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Starting out with by far the worst record in the club's existance could not have come at a worse time. It just adds fuel to the fire for all those in opposition. Come on Jackets. Get your asses in gear.
Columbus Underground Messageboard » General Columbus Discussion » Sports
The Sale/Purchase of Nationwide Arena
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jbcmh81
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cheap said:
he did some good things.sidewalks on Morse Rd was a great thing,people were getting killed out there.
i feel he negates all the good by bailing out a rich man's novelty.
I don't understand people who vote on singular issues like this. If anyone can seriously make the argument that Columbus is worse off now than when Coleman first took office, I'm all ears to hear it. Otherwise, for everything Coleman has done wrong, he's done 10 things right, imo. The city population continues to grow, it has the lowest unemployment in the state, crime is lower than at any time in the last 2-3 decades, development, both Downtown and around the city, has been steadily increasing, etc. By all objective standards that I can see, even despite a terrible recession, we are better off now than we were before Coleman.
Posted 7 months ago # -
melikecheese
Merion Village
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Coremodels said:
Absolutely, because at the end of the day this city has improved leaps and bounds under his leadership IMO...it doesn't make him perfect though.Ditto. In the 11 years I have been in Columbus I don't understand how anyone could not see the improvements. It's not all peaches and cream and double rainbows but things seem real good compared to when I first got here.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Jeffersin
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This entire deal seems to belong in a plot line for Boardwalk Empire. I suspect the back door meetings and money handshakes to get this deal passed would have made Nucky Thompason blushed.
Franklin County voters had already voted down using tax money for a stadium 5 times. For politicians to snub out the voice of the people and come up with a scheme that provided a loophole to forgo taking the issue to the ballot is an insult to all voters. It's a grievous political sin that without political consequence sets a dangerous precedent.
Posted 7 months ago # -
jbcmh81
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Jeffersin said:
This entire deal seems to belong in a plot line for Boardwalk Empire. I suspect the back door meetings and money handshakes to get this deal passed would have made Nucky Thompason blushed.Franklin County voters had already voted down using tax money for a stadium 5 times. For politicians to snub out the voice of the people and come up with a scheme that provided a loophole to forgo taking the issue to the ballot is an insult to all voters. It's a grievous political sin that without political consequence sets a dangerous precedent.
Saving a city asset is a "grievous political sin"? We should be using the casino money to widen roads to New Albany, I guess.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Jeffersin
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jbcmh81 <a
Saving a city asset is a "grievous political sin"? We should be using the casino money to widen roads to New Albany, I guess.
The grievous political sin was to ignore the community and go against it's wishes and use public funds to bailout a private entity. The city in return receives a costly liability, maintenance and upkeep isn't free. Which by the way, where is that money coming from, are the events outside Blue Jacket games sufficient to cover those costs?
Posted 7 months ago # -
Jefe
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jbcmh81 said:
Saving a city asset is a "grievous political sin"? We should be using the casino money to widen roads to New Albany, I guess.what asset? debt a liability, not an asset. especially when there's no return on the investment.
and why is the choice between the Blue Jackets and widening a road in New Albany? that's a silly binary to put up as a defense of the bailout. how about this: why steal from needy people who could use some of the city services that this money could provide instead of bailing out rich sports owners and Nationwide?
Posted 7 months ago # -
cheap
Westgate
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Jefe said:
what asset? debt a liability, not an asset. especially when there's no return on the investment.and why is the choice between the Blue Jackets and widening a road in New Albany? that's a silly binary to put up as a defense of the bailout. how about this: why steal from needy people who could use some of the city services that this money could provide instead of bailing out rich sports owners and Nationwide?
+1
Posted 7 months ago # -
jbcmh81
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Jefe said:
what asset? debt a liability, not an asset. especially when there's no return on the investment.and why is the choice between the Blue Jackets and widening a road in New Albany? that's a silly binary to put up as a defense of the bailout. how about this: why steal from needy people who could use some of the city services that this money could provide instead of bailing out rich sports owners and Nationwide?
What theft occurred, exactly? The casino money doesn't even exist yet, and whatever isn't used for the arena (the majority won't be) is EXTRA money that didn't exist before the casino deal. I guess I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy on this because I think it's going to a great cause, not to mention that there will be other money for other things that the city also didn't have before. There will still be millions of dollars available. Seems like a win-win to me, but I'm one of those people who wants this city to have a bright, vibrant future and believes that keeping our few professional sports is important towards that goal.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Jeffersin
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I found the answer to my own question thanks to The Other Paper (article before they were bought by The Dispatch).
The city will owe the following (per year). Numbers based on the projected tax revenue of the casino.
$5.3 million in arena operating expense,
$90,000 toward the state loan payment and
$2.3 million toward the Nationwide loan.The interest rate on The Nationwide loan of $42.5 million is 4.875% which = $2.07 million. Which means Columbus is paying $230,00 a year on the principal of the loan.
