The city of Arlington has scheduled a press conference for 1:30 pm today to announce plans for a new $900 million stadium for the Texas Rangers, with the cost to be split evenly between the team owners and city taxpayers. The public money would come from extending an existing sales-tax surcharge that’s currently being used to pay off the Dallas Cowboys‘ stadium, and the stadium would reportedly open before the Rangers’ lease on their old stadium expires in 2024.
There had been some talk last fall about the Rangers wanting a new stadium, but still, this is pretty stunning for a couple of reasons. First off, the existing Arlington stadium is only 22 years old, and features almost all the bells and whistles that team owners typically want — yes, it’s “the 11th oldest facility in Major League Baseball” (tied with Cleveland), as WFAA notes, but that’s more a function of the flood of new stadiums that opened in the ’90s and ’00s than a sign of impending decrepitude. The truly amazing thing, though, is that the stated reason for the Rangers wanting a new stadium is that the old one isn’t air-conditioned:
The lack of a roof and accompanying air conditioning is considered one factor that can keep fans away from Globe Life Park, especially during the dog days of summer, when the temperature can stay in the mid-90s even during night games.
Okay, so it’s hot in Texas, yes. For the record, though, the Rangers currently rank 11th in the majors in attendance, ahead of every other team with a retractable roof other than Toronto. And last year they finished 16th, not terrible for a team coming off a season in which they lost 95 games (attendance invariably correlates better with record the previous year than the current year), and still better than three of the other five teams with retractable roofs. For $900 million, the Rangers could buy personal air conditioning hats for every man, woman, and child in the metro Dallas area, but instead they’re going to build a new stadium, because that’s what you do when you can.
Of course, the Rangers owners — a couple of rich guys you’ve probably never heard of named Ray Davis and Bob Simpson, plus a passel of minority partners — will undoubtedly get some other benefits from a new stadium, if they can pack it with steakhouses and get a honeymoon boost from curiosity seekers and lord knows what else. (We also don’t know yet, and probably won’t for a while, who’ll pay operating costs on the new place, property taxes, etc.) As for Arlington, meanwhile, what on earth is the city getting for its $450 million?
“We need to show love for the Rangers right now, y’all, ” Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams told the Rotary Club of Fort Worth last week, speaking generally about the city’s desire to keep its team. “The Rangers don’t want to leave, but there are other cities, and we know one that starts with a D that wants to take it. … Right now is a key time for us.”
So there you have it: Arlington taxpayers, assuming this is approved, would be shelling out $450 million to not to have to drive 20 miles to Dallas to see Rangers games. Plus to get air conditioning. I told you that fragmented metropolitan areas where team owners can play different localities off against each other (see: Atlanta) are the worst, but I didn’t even imagine.
In any event, coming on top of the Braves leaving their old stadium after just 20 years, the Rangers’ plan is almost certainly going to lead to a renewed flood of stadium demands by teams struggling by with stadiums that opened during the first Clinton Administration. The Arizona Diamondbacks have already started rattling their new-stadium saber, and the Cleveland Indians are last in the league in attendance with a stadium that opened the same year as Arlington’s, and hey, wouldn’t this be a great time for the Colorado Rockies to finally build that argon-filled pressurized dome they’ve always wanted? The sky’s the limit, and the same is true, apparently, for the numbers on local governments’ checkbooks. Keep this site bookmarked, because we’re going to be here a while.
For years, the knock on the Rangers was that they wouldn’t win because it was too hot in Texas in the summer and the players would get tired (apparently compared to the Astros, who have played in AC for some time).
Then the Rangers had good teams, and somehow Nolan Ryan came to the conclusion that having good players and management were more important than A/C.
In fairness to Arlington, at least the rhetoric seems to focus solely on maintaining the luxury item of having a local baseball team, rather than encouraging economic development, better study habits, or happier marriages or whatever. The fiscal/budgetary reporting is pretty much what one would expect from sports reporters.
Same city that for many years rejected mass transit as a taxpayer waste for people who should just buy cars. Go figure.
Cars are air-conditioned, duh.
There’s always going to be an oldest stadium/arena in every league.
I’m waiting for someone with MLB to complain that half of their stadiums are older than the league median.
As a taxpayer (not in TX) I feel potential empathy for the folks of Arlington. I can hope only that Rangers owners will be as inept in negotiating with the spineless elected officials for the new stadium as they are in negotiating and/or assuming player contracts.
