Early this summer, Budget Director Paul Payne warned the region that the fuzzy bonds mathematics being used by new stadium proponents didn’t add up financially and could leave a cash gap for the city.
“If we were starting from scratch, that plan would look great; but we’re not starting from scratch,” he told the Post-Dispatch.
In early November, the Post carried an editorial that said Board Bill 219, which would oblige the city to roll over its $6 million annual commitment to the Edward Jones Dome, was a stinker of a deal and the rollover “should be illegal.”
It said that Mayor Slay should have appealed a judge’s ruling that OK’d the preposterous idea to bypass city voters and that the new stadium was “adjacent” to the Edward Jones Dome.
“It’s not fair. It’s not right, but the city should to do it anyway,” the editorial concluded. So much for looking out for the taxpayers.
Comptroller Darlene Green has not been a fan of Bill 219 since before its details were even revealed. She has officially announced that she will note vote for the bill as it is currently written.
Mayor Francis Slay and Board of Aldermen President Lewis Reed comprise the Board of Estimate and Apportionment with Green, and they will probably approve the bill if passed by aldermen.
City residents should fall to their knees and thank Green because she is one of few elected officials in the city that is actually doing her job and watching out for constituents’ financial interests.
“If the bill is passed in its current state and presented to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, my vote will be ‘no,’” she said in a press release.
The $145 million giveaway to help construct the proposed stadium “is not fiscally responsible” because it could leave the city with a budget gap and hurt its credit rating, according to Green.
Unlike many other so-called city leaders who complain and do nothing, she offers a solution to a possible financial crisis if the bill is passed.
“Regional businesses would be asked to partner with the city to finance (a proposed Crime Reduction and Professional Policing Fund) and close the budget gap that would be created if the stadium funding bill is passed,” the comptroller said.
The major construction firms, law firms etc., that will benefit financially from stadium construction (and other businesses) should kick in some cash to help the city overcome the crazy public funding deal.
She also proposed a state sports authority should be established that could “raise money from tourism activities, such as rental car surcharges and issue bonds to pay for sports projects.”
“Between the St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, the Blues, St. Louis Rams, Kansas City Chiefs and collegiate teams, there is far more synergy for a statewide sports authority in Missouri than in many states that already have them,” Green said.
Enterprise, which owns National Rental Car and is paying for the stadium naming rights, certainly won’t support that rental car surcharge. Legislators from the west side of the state are grandstanding about stopping state funding for the new stadium.
Regardless of the almost certain opposition, it’s a tremendous idea – one that should have been examined long before the stadium Task Force started spending public money in a desperate attempt to keep a privately owned business in the region that has made it clear it no longer wishes to be here.
No elected comptroller or chief financial officer in the nation would sign off on the proposed stadium deal unless they were shamefully pandering for votes or controlled by a mayor, board of aldermen or city council.
Green is taking heat for not approving the obviously flawed deal. City residents, and the entire region, should be thankful at least one elected official is not for sale or under the thumb of the political and business powers that control St. Louis.
