? My memory can only recall ones opposed by the general public.
    • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I remember the Seattle vote back in the mid-90s, we clearly rejected it but they went ahead with it anyways.
      • rnd0 8y ago
        I lived there then; as I remember it was put to the ballot two or three times -and when it kept getting voted down they basically just said "screw it" and built it anyway.
        • seanmcdirmid 8y ago
          They passed a hotel occupancy tax by council vote alone to build it if I remember correctly...and the tax is still going on today. I'm far from a anti-tax conservative, but I feel like this is the wrong thing to be taxing for.
    • positr0n 8y ago
      Don't they vote on them? In my hometown of Arlington TX there have been two stadiums* built with part public financing in the last decade. Both were ballot issues in a normal election. I thought that's how it was done everywhere. * Jerry Jones's $1B monstrosity for the Dallas Cowboys was narrowly approved around 2008 and the new Texas Rangers stadium was voted on this past year, not sure the margin or cost.
      • smt88 8y ago
        To my knowledge, they're not on ballots in most cities.
    • dwighttk 8y ago
  • xfitm3 8y ago
    I don’t think funding is the problem. It’s misappropriation and lack of oversight. I was involved in the construction of two stadiums and the money is unlimited during construction. Very wasteful.
  • wongarsu 8y ago
    Sure, allow the government to construct sports stadiums. The government can then make it free for any sports team to use (though preferential treatment of any one team has to be prevented), and since it's a public building any revenue generated from ticket sales goes towards operating the building, with leftovers going back to the government (just like libaries, museums etc). There's nothing really wrong with that. Naming rights also obviously stay with the government, anything else would be silly.
    • ahallock 8y ago
      There is something really wrong with that. The government is taking on concerns outside its core responsibilities. Sports are non-critical entertainment and that's something the government should not be creating. We can discuss regulations, zoning, and other ways government could be involved, but a lot of people don't use these stadiums, and I'm sure they'd prefer their tax money and gov resources be spent on more crucial infrastructure.
      • LukeShu 8y ago
        Don't all of those arguments also apply to libraries and museums?
        • wongarsu 8y ago
          Libraries and museums serve the purpose of educating the masses, which is something the government should be and is involved in (mainly because an educated populace is crucial for democracy)
          • sbuk 8y ago
            And sport doesn’t provide education? Sport teaches self discipline and resilience, surely to traits that are essential to democracy.
            • around_here 8y ago
  • Brakenshire 8y ago
    There’s a huge corpus of jurisprudence on this in the EU, where such funding is illegal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid_(European_Union) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_aid_(European_Union)
    • twelvechairs 8y ago
      Doesnt stop them giving land for free and supporting infrastructure though. Which can be a huge part of the cost. Aalianz Arena (munich) is a good example
      • Brakenshire 8y ago
        It’s not a terrible thing to improve transport infrastructure for a part of the city. Similarly I was reading that the council local to Tottenham’s new stadium are improving public squares around the area, but they’re spending only £30m relative to a stadium cost of £850m. And it is public squares which are being improved. Governments can usually spend to improve general resources around a project, but not contribute to the project itself. With the idea of preventing market distortion from subsidy and a race to the bottom between different states. I’m surprised they can give land for free, I’d have thought that would fall foul of the legislation.
  • celticninja 8y ago
    Or you could make teams pay for their own stadiums. They take the revenue so why shouldn't they? The equivalent is Amazon requiring local government to provide them with automated warehouses for them to relocate to (or remain in) that locality.
  • stale2002 8y ago
    > But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums? That's easy! You just make the law only apply to stadiums. I am sure it would be perfectly possible to include a detailed description of what a stadium is, in the law.
• landryraccoon 8y ago
  The voters have to achieve consensus that sports stadiums aren’t worth it first. Democracy doesn’t really have easy shortcuts, educating voters is hard but it has to be done. You can’t make something illegal if the majority of voters want it. Until voters stop wanting them publicly subsidized stadiums will continue to be built.
  • imjustsaying 8y ago
    >Democracy doesn’t really have easy shortcuts The easy shortcut is IQ and education cannot improve it.
    • krapp 8y ago
      If you believe smart people never vote against their own interests then you're mistaken.
      • imjustsaying 8y ago
        We'd be in agreement, and I don't believe I suggested otherwise. IQ is a predictor of success, it's not a measure of success. Groups and individuals with higher IQs tend to have better outcomes and there's about a hundred of years of research backing this up. Their involvement in successful democracies is no exception.
• noitsnot 8y ago
  It's all out of hand at this point. A billion dollars to keep the community's sports team doesn't seem so harsh compared to the other companies.