August 25, 2004
VA senate leader opposes stadium bonds
As MLB officials make yet another rounds of the prospective Montreal Expos homes, another Virginia legislator has come out against the state's proposed stadium finance plan. Earlier this month, you'll recall, Virginia House Speaker William Howell came out against using the state's bonding authority to sell stadium bonds; now state senate president pro tempore John Chichester has told the Associated Press that such "moral obligation" bonds "were not developed to help private enterprise. Private enterprise has to stand on its own."
While the plan to build a $442 million stadium could still go forward without state bonds, the resulting bonds would get a much lower bond rating, and so raise costs substantially. Norfolk's stadium plan, incidentally, would be unaffected: It already uses local bonds backed by tax increment financing, not state bonds.