PLAYER 2016 SALARY YEARS OF CONTRACT
Prince Fielder $24,000,000 9 (2012-20)
*Josh Hamilton $24,000,000 5 (2013-17)
Cole Hamels $22,500,000 6 (2013-18)
Shin-Soo Choo $20,000,000 7 (2014-20)
Adrian Beltre $18,000,000 1 (2016)
Elvis Andrus $15,333,333 8 (2015-22)
* LAA is paying an undisclosed amount of Josh Hamilton’s contract
No need to empathize…majority of the time the public is squarely behind these boondoggles. More often than not, the public gets emotional, i.e. “We can’t let our beloved team leave!!! Let’s give them whatever they want!!! Our rotting infrastructure (or more pressing public need) be damned!”
Not true at all. While some of the public “gets emotional,” sure, it’s extraordinarily rare that a majority endorses public stadium subsidies, at least without a big-money referendum campaign to get them on board.
Recent poll on local evening news showed a 71% support for a new ballpark, less than 30% against; without ANY persuasive campaign.
But you do realize that polls themselves can be forged. Most scientific polls only have about 300-500 people taking part in the poll. In addition, that same poll likely had a qualifier asking if the person in question was a Texas Rangers fan. If they responded “no” they were done. If they were a fan, it likely led into loaded information about the ballpark situation and how the Rangers needed a new ballpark. If the answer was still “NO” the questioner responded by arguing about the hot sun and so on to the point that the person on the phone was forced to answer “Yes” just to get off the phone.
In another possibility, it is very likely that your evening news had a poll up on the website and non fans of the Rangers and the metroplex actually voted for the new ballpark because it would sink Arlington. The latter polls aren’t based in science at all meaning that I could vote yes despite the fact I live in North Dakota and far away from the Rangers and Cowboys.
I almost said, Arlington may be an exception. The previous stadium referendums passed pretty easily, no?
Are you really surprised? People in Texas are nuts when it comes to spending tax payer money on sports facilities. They recently approved a $60 million high school football stadium.
What’s the complaint here? People in Arlington approved the Tourist Tax in the first place and WILL GET TO VOTE on whether to extend it for the RangerDome. It’s no secret that the Rangers owners had their eyes on moving to downtown Dallas in 2024, so Arlington had to offer a ton of money if the team was going to stay. And attendance stats don’t matter, re: hot Texas summers. Good team owners care about fan experience above money, no matter how strongly cynical people may believe otherwise.
By “cynical people” you surely don’t mean any of the previous commenters, right, Ben? Because that would be a personal attack and against the commenting rules.
As for whether asking for a $450 million subsidy is fine and dandy so long as you let residents vote on it and blackmail them by threatening to move to another town, everyone is entitled their own opinion about that. “Good team owners care about fan experience above money” is counter to every shred of evidence, not to mention rational self-interest, but maybe I just haven’t met the right team owner.
Hi Ben,
Please list the ‘good team owners’ that care about the ‘fan experience’ above money. Thanks.
“Good team owners” may FRAME their reasoning as caring about “fan experience,” but to say that they view a fan’s experience above making money is naive at best. Here in Chicago, in year 3 (I think) of Wrigley Field renovations, most Cubs fan harbor no illusions that the majority of renovations to Wrigley Field while framed as “fan experience improvements” are also done hand in hand with an increase in pricing for those fan “amenities” as well as extensive advertising throughout, to bring additional revenue. Had fan experience been Rickett’s #1 priority, Cubs fans would have seen additional bathrooms throughout the ballpark, and removal of the men’s room trough as project #1 before all other projects.
The Rangers have played outdoors for 45 years. If there’s a recent problem, maybe some Texas politicians will have to acknowledge “there might be something to global warming” after all.
That we are all becoming wusses and can’t sit in heat for 3 hours.
“It’s no secret that the Rangers owners had their eyes on moving to downtown Dallas in 2024, so Arlington had to offer a ton of money if the team was going to stay.”
You’re right, that’s no secret, it’s simply not true. The Rangers have been negotiating a new stadium with Arlington for three years; the first leg was the “Texas Live” development that was announced last year and there’s no way the Rangers would’ve recently bought out former owner Tom Hicks stake in some of the land around the ballpark if there was even a second they were contemplating leaving. The two sides are partners in this, and any Dallas-as-team-stealing-bogeyman scenarios were and are about as likely as that time the Vikings were totally *thisclose* to moving to LA if Minnesota didn’t kick in an extra $100 million (or whatever it was) at the end of those negotiations.
