It’s been a long while since I’ve done a Dumbest Reasons to Build a Sports Stadium of the Year post, but I might just have to revive the tradition for 2022 to honor this:
Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, D-Buffalo, just delivered a passionate defense of the Bills stadium deal.
Among many other things, she said it will benefit senior citizens because they will be able to shop in empty supermarkets when the games are on.
— Jon Campbell (@JonCampbellNY) April 9, 2022
Yup. Who can put a price on the value of shorter lines at the supermarket on eight Sundays a year? (Answer: Crystal Peoples-Stokes can, and it is $1 billion.)
In newsier news, though the Buffalo Bills‘ subsidy package was apparently approved on Thursday night and officially signed into law on Saturday, it’s still not entirely spelled out in the legislative language. There’s an allocation of $600 million in state money for “services and expenses for professional football in Orchard Park,” but the rest — $250 million in cash from Erie County, plus almost $13 million a year in future payments toward future maintenance and upgrades — is apparently awaiting a memorandum of understanding and lease between the Bills owners and the county.
But that’s fine as far as Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Bills’ owners are concerned, as the only thing thy needed the state legislature to vote on was the up-front state money. The other $400 million or so can be worked out later behind closed doors by state and county officials without any authorizing votes at all, this is what American democracy looks like.
It’s weird because in a different reality it would almost make sense to instead take that billion USD (sorry that # never doesn’t boggle my mind!) and spend it supporting senior’s through pensions or accessible transit etc.
It would also make more sense to take that billion USD and drop it from a helicopter over Buffalo retirement homes, but it’s kinda hard to stage a ribbon cutting photo op around that.
It sure would, Gary. And it would help the Buffalo/Erie County economy a lot more than handing it to a billionaire would.
Since $1Bn in $100 bills weighs somewhere between 10 and 11 tons, it would also take a very large heavy lift helicopter to get it into the air.
The interweb also tells us (ok, me) that if you were to lay out $1billion in $100 bills in a single layer on the ground it would cover FOUR square miles.
Sorry, that should be $1 bills in a single layer. Mixed metaphors/analogies/imageries. Still and absolutely stunning figure.
In my experience, senior citizens want to watch the games.