Posted on 08/07/2005 11:29:34 PM PDT by Cougar66
WASHINGTON (AP) - A judge cleared the way for the District of Columbia to take control of the land it needs to build a baseball stadium. U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts rejected a request by property owners for a 30-day injunction that would have prevented the city from buying or seizing 33 properties on the proposed site along the Anacostia River.
God Bless
Heck, even our President had land seized for the Texas Rangers in the early 1990s. I don't like it, but it's nothing new.
First they came for the gay bars, then they came for the sex industry......
Just eliminate baseball which I consider nothing more than a boring few hours of scratch your ass and spit over and over.
"D.C. is one of the ten biggest cities of the U.S. ... If you don't live there, you're not paying for it.
Wrong on both counts. DC does not even make the llist of the 25 largest cities. It also takes a lot more in Federal taxes than it gives, so every US taxpayer is supporting it. Supporting the Federal government is one thing, but subsidizing "your" baseball stadium is quite another.
7/1/2004 population estimates
1. New York, N.Y. 8,104,079
2. Los Angeles, Calif. 3,845,541
3. Chicago, Ill. 2,862,244
4. Houston, Tex. 2,012,626
5. Philadelphia, Pa. 1,470,151
6. Phoenix, Ariz. 1,418,041
7. San Diego, Calif. 1,263,756
8. San Antonio, Tex. 1,236,249
9. Dallas, Tex. 1,210,393
10. San Jose, Calif. 904,522
11. Detroit, Mich. 900,198
12. Indianapolis, Ind. 784,242
13. Jacksonville, Fla. 777,704
14. San Francisco, Calif. 744,230
15. Columbus, Ohio 730,008
16. Austin, Tex. 681,804
17. Memphis, Tenn. 671,929
18. Baltimore, Md. 636,251
19. Fort Worth, Tex. 603,337
20. Charlotte, N.C. 594,359
21. El Paso, Tex. 592,099
22. Milwaukee, Wis. 583,624
23. Seattle, Wash. 571,480
24. Boston, Mass. 569,165
25. Denver, Colo. 556,835
26. Louisville-Jefferson County, Ky. 556,332
27. Washington, DC 553,523
Try searching the populations of metropolitan areas rather than individual cities for a better idea of the size of the DC economy & population.
That may or may not be true. Other cities have creatively forced visitors to pay for stadiums. Bank one in Phoenix is paid for, in part, by a tax on car rentals in Phoenix.
I hate paying that tax when I go there.
What about airports?
I already did my share of research for this thread (LOL) but of course you are welcome to post the top 30 or so "regional sizes."
[Are you proposing MD and VA help pay for the DC stadium? Should NJ help pay for facilities in New York City and Philadelphia?]
The only way Major League Baseball would agree to move the Expos to DC was if the city committed to building a publicly funded stadium. When the DC City council passed an ordinance requiring some private funding for the stadium, Selig threatened to pull the team and send them elsewhere.
According to this list from Wikipedia, DC metro region comes in 7th in the nation at 4.8 mil people: United States metropolitan area
Your FReeper page indicates you are a Marylander. What do you think of giving all but the Federal core back to Maryland? (And everything past the half way point in the Potomac back to Virginia?)
I'm guessing that MD/VA taxpayers will fund the stadium more than DC residents, if only through business taxes paid by suburban residents who work or own businesses in the city.
As you know, there is no "right to work" tax on commuters, but they do pay taxes if they eat or buy gas or park there. I don't know about you Marylanders, but many Northern Virginians avoid ever going into the District and so rarely if ever give them any more money than if we lived anywhere else.
According to this list from Wikipedia, DC metro region comes in 7th in the nation at 4.8 mil people ...
This reference includes West Virginia and Baltimore as part of the 4.8M (rather an odd grouping, don't you think?) And of course if you include Baltimore, the DC region already HAS a baseball team and stadium.
I am all for private ownership of airports, although most airports are owned by municipalities, so they are technically "public."