“Good team owners care about fan experience above money, no matter how strongly cynical people may believe otherwise.”
Caring about “experience” as an element of making money, sure. Above money, never. The idea of a team owner operating as a non-profit benefit to the public is sweet, but has never been true.
(Why is it that I always end up thinking of John McEnroe screaming whenever I read a Ben comment?)
I have met Ben, and can vouch that he has never thrown a tennis racket at me.
They start Cleveland basketball games at 830pm, why can’t they start Texas Rangers games at 830pm? Then the sun would set about 10 minutes later & everyone would be comfy/unbaked.
But Think Of The Children, who can’t possibly stay up that late.
They actually start Cavalier games at 7pm. The reason that the playoff games are starting at 8:30 is because the league wants as many west coast viewers to be able to see the national tv games. If you start them at 4pm pacific, ratings will drop significantly.
It often stays in the 90s well past sunset in Texas. The heat is oppressive. So, no you still wouldn’t be ‘comfy’ starting an hour or so later.
I am in no way endorsing a new stadium, but later start times don’t really do much for the heat. It’s not like ‘Texas == hot” is a recent discovery though. If this was such an essential part of the stadium and fan comfort, why didn’t they make it AC-able when they build the current stadium?
Yeah, I’d be curious if they would have their hands out already for another public subsidy if they had built the last one like Houston’s, which has the retractable roof and AC. I guess we’ll know if/when the Astros owner starts asking for a new ballpark.
I doubt they are asking because they really feel that the ballpark at Arlington lacks anything in the way of amenities. They are asking/demanding because they think they can.
They’ve set the groundwork by “having their eye” on Dallas, which is all you really need to do in the present sports cartel economy. A weekend trip to any other city can net you several hundred million in welfare, despite your total lack of demonstrable need.
Pretty much spot on. The Rangers haven’t even floated Dallas – there’s been the occasional story from the Dallas-based press about how it’d be neat to have a dome downtown, that’s it.
In case you weren’t aware, when it’s 90 degrees outside, sitting in the shade is a LOT more comfortable than sitting in the sun. Night games = shade”. Day games = no shade.
They do at least get the benefit of leeching tax money from Dallas and Ft. Worth residents coming to the games. I find it extremely unlikely they’ll ever make up $450M that way, but they do at least get something beyond a shorter trip to the games.
Agreed. Assuming the team would move to Dallas otherwise (which is a huge assumption, given that the Dallas stadium plans are mostly some 30-year-old renderings), then there’s a price point at which it would make sense to pay the Rangers to keep their fans’ spending money in Arlington rather than Dallas. That price point is not $450m.
You’d be wrong on that account. The city paid off its debt service on the current Rangers stadium about a decade early and will also pay off AT&T stadium’s debt service off 7 years early. There will be no problems paying off the debt through sales tax and the tourist tax.
That just shows that the new taxes that Arlington imposed were high enough to pay off the debt. It doesn’t say anything about whether the stadium generated new tax *revenues* to allow the city to avoid losses.
To put this way more simply: If Arlington had imposed a 100% sales tax, it could have paid off the stadiums in no time at all. This would not have made it a better idea.
Baseball’s big marketing thing is history and tradition and all that. Can they still do that if they change stadiums every 20 years (and change stadium names every 5)?
I spent the best nine years of my life living in and loving Texas in large part because it was deliciously hot. My first Ranger game, in 1989, the temp rose 3 degrees after sunset and I knew I was where I belonged. Now I live in Cold-sylvania and cannot tell you all how much I hate this inane complaint by the Rangers & their courtiers. But I’ll bet it gets built. Sigh.
Baseball tradition is a lie manufactured by the same liars who invented its American roots. Half the league plays with a DH and the other half without. Each park has a different dimension and what constitutes a HR. Rules and strike zone change from year to year. Steroids and the current jucied ball are making HOFamers out of pop up hitters.
I wonder how the vote will go if the ballot initiative reads, “Because of global warming, Arlington will spend $450 million on a new stadium for the Rangers.”
I always think about how a city gets decimated when any major league sports teams leaves the city. Say my hometown, Seattle. Since the Sonics have left, Amazon has gone crazy hiring many people with $100,000 jobs, we’re the fourth best city to find a job in the city, etc.
Yeah, it really sucks.
Well at least in Seattle the Sonics actually left. In this case they were only going to move 20 miles down the road.
I never understand this mentality. At least I can understand why a fan base can freak out about a team leaving town, but having the team stick around but move over the city limits so someone else has to pay for them is kind of the best of both worlds.
