The Conservancy is, as far as I can tell, a privately funded organization, not a taxpayer funded initiative. The biggest financial loss seems to be the $730k un

The Conservancy is, as far as I can tell, a privately funded organization, not a taxpayer funded initiative. The biggest financial loss seems to be the $730k unpaid rent that the pier (also privately owned) waved to get them out faster. Philadelphia has a $6.3B annual budget. I doubt public funding spent (if any at all) letting this ship stay idly docked while the conservancy chased the pipedream of a $400M ship renovation meaningfully impacted any of the other problems the city has. "The city shouldn't spend money on X because Y is more expensive" is a lazy argument anyway, it's possible to do more than one thing at a time.