The court ruling is in for Cobb County’s use of public bonds for the Atlanta Braves‘ new stadium, and did the judge buy the team’s argument that stadiums are a public purpose because they just are? Did he ever!
In other words, sports are a public good, and anything that says it will create economic benefits is a public good, so the government has every right to fund it, so there. That’s pretty sweeping, albeit not unexpected. Anyway, if you were hoping that the Braves funding plan would somehow get tossed out by a court, throwing all of sports finance into disarray, the Georgia supreme court isn’t going to give that to you.
This is the kind of slippery slope we got onto when eminent domain was ruled allowable for economic development, because, “economic development” then became a “public good.” Developers of all stripes have been licking their chops ever since to use TIF’s to expand their own private holdings, often at the expense of individual small businesses and homeowners stuck in the crossfire.
As a corollary, some elected officials, like Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, are asserting that it’s not in “the mission of the county” to continue stewarding its public parks. Specifically, he believes it would be better for the county to sell its largest and most prominent downtown plaza (O’Donnell Park) for redevelopment. He’s been trying to get a deal done for more than a year. The billionaire’s son is quite miffed that instead of a developer demolishing the park and building a high-rise (“for economic development”) our renowned Milwaukee Art Museum wants to continue keep the park public and retain public access through it to the museum, as designed 15 years ago. (Silly them…)
It’s a topsy turvy world! Oh, and Wisconsin’s current budget wipes out all funding for state parks as legislators scurry to fund an arena for $250 million in direct cash (plus 30 acres of free land, free parking garages, etc.) To be a “public good” now, some corporation needs to be able to cash in on the deal.
this kind of tautology is pretty common in eminent domain situations. Eminent domain is based on “blight”, but there’s no legal definition of blight. Therefore, the deciding body can pass a resolution or make a determination that a particular area is “blighted” based on it’s own needs or definitions; this is how a lot of areas that aren’t actually “blighted” become subject to eminent domain. It’s pretty terrible.
A few years back the botanical gardens in Atlanta wanted to build a massive new parking deck in the middle of the adjacent city park. In order to make it happen, a tree covered hill was designated “blighted” so the parking deck could be built in its place. The article in the local business paper hailed this as a win since “blight” is bad but parking decks are good for business. It was simply a hill with trees in a park. But somehow that qualified as blight.
In Georgia we use the term TAD (Tax Allocation District) instead of TIF but it’s basically the same thing. They’re in danger of being killed off because of a dispute between the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Public Schools. The city made a poor bet on the economy before the recession hit and now owes APS $14 million in back payments for the school system’s TAD participation. The city insists that they should be able to renegotiate because the deal turned out bad for them and has offered $4 million instead. The school system countered with an offer to take the obsolete civic center off the city’s hands to turn into a high school for science and mathematics but apparently the mayor already promised Steve Harvey a deal on the civic center which only recently has been made public.
The mayor has threatened to drag the whole process out in court in order to cost the school system so much in legal fees that they’d be better off capitulating. Almost everyone agrees that the city owes the money to the school system and that the city would ultimate lose in court but the city still insists it would be better for the school system to simply forgive $10 million in debt because they’d use to money on a parks and trail project popular with the millennial crowd and real estate developers which would lead to higher tax income for the city and schools. But it is that income that the city is currently refusing to hand over. It’s a big mess and somehow the city has hold of the deeds to several surplus school buildings that the school system wants to sell off but can’t because even though they own the buildings, the deeds are locked away in city hall. One thing is for sure… the school system isn’t going to be easy to get into a TAD agreement ever again. If the new owner of the Hawks thinks he’s going to get TAD money for a new arena or upgrades, he’s not going to find an eager partner in the school system.
I used to live in the ATL for nearly 4 years and it is one of the strangest metropolis I’ve ever seen. The city’s population itself is extremely small, but the surrounding areas would drown without it. Hardly any of the counties want to work together to find a collective solution to transportation issues (remember ARC), MARTA is considered a cluster as it still attempts to expand outward (which the suburbanites want no part of – hence what it is known as for residents), it effectively has 3 downtowns (downtown, mid-town, and uptown), water infrastructure is antiquated and once privatized (water was so bad one year my girlfriend and I had to literally boil it on the stove to get the impurities out), and is as corrupt as the crooked letter S (at least it was when I resided there – the Campbell and Franklin administrations). It’s no surprise the latest mayor would shake down any and all who doesn’t go along with his cronyism. I wonder what is the plan for Turner Field after the Braves leave. Let’s not forget his promise of backing up the Brinks to the tune of $150 million for the new owners of the Hawks. Did I mention the population of the city of Atlanta is less than my hometown of Las Vegas? Where is the money going to come from to pay for the Hawks’ upgrades, the gift given to the Falcons, etc?
By the way, I loved my time in Atlanta. Loved the people but hated the politricks.
Jay & Jason,
Thanks for sharing tales of Atlanta politricks. It seems things can always “go south” when it comes to these TIDs, TADS, etc.
Wisconsin was once seen as a model for “clean” government and Milwaukee was way less tainted politically than Chicago. But that’s all been changing recently (and maybe there are skeletons in our past not commonly known). Corporations in MKE are now getting massive subsidies and the next guy always wants a bigger one.
Our totally compromised State Supreme Court is now known as “the best court money can buy.” Untold millions have been spent on recent SC elections. I’ve lost count. It’s mostly funded by the far right (Koch Brothers, Americans for Prosperity, etc.) but the “arms race” demands that anyone running must play the game. Gov. Scott Walker’s campaigns are being investigated in lower courts for illegal activities, but I have no faith in the higher court if it ever reaches that level. There are other ways to select judges. If they become complete tools of Big Business the game is beyond rigged.
But sports teams have become some of the biggest sharks on the Monopoly board. MIT urban planning professor calls these massive “public works” developments “metastasizing megaprojects.” A major source of “blight” in downtown Milwaukee is that we have two contiguous arenas, a convention center and a huge auditorium complex all clumped together, across from a massive municipal complex. There’s also tech college, which at least seems a little bit alive. Now a much-bigger arena is planned and they want to build a massive entertainment mall to out-compete all the small “authentic” places that have taken hold in last 30 years. Just crazy…
This reminds me of the conclusion I reached recently about Cleveland’s downtown: it’s basically a Potemkin Village.
People and money continue to drain out of Cuyahoga County to adjacent counties, and further afield. But through relentless, ruthless upward redistribution, the local elites have managed to create a few pockets full of showpiece projects: arenas, convention center, trendy restaurant neighborhoods, redeveloped central square on the way, etc.
There’s no evidence of any kind of sustainable economic growth resulting elsewhere in the city. But, for coastal reporters who parachute in for a few days for NBA playoff games or RNC 2016, it seems convincing enough to generate fluffy “hey, Cleveland isn’t as bad as I expected, they’re turning things around” stories.
The Potemkin Village does its job.