Assuming they move far enough away the “local” games won’t be blacked out in your market (though this isn’t as big an issue in MLB as some other sports).
I love watching sports. Yet I live in an area that does not have a single “local” major sports team. With the exception of the NHL (and, really, who cares?), I suffer no broadcast blackouts of any kind. It really is the best of both worlds.
Well, on top of blackouts if you want to go to a game, it’s a short drive. I guess if you’re in some place with a decent public transit system moving out of town might matter but we’re talking Arlington TX. You drive to one parking lot or another so a few miles down the road doesn’t a hill of beans worth of a difference.
Putting aside the absurdity of the public subsidy, who actually likes watching baseball in a big domed stadium with AC? If I wanted to do that, I’d stay in my living room and watch TV. These kind of monstrosities are always much worse than the older open-air ones.
Plus, you know what you do when it’s hot? Drink more beer. The team makes more money selling you $10 beers and you get more drunk so even if the game is bad, you don’t care. Ask any Cubs fan. Old stadium + an Old Style beats any dome.
I guess in 20 years they’ll be coming back and saying they need to replace it in order to replicate the traditional baseball experience.
Isn’t that what they said in Minnesota? But the TwinkieDome looked like a horrible place to watch baseball. I’ve been to games in the BrewerDome with the roof closed. It’s like being in a warehouse. It air feels dead & there’s a yellow glow.
Tho I don’t think I’d want to watch a game outside in Arlington & don’t think teams in Florida, Texas, or Arizona should have open-air stadiums. Do I personally like domes? Not at all, but sometimes they’re necessary, tho it doesn’t give you the most true baseball experience.
No idea why the Ballpark in Arlington didn’t originally have a dome or retractable roof. Maybe the technology was too expensive at the time going off the SkyDome. Or it made had been a design issue. BiA is huge & is about as enclosed as you can get without a roof.
See this is where I’m confused. I thought the draw of Sun Belt cities was warm weather. While Florida, Texas and Arizona are all various circles of hell in my book, presumably the people who moved there for the weather would actually like warm weather. I mean, heck, I hate hot weather but my first thought on a hot day is “I wonder if there is a game.”
“presumably the people who moved there for the weather would actually like warm weather.”
I think it’s more that they got so fed up of cold weather and shoveling snow for months at a time that they were willing to move to Hades year-round just to get away from that life.
Also explains why the Sun Belt sports teams depend so heavily on visiting fans to pack their stadiums (and also why this idea that certain fanbases “travel well” is pure and unadulterated nonsense).
It is actually true in the NFL though you have a sunbelt team in the Dallas Cowboys that travels well. Plus you can also say the same for some teams such as the Steelers and Broncos.
A few years ago I was vacationing in Toronto and even though it was raining in the morning, I KNEW I could go to the ballpark knowing the game would be played, no rain out or 2 hour rain delay. Actually the bad experience was not enough leg room at my seat near the right field foul screen. Personally I think domed baseball stadiums made a lot of sense although I wouldn’t vote for one that is financed by taxpayer money.
Public financing of sports stadium is almost as bad as municipal labor unions that elect politicians to give them unsustainable pay and benefits.
The only place where I ever thought a dome made sense was Seattle as the first 2 months of the season it constantly rains. Otherwise, they make the experience of seeing a baseball game worse.
How much would it cost to put a retractable roof over Globe Life?
Good question. I was thinking the same thing, if it were an issue of clearances for the light standards, gearing of same. Although…..it could require a major retrofit of the roof/upper deck, so that there is a seal to make the ac viable.
Call it preventing a ‘wind tunnel effect’ like what could have happened in KC, if they went with their mobile roof design from many years ago.
Charlie: I’m on the other side of the fence! I love baseball but when summer comes around I’d rather be in most any other city enjoying a game in cooler weather – I can’t stand the Texas summer! The happiest I ever was at a Rangers game was at an April game that was the coldest in Rangers history – somewhere in the 30s!
I would love a new ballpark with a retractable roof and AC for the Texas summer in Arlington! Do I want it at the expense of the city? Hell no! And I don’t even live near Arlington. After having experienced a game at all 30 current stadiums, in my opinion the Rangers Ballpark is not in the top half! I much prefer the open concourses that face the field instead of them being on the outer side of the seating bowl. I disagree with the location of their Jumbotron; and this season they finally added another, much smaller, Jumbotron for the fans that have never been able to see the original.