Now of course the deal states each year the amount taken from the casino tax revenue will increase by 1%. So a little bit more principal might be paid off, but as operation costs increase as well the amount won't be significant. The city is getting fleeced.
numbers grabbed from...
http://m.theotherpaper.com/mobile/article_bcd4a9be-dfb7-11e0-9c44-001cc4c002e0.htmlPosted 7 months ago # -
bman
New Albany
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Jefe
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jbcmh81 said:
What theft occurred, exactly? The casino money doesn't even exist yet, and whatever isn't used for the arena (the majority won't be) is EXTRA money that didn't exist before the casino deal. I guess I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy on this because I think it's going to a great cause, not to mention that there will be other money for other things that the city also didn't have before. There will still be millions of dollars available. Seems like a win-win to me, but I'm one of those people who wants this city to have a bright, vibrant future and believes that keeping our few professional sports is important towards that goal.First Law of Policy Economics: Every inefficiency is someone's income.
Public budgets aren't the same as company budgets or even private budgets. If a company has a new source of revenue, it's just that: new. It doesn't work that way for cities. The city collects revenue in taxes, and it only has so much use. Money that is gained from the casino isn't really "new." It supplants revenue that would/could have been gained through other taxes. The "theft" occurs in negating the second-best option for the casino revenue. Put short, the second best option is either to cut other taxes or provide extra services. By using the money for hockey, you're taking away another option, which could be to use the money on services for needy people. Taking money away from poor people and using it for rich people... sounds like theft to me. There's some hyperbole there, but it's not entirely untrue.
Also, hockey is just simply not a public good. Only so many people can go to games--and that doesn't exactly include the lower end of the spectrum at $50 a ticket. It doesn't provide any economic benefit to the city (something I've demonstrated multiple times in previous comments).
I'm also one of those people who wants a bright, vibrant future--which is exactly why I think this bailout is nonsense. We're going to tie up $42.5 million that could be used for any number of other (better!) projects that do more economically and more to build a vibrant city. Plus, we're not even guaranteeing the Blue Jackets stay! They'd pay a $36 million penalty to leave. I wouldn't be surprised if they could get an extra $8 million a year for five years someplace else--which would make it worth it. Especially at the rate they're going on attendance.
Then we'd have no team and would still have the debt.
I think we can come up with a better option for $42.5 million. I think plenty of people who want a "bright, vibrant future" can come up with those projects. projects with positive ROI instead of negative return. I think a lot of them are right here in this online community.
Posted 7 months ago # -
pilsner
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I don't think it's a coincidence that the Wolfe family (Columbus Dispatch owners) bought out the old Max Brown newspapers (The Other Paper, Suburban News) right in the midst of cramming the bailout down taxpayers' throats.
It was a way of silencing media criticism of the the bailout. It's not just the effective monopoly the Wolfes have on local media in Columbus. They also own all the printing presses in town so no entrepeneurs can start up a new local newspaper.
Long live crony capitalism.
Posted 7 months ago # -
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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pilsner said:
I don't think it's a coincidence that the Wolfe family (Columbus Dispatch owners) bought out the old Max Brown newspapers (The Other Paper, Suburban News) right in the midst of cramming the bailout down taxpayers' throats.These types of deals don't happen in the span of a week.
I'm willing to bet the sale process started two and a half years ago when American Community Newspapers filed for bankruptcy and announced that they were planning on selling some of their assets:
Posted 7 months ago # -
jbcmh81
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Jefe said:
First Law of Policy Economics: Every inefficiency is someone's income.Public budgets aren't the same as company budgets or even private budgets. If a company has a new source of revenue, it's just that: new. It doesn't work that way for cities. The city collects revenue in taxes, and it only has so much use. Money that is gained from the casino isn't really "new." It supplants revenue that would/could have been gained through other taxes. The "theft" occurs in negating the second-best option for the casino revenue. Put short, the second best option is either to cut other taxes or provide extra services. By using the money for hockey, you're taking away another option, which could be to use the money on services for needy people. Taking money away from poor people and using it for rich people... sounds like theft to me. There's some hyperbole there, but it's not entirely untrue.
Also, hockey is just simply not a public good. Only so many people can go to games--and that doesn't exactly include the lower end of the spectrum at $50 a ticket. It doesn't provide any economic benefit to the city (something I've demonstrated multiple times in previous comments).
I'm also one of those people who wants a bright, vibrant future--which is exactly why I think this bailout is nonsense. We're going to tie up $42.5 million that could be used for any number of other (better!) projects that do more economically and more to build a vibrant city. Plus, we're not even guaranteeing the Blue Jackets stay! They'd pay a $36 million penalty to leave. I wouldn't be surprised if they could get an extra $8 million a year for five years someplace else--which would make it worth it. Especially at the rate they're going on attendance.
Then we'd have no team and would still have the debt.
I think we can come up with a better option for $42.5 million. I think plenty of people who want a "bright, vibrant future" can come up with those projects. projects with positive ROI instead of negative return. I think a lot of them are right here in this online community.
$42.5 million over the course of the payoff is just not that much in context. The city spent more than that on a single bridge in a much shorter time. How much is the city spending on the new convention hotel? They spent half that much on Columbus Commons (with more to come). I'm sure many people all found those things to be complete wastes of money (and countless other projects the city spent millions on). I guess we'll just have to disagree.
Posted 7 months ago #
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