The National Football League has triumphed over the People once again. It has allowed St. Louis Rams’ billionaire owner, Stan Kroenke, to take his team to play in another sandbox.
Some Rams fans and certainly opponents of public-funded stadiums said good riddance. They held bonfires where Rams memorabilia were burned to ashes. There were also sightings of giant wood chipper machines taking souvenirs in and spitting them out like pieces of a bad dream.
As I’m talking to people about the decision of the Rams to leave St. Louis, most seem to think it’s the end of a bad relationship. They don’t know that this bad dream just became a re-occurring nightmare for St. Louis taxpayers.
Every year until 2022, we’re stuck with paying $12 million a year. Some people are struggling to pay the mortgage on a home they chose to buy; they never agreed to the pay the mortgage on Edward Jones Dome.
On top of this, taxpayers are stuck with paying the premature expenses related to keeping the Rams from leaving the city. Expenses to date that we know about total a little over $16 million. This includes $10.5 million to HOK Architecture firm for the stadium plan (for some drawings – really?) and nearly $2 million in attorney fees. Other vendors were at the public trough already billing us – the taxpayer – in anticipation of the stadium construction.
Let us not forget that Governor Jay Nixon pulled his Stadium Task Force together to come up with a give-away plan. With a favorable ruling from Judge Thomas Frawley, the governor was able to circumvent the law which required voter approval for stadium construction. Mayor Frances G. Slay and 16 members of the Board of Aldermen joined Nixon’s efforts to disregard both the law and voter wishes.
The city and state conspirators for the $1 billion stadium must now be held accountable for their reckless actions. I say reckless because from all accounts, observers of the stadium plan and NFL operations, knew (and have known for years) that Kroenke had no intention of staying in St. Louis. So why did the city-state spend millions of dollars on planning for a stadium that would cost taxpayers hundreds of millions more? And why do we need to subsidize billionaire team owners for their for-profit enterprises? We must demand answers to these questions.
More and more, the games being played inside arenas aren’t the only games being played by sports teams. According to ESPN The Magazine, $8 billion has been poured into stadiums over the last decade without holding public votes. Sports teams have become efficient and effective at wooing cities with no more than false hopes of lots of jobs. Cities fall over themselves putting together packages with TIFs, tax abatements and other goodies to attract or maintain a new lover. In the end, the team goes to the city with the better sports dowry.
This is a city and state with misplaced human priorities and lots of issues. A state where 1 out of 4 children live in poverty, a city that is still fighting for a living wage. We have work to do and now that the stadium is a no deal, we need to refocus our resources and attention.
Taxpayers around the country will need to get better organized to put an end to these political and financial shenanigans that continually leave taxpayers holding an empty bag of promises.