My biggest (personal) gripe comes from having been raised in Los Angeles: the Ballpark in Arlington is a closed stadium – 4 walls! If you want a retractable roof for AC you have to have 4 walls, that’s understood. Yet stadiums in Houston, Miami, and Milwaukee have better views beyond the stadium wall with their use of glass. Like Milwaukee, Arlington doesn’t have much to look at beyond the stadium wall. And I get that its design is closed in accounting for the wind, but if it’s going to have 4 walls, put a roof on it for some AC.
All in all, as much as there are things about the stadium that I wish were different, I go for baseball – and I catch more games between April and mid July, and less in the rest of the season due to the heat. While I disagree with Arlington committing their taxpayers (even if they vote for it) to put up 50% of the cost, if the things I mentioned above (not just roof for AC) are addressed it will be nice. If they aren’t addressed then the ownership should just invest in fixing up the current stadium, as it serves its purpose.
They’ve already increased the cost of the Rangers’ new playpen. The new estimate is $1 billion, $500 million to be paid by tax money.
“The ballpark construction, which is estimated to cost $1 billion, still must be approved by Arlington voters in a Nov. 8 election. If the referendum is successful, construction could begin by late 2017. . . . The ballpark’s costs will be split equally between the city and the Rangers. The city’s contribution would be capped at $500 million, with the baseball club paying for any overruns.”
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article78867817.html
The only “good” things I see of this deal are the team covering the overruns and the lease on the RangerDome being for 33 years (essentially rolling the last 3 years of The Ballpark’s lease into the RangerDome’s lease).
They’ll probably start whining about the Ranger Dome falling apart after 20 years like the Diamonbacks are doing.
If they really want a dome to play in, won’t Tampa’s be free in a few years when Sternberg moves the Rays out?
How is it that the discussion can be shifted from “the Rays and Jays have the worst facilities in Baseball. Nobody plays in a Dome anymore” to “The Rangers (one of the higher total revenue clubs in either league) need a dome to survive!!!”
Nah, the Rays will also get a new stadium soon. Same as Texas, Florida politicos always find money for sports facilities. Panthers, Marlins, Jaguars and even the Bucs are getting new scoreboards.
Very interesting comments.
From someone who has sat through a July Sunday afternoon game at The (then) Ballpark in Arlington or one of its previous names, even in the shade it’s too hot. Whoever originally designed the ballpark decided that fans didn’t want shade. So, there is very little overhang. At night, it isn’t much better since the ballpark has been cooking all day and the repressive heat is still in the air. Then sit through in a hail storm (we were evacuated to the clubhouse level once) and, for the most part, it’s a miserable experience in July and August due to the weather, day or night. Not even the Club Level is air conditioned, except for the ice cream stores. Until you’ve sat through July and August games in Arlington, you can’t really understand the ballpark by comparing against other cities.
That said, the question is whether spending $500 million taxpayer dollars worth improving the comfort of the fans that actually go to the ballpark? If you are someone who has attended Rangers home games, I’ll bet your answer is different than those who live in the northeast or western coastal areas. For better or worse, the only ones who count are those get to vote in Arlington, whether they have gone to a ballgame or not.
But, why does it have to be a $900 million ballpark? It would be interesting to read the differences in square footage retail space and office space between the current Globe Life Park and the proposed new stadium. I’d bet a lot of that has nothing to do with the seating bowl but has a lot to do with how many concessions, formal restaurants and other retail space the Rangers will add. The goal in new ballparks seems to be to add the equivalent of a shopping mall to the ballpark and have the tax payers pay for that space.
The retractable roof is interesting but I’m not sure that anyone has thought through the translucent part of the retractable roof design. While you get to see the end-less blue sky in July and August, that means at least some of the heat from the Sun is getting into the ballpark. That heat is then trapped by the roof and that drives up the heat load. The heat load then translates into more AC needed to cool the place and more time before a ballgame needed to get the ballpark cooled. I’m assuming part of the reason for the translucent retractable roof is to help the grass grow. It seems like a great idea for Minneapolis but it just seems like a bad idea for Arlington.
Finally, the scariest part of this is that this means the replacements for the early-1990s ballparks are in full swing. So, Cleveland you’re next up for a new ballpark to replace that “obsolete” 22 year old stadium (The Indians management could use the excuse of too many suites on one side – can’t fix it). How long before our not-so-bright but cheapskate owner in Houston decides that he can’t have the Rangers being the only franchise with the only translucent retractable roof in Texas and demands a new, smaller ballpark (to accommodate the Astros’ smaller attendance)?
