That proposed MLS stadium for St. Louis that may be about to lose its $40 million state tax kickback could be facing trouble for its planned city subsidies as well, as apparently nobody gave the board of aldermen time to actually discuss funding bills before putting them up for an April vote:
One measure would raise the city’s sales tax by a half percent, with the revenue going to mass transit, public safety and economic development. A second measure would direct the corresponding increase in the use tax to the new stadium…
If [St. Louis Board of Aldermen President Lewis] Reed waits until next year to make those [committee] assignments — something that he’s well within his rights to do — aldermen would have just two weeks to pass the bills if they want the measures on the April ballot.
“I received the bills an hour before they wanted me to assign them,” Reed said. “We should have gotten that information a little bit earlier to really have an opportunity to take a look at the bills, understand what they are, their total impact, and the best assignment for them.”
This could easily be a screwup by the stadium’s sponsors, or it could be intentional: Corporate subsidy advocates haven’t been above throwing bills at legislators at the last minute to avoid scrutiny (or even leaving time for legislators to read the damn things), after all. Reed steered carefully down the middle on the proposed St. Louis Rams stadium subsidy, so it’s probably unlikely he’ll use this as an excuse to throw roadblocks in the way of the MLS deal; whether he’ll use this as an excuse to ram it through with little debate, we’ll see — though the fact that he’s griping publicly about not having enough time doesn’t seem promising for stadium subsidy backers.