Another poster has already shown that this is just not correct (unless, of course, you want to include the suburbs -- Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax County, Montgomery and Prince Georges Counties, and, I think, Charles County. If you do that, the the Washington, DC area is in the top 5 metro areas. But that means that DC itself is just one small portion of that Metro Area. More people live in Fairfax County than in the District of Columbia.)
"and has a lot of industries that aren't directly related to the Federal government."
Like what? Tourism? Wouldn't exist unless Washington were the Capital City. All those Law Offices over on K Street? Wouldn't be here if not for the need to petition the Government.
"The university concentration guarantees a lot of high-tech industries, for example."
OK, but just where are all of those high-tech industries? They are not in DC. They are in the 270 Corridor (Montgomery County, MD) or out in Fairfax County, VA.
Returning the non-federal portions of the city to MD is not tenable: DC types don't want to give up any power. Power, indeed, is the heart of the issue, not "taxation...", for, really, they don't give a damn about House representation. They want Statehood and all the additional honors and powers and Senate seats therein. For DC, "Taxation without representation" is disengenuous. Makes for a great slogan, though.
I was interviewed on the street by some Discovery Channel travel show. I told them to ask me about DC statehood because I'd give them something to air. I replied to the question with something to the effect that with Statehood DC residents wouldn't have anything to complain about and blame their problems on. Apparently, they aired it. I'm against any Federal representation for DC because I still believe in federalism. I oppose local rule. The City should be a working model for the Congress to play with. With local rule Congress gets away without full responsibility for the city, while at the same time the locals can blame Congress for all their problems.
The absence of a commuter tax doesn't releive MD/VA residents of the tax burdens of DC. The business tax structure in the DC is built around milking non-resident owners, and everything else is designed to get people every which way when they're in town. That's normal, though. Me, I don't avoid DC for it. I enjoy the city. Just wish it were managed differently.
Btw, the Wikipedia metropolitan areas calculations do not include Baltimore, which is listed as no. 19 @ 2.5mill people. As for WV, these days eastern WV is a practical part of metro DC... Loudon County is, anyway.
While it's definitely legitimate to debate whether or not things like baseball stadiums should be publicly or privately funded, this sort of thing isn't unheard of. Oriole Park at Camden Yards was funded by a state lottery, and U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago was funded by a hotel tax, meaning that the stadium was paid for by tourists!
Most airports were privately owned prior to the 1950s. Guvments couldn't stand for it, and acquired them. Airlines soon enough caught on to the sweet deal of socialized airports, and there was no objection to it from the carriers.
Oh, so since they are businesses you don't approve of, it's okay to seize them?
Of course the airlines don't care...Big Business loves Big Government.
United States Census Dept - 30 largest Metro Areas (2003):
01) New York NY 18,640,775
02) Los Angeles CA 12,829,272
03) Chicago IL 9,333,511
04) PhiladelphiaPA 5,772,947
05) Dallas TX 5,589,670
06) Miami FL 5,288,796
07) Washington DC 5,090,435
08) Houston TX 5,075,733
09) Atlanta GA 4,610,032
10) Detroit MI 4,483,853
11) Boston MA 4,439,971
12) San Francisco CA 4,157,377
13) Riverside CA 3,642,328
14) Phoenix AZ 3,593,408
15) Seattle WA 3,141,777
16) Minneapolis MN 3,083,637
17) San Diego CA 2,930,886
18) St. Louis MO 2,739,000
19) Baltimore MD 2,616,229
20) Tampa FL 2,531,908
21) Pittsburgh PA 2,410,330
22) Denver CO 2,301,116
23) Cleveland OH 2,139,512
24) Cincinnati OH 2,047,333
25) Portland OR 2,040,258
26) Sacramento CA 1,974,810
27) Kansas City MO 1,904,908
28) San Antonio TX 1,820,719
29) Orlando FL 1,802,986
30) San Jose CA 1,734,721
If the City of Washington D.C. is going to retain ownership, then a public use argument can be made. If they plan to turn over ownership to private investors then I will respectfully disagree with SCOTUS - it shouldn't happen that way.
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