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An Arizona city's sports mania encounters a hard check (George Will hits McCain)
Washington Post ^
| April 9, 2011
| George Will
Posted on 04/09/2011 11:05:08 AM PDT by inkling
PHOENIX - Suburban Glendale is less a community with professional sports facilities than a sports enterprise with a community held hostage to previous improvident decisions. Now Glendales government may multiply its follies unless Arizonas constitution saves the city from itself.
Taxes provided $346 million of the $455 million cost of the huge (up to 72,200 seats) retractable-roof NFL stadium where the Arizona Cardinals will play 10 times this season, if there is a season. (The NFL is having labor problems.) But Glendale (population 253,000) has a more immediate problem with its hockey team, the NHLs Phoenix Coyotes.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Arizona
KEYWORDS: arizona; hockey; mccain; taxes
The City of Glendale, Ariz., already has $1 Billion in sports-related debt. And their mayor thinks the solution is to borrow $100 million more to bailout a bankrupt hockey franchise. Madness.
1
posted on
04/09/2011 11:05:12 AM PDT
by
inkling
To: inkling
I live about 100 yards outside Glendale, I’d often wondered how they had so many nice facilities despite their small size. I guess borrowing at 3 times the rate of comparable cities is the answer.
To: inkling
Why can’t the Arizona Cardinals pay for their own playground.
3
posted on
04/09/2011 11:16:13 AM PDT
by
pnh102
(Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
To: inkling
Not madness, but in all likelyhood corruption.
4
posted on
04/09/2011 11:23:35 AM PDT
by
AEMILIUS PAULUS
(It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
To: inkling
Hockey in Phoenix = Madness
To: who_would_fardels_bear
Go back to Winnipeg where they belong.
6
posted on
04/09/2011 11:32:58 AM PDT
by
HenpeckedCon
(What pi$$es me off the most is that POS commie will get a State Funeral!)
To: pnh102
Because they’re losers?
Bidwell doesn’t staff the place to win playoff spots, he staffs it to win just enough to make a profit. If he fielded a consistently winning team, he’d have enough coming in to pay for that stadium, but why should he since he fooled Glendale into footing the bill?
7
posted on
04/09/2011 11:33:00 AM PDT
by
Cyber Liberty
(Oh, well, any excuse to buy a new gun is good enough for me.)
To: HenpeckedCon
There is a pretty strong chance that is exactly where they will end up, and I hope it works out that way. Winnipeg wants them back.
8
posted on
04/09/2011 11:34:23 AM PDT
by
Cyber Liberty
(Oh, well, any excuse to buy a new gun is good enough for me.)
To: inkling
"A virtuoso of indignation, McCain is scandalized that the institute, a non-elected organization, is going to cause the loss of a thousand jobs. McCains jobs number is preposterous, as is his intimation he has been in elective office for 28 years that non-elected people should not intervene in civic life."
Just a bit of self interest here??? Sports stadiums sell LOTS OF BEER!
9
posted on
04/09/2011 11:50:56 AM PDT
by
LADY J
(Change your thoughts and you change your world.. - Norman Vincent Peale)
To: Cyber Liberty
Bidwell doesnt staff the place to win playoff spots, he staffs it to win just enough to make a profit. If he fielded a consistently winning team, hed have enough coming in to pay for that stadium, but why should he since he fooled Glendale into footing the bill?Welfare issues aside, I have never understood why a losing never has that held against them when they insist on taxpayers to pay for their playground. Since stadiums are economic losers anyway (if they weren't, private investors would be paying to build them), why can't a city, state or other government simply say "You guys suck, and are thus not worthy of a new stadium."
10
posted on
04/09/2011 12:06:34 PM PDT
by
pnh102
(Regarding liberalism, always attribute to malice what you think can be explained by stupidity. - Me)
To: inkling
Would you please quit placing articles you post, into the activism sidebar?
To: inkling
Glendale can't squeeze more blood from rocks. Glendale residents are tapped out. Home values have been crushed here as hard as anywhere else. The empty to occupied home ratio is atrocious and there's hardly any other industry outside of that retail and restaurants. The sports industry can't sustain itself after all of these years of bailing them out.
I don't see a promising future for this city. I see a potential disaster as they are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
12
posted on
04/09/2011 1:35:54 PM PDT
by
Caipirabob
( Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
To: Admin Moderator
Okay. I knew the local tea party was active in this situation, so I thought it was activism. Sorry about that.
13
posted on
04/09/2011 1:40:27 PM PDT
by
inkling
To: Cyber Liberty
Either Winnipeg or Moose Jaw, either works.
14
posted on
04/09/2011 2:06:34 PM PDT
by
HenpeckedCon
(What pi$$es me off the most is that POS commie will get a State Funeral!)
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