Indy's new stadium expenses could be twice what was projected

A lesson from Indianapolis, where the city just opened a new football stadium for the Indianapolis Colts. The city's operating expenses, which were expected to be about $10-million a year, will likely be closer to $20-million annually. Read the coverage from the Indianapolis Star here.

This kind of sounds like a story we heard here once in St. Petersburg. You know, the one where the Trop would pay for itself.

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Comments

[Scaramouche]

What a great fortuity that the fraud inherent in the stadium subsidy pitch is being exposed on a national scale. Only way these skulch will get taxpayer money is via the back door, backed by the coercive violence of the government (to condemn or tax-foreclose or garnish.) 'Course, the pigs run the Animal Farm now, so why should we be at all surprised when we get TIFed as well as stiffed by the Rick Bakers and ABC'ers? Even the Dems are doing it to us out there behind the Beltway, as we work and sleep.

[Clear Direction]

Aaron,

I am pretty sure that the Members of the ABC Coaalition are smart enough that this kind of situation could never happen here!

Right?

[Scaramouche]

Hey, I've been reading about the proposed bailout legislation we're all about to have hung around our necks, to the tune of maybe $1 trillion. The Republicans are apparently pushing to have "the U.S." (that's US, folks, you and me, the ordinary no-golden-parachute taxpayer) buy worthless mortgages for maybe 10,000 cents on the dollar, from companies who will then have the "fresh start" that ordinary people can no longer get through bankruptcy due to bank and credit card company lobbying.

And these banks and hedge funds and the like get to keep all their valuable assets, once again unlike the new bankruptcy code that strips away anything valuable, gives it to your creditors and leaves you with the burden of STILL having to pay back as best you can.

So we're forced to pony up another $1 billion or so, taken out of our already depleted pockets, to buy a stadium for outfits like the Rays Owners. Who are no doubt arguing to the corporate types on the ABC, Inc. team that if their former buddies on Wall Street will have a "get out of jail free" card, they should, too. And get to keep all the ownership interest in the stadium and the Rays team, and let the saps who are "too poor" to afford to go to games to "be seen" throw away the remaining value of the Trop, and buy a new stadium (and posh office tower, too) for the Rays Owners, and pay whatever the annual cost of maintaining and serving the stadium happens to be.

And what do you mean, you think you should get an actual share of the business in exchange for the billions you would invest in it? THAT'S DIRTY LEFTIST COMMUNIST SOCIALISM!

Those cautious fans in Green Bay, who own a big piece of the Packers franchise, must be laughing their frozen backsides off at th saps in all the MLB cities that have taken the subsidy bait (or had the hook shoved down their throats by the politicians who swore to serve and protect them.)

[get-smart]

Next year, vote in a 'no stadium' council and mayor. That will kill it for at least 4 years.