Headline on Atlanta’s 11alive website (click here if you want to risk annoying autoplayed video) today:
New Falcons stadium negotiations hit a wall
Actual content of story:
Negotiations to buy the land for the new Falcons stadium are at a standstill. Friendship Baptist Church says it wants a face to face meeting with the Mayor and more money. The city doesn’t seem interested in giving them either.
Right now the church wants $24.5 million, and the city is offering $15.5 million; 11alive doesn’t bother to mention it, but another church on the proposed stadium site is also holding out for money money. And 11alive also doesn’t mention that Atlanta has a nearby backup site ready to go in case they can’t come to a purchase agreement for the church properties. So a more accurate headline would be “Falcons fans may have to walk an extra ten minutes from their cars if churches won’t sell land.” Hey, let’s use that now!
Well, they’re talking, so it’s probably only a matter of time. They’ve already offered them an absurd amount, and the Baptists asked for more. They got over the moral argument they started out with. Whatever. Come one, come all to our new location, all the Friendship, more spiff.
The story is clearly referring to negotiations with the two churches, which have stalled, as the story’s content says. The headline is accurate. Not everything is a media conspiracy for pageviews.
I got a link from the backup site link saying they could re-route a road & keep the Friendship Baptist Church & the new stadium on the site south. That would only take care of half the problem.
http://saportareport.com/blog/2013/06/city-of-atlanta-proposes-moving-martin-luther-king-jr-drive-to-avoid-buying-friendship-church/
Rerouting MLK would likely cost more than the price the churches are asking. Mitchell Street is a two lane surface street. MLK is a six lane elevated road. While replacing part of MLK was always part of the plan, it was for a stretch less than half as long as the route around the church would be. Combining the streets together also would be a capacity reduction, something unlikely to happen on the road to a brand new stadium. So they’d need to not only elevate Mitchell Street but also increase it from two lanes to eight lanes. The plans look like they were quickly drawn up to try to scare the church into selling. I hope they call the mayor’s bluff.
I’ve also noticed lots of false information being spread online about the age of the church. Posters keep claiming that it dates back only to the 1960 when it actually dates back to the 1880s. I’ve seen it too much for this to be accidental. With over half a billion in public funding on the line, no doubt some money has been allocated to a propaganda campaign against the churches. It’s amazing to see people call the churches greedy for not wanting to sell for what amounts to about 1% of the cost of the stadium.
That is an excellent comment, Jason, in my opinion. I hope they can get them up to $100mil. More power to them; it is a once in a lifetime type of deal. I used to be a Baptist. Methodist now. I just got tired of leaving the place feeling scared to death every week. I’ve got to admit, I’ve taken quite a few Sunday’s off, including today. You’re probably right about some of the opposition, but I paid for my initial comment. $45/month. It was a joke. All the best. Great comment.
Why should any church accommodate a sport that plays on the Sabbath and encourages people to commit gluttony and alcoholism on the Sabbath? Oh yeah, MONEY. This is why I’m not going to a “traditional” church. The hypocrisy is jaw-dropping.
They’re only trying to co-exist with the other religion in town. It’s real touching, when you get down to it. haha