January 29, 2005

Bloomberg: Stop me before I spend again

The heat of the Jets stadium battle appears to be getting to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On his weekly radio show yesterday, Bloomberg warned that if the Jets stadium fails to materialize, it could hurt his efforts to spend hundreds of millions of city dollars on stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, too. "We would like to have a new Yankee Stadium, for example," said the mayor said. "The Steinbrenner organization has come up with some money, but the city would have to put some of its money in. If you didn't do the stadium with the clear economic benefits [on the West Side], how are you doing these other projects? It's going to be a big problem."

So let me get this straight: If the city decides it's not worth handing over $600 million to the Jets, that would make it harder to spend $600 million on a pair of baseball stadiums that the mayor himself thinks are a worse idea? Where exactly is the downside here?

The New York Post article on these proceedings takes a bizarre turn of its own, citing an "insider" to Yankees stadium talks as saying: "They're asking the city for something like $300 million in improvements. But the new stadium doesn't depend on getting every one of them." Leaving aside for the moment that the Yankees plan can't happen without the city and state coughing up free land to replace the 17 acres of public parkland that would be destroyed, the "insider's" statement raises another question: Why is Bloomberg asking to spend $300 million in taxpayer money if even George Steinbrenner admits he doesn't need it?

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