Hopefully some sanity prevails over costs and lifetime of these ballpark. We, at least, could realize that ballparks built with much less real money in the earlier parts of the 1900s lasted for 50 years. This wasn’t because the owners spent money on maintenance – they didn’t have that money. This was simply because there wasn’t an easy taxpayer-funded alternative that allowed 20 year old ballparks to be thrown away at the drop of a hat/cap.
So, while I understand the rationale for wanting to replace The Ballpark in Arlington / Globe Life Park, I’m not sure this is the most cost effective method of or time for doing that. I’ve heard Neil often talk about one trick to getting a new ballpark/stadium being changing the argument from should it be built to where it should be built. But, just as a good a question is, “why does it have to cost this much?” There always seems to be only one price and no one ever seems to question it.
I don’t get a vote on this new ballpark, so I guess we’ll never know how I would vote but those hot summer nights I wouldn’t miss.
Andy
“That said, the question is whether spending $500 million taxpayer dollars worth improving the comfort of the fans that actually go to the ballpark? If you are someone who has attended Rangers home games, I’ll bet your answer is different than those who live in the northeast or western coastal areas.”
I’m sure it would be. However, those folks in the Northeast have no problem sitting in -10 degree cold for a football game. I thought people were moving south for the weather?
I don’t think anyone questions the fact that it is oppressively hot in Texas for a good part of the baseball season.
This could be dealt with in the same way that scheduling games in northern climes early in the season (when it is cold/raining/snowing) should be… namely by biasing schedules so that a minimum number of home games are played during those months in Texas and other southern/desert locales, and scheduling those that are as 8 or 8:30pm local starts. Yes, it will still be hot. That is part of owning a franchise that is located where it is either too hot or too cold for part of the season.
I am not sure why it is the taxpayers’ problem to solve that MLB has awarded franchises to areas like Texas, Arizona and Florida (or Montreal in the past) where local weather makes scheduling games problematic in certain parts of the season. They could resolve this themselves through scheduling policy. They would rather have someone else pay to resolve it. That does not mean taxpayers should agree to do so… but as suggested above, this will be their choice.
The problem with avoiding summer is that then Texas has a huge advantage if they are in a tight division race…nearly all home games late. Plus the kids wouldnt get to see many games with school being in session. They could & should give Texas more April games. Even the California teams still have depressed attendance in April and a chance of rain in normal years.
I am a central Arlington resident and homeowner. I’m sharing what happened today in our neighborhood. A bright red flyer was left on my front gate by an elderly gentleman and what appeared to by his elderly wife. I wish I could attach it to this comment; it was in opposition of the new Ranger stadium and pretty telling… salaries of players, billionaire owners, taxes, etc.
While they were hand delivering these flyers a male wearing a blue shirt (don’t know if it was a Ranger’s shirt) pulled up nose-to-nose to their car and parked. He got out and walked to their car and tried to break their front passenger window (I have security video). I’ve experienced having a window busted out by a vandal and was told by the Arlington PD that since no other vandalism was reported the attack was targeted at me. I must have pissed off a neighbor and they were right.
In my opinion this attack was targeted at this elderly couple for passing out anti-stadium flyers. Why do I think this? My brother’s very nice car was right behind them and he didn’t attack it. Plus the vandal parked in front of their car and got out to do damage. He took two swings with what looked like a hammer and failed to break the passenger side window. The elderly gentleman said no harm done and left. I reported it to the Arlington PD as my civic responsibility to report; I told them I had video. They haven’t asked for it.
I dislike how at election time the City Council reports crime is down when in reality crime ‘reporting’ is down, not crime. My neighbors and I have become accustomed to the Arlington PD’s do-nothing attitude so we stopped reporting and bought guns. No, I’m not a bible thumping, gun toting, person but Arlington has a ‘D’ grade on crime whereas our neighbors Grand Prairie have a B grade. We’re spending too much money on education while crime runs rampant.
The ‘hood rats’ know Arlington PD won’t do anything so they commit crimes in broad daylight. Yes, I can substantiate my comments.
Yes… I have first hand proof of Arlington PD’s lax stance on crime.
Fix Arlington PD, then the schools by hiring better teaches and not building new school buildings, then worry about the Texas Rangers!
Conspiracy theorist might suspect the Arlington City Council or others who gain is behind this and possibly other attacks to those who speak out against the stadium.