On Friday, St. Louis City Alderwoman Megan Ellyia Green will introduce a bill that would once again give taxpayers the right to vote on whether or not their dollars go towards funding a new almost $1 billion NFL stadium – just north of the Gateway Arch grounds.
Green’s ordinance calls for the vote to be in the March 15, 2016 election, which is the presidential primary as well. It would also require the St. Louis city comptroller to do some public engagement sessions about what the financing looks like, Green told the St. Louis American.
In August, a judge shot down the previous ordinance, which voters approved in 2002 after the public funding for Busch Stadium faced opposition. The Regional Complex and Sports Convention Authority sued the city to block the public vote, saying the law was too vague.
“A lot of us heard from our constituents that they were upset that their voices were not able to be included, especially when we’re talking about so much money,” Green said.
The cumulative amount that the city and state would pay on the stadium over the next two decades is an estimated $400 million. Currently, the city contributes about $6 million each year to pay off the cost of the Edward Jones Dome.
Green said the previous ordinance was not drafted by aldermen. It was done through a ballot initiative that the residents petitioned for, and it passed with 55 percent of the vote. Green does not believe all of that hard work should be thrown out just because one section was vague, she said.
A number of aldermen have been talking about drafting a bill since the judge’s decision, she said. However, they held off introducing it after being promised details about the stadium’s financial plan by Mayor Francis G. Slay’s office and Dave Peacock, a former top executive for Anheuser-Busch and a leader of the governor’s task force that’s strategizing to keep an NFL team in the city.
They told the aldermen that the NFL had strict deadlines they were working with, and that they had to have a financial package completed by Oct. 7.
“We’ve been given three different deadlines and all have come and gone,” she said. “It is showing us that those deadlines are very flexible. And if they are flexible, then we need to be including the taxpayers, the people of the city, in this conversation.”
The aldermen have been called individually to meet with Peacock and the mayor’s representatives to hear more about the plans.
“It seemed to be more to sell us on the deal rather than present us with any numbers,” she said.
She asked them where the funding would come from now that St. Louis County has pulled away. It also seems that state funding could be a problem, as a number of Republicans are fighting it. All of those financial questions were not something they could answer, she said.
The specific details of the city’s financing plan haven’t been publicly released yet.
However, not long after the circuit court ruled that voters did not have the right to vote on the stadium, Slay came out publicly and admitted that the city might not recuperate its costs from building the stadium.
However, he thinks the new stadium is still worth it because of “big-city pride,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
After the judge shot down the 2002 ordinance, Mary Ellen Ponder, Slay’s chief of staff, said in a statement that the ruling was “very disappointing.”
However, based on what a representative from Slay’s office told Green in a phone call last night (Oct. 21), she surmised, “I think they would prefer to not see this bill and not see it go to a vote.”
She and the bill’s co-sponsors – Aldermen Cara Spencer, Chris Carter, Christine Ingrassia, Shane Cohn and Sam Moore – have also been contacted by people who suggest that she is trying to “kill the deal.” She said that’s not the case.
“None of us are weighing in on the stadium issue,” she said of the co-sponsors. “There are a lot of complicated factors that go into this that impact taxpayers,” she said. “We are just asking to restore that ability for people to have a say.”
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