Rhode Island’s $80m subsidy for minor-league soccer stadium is okayed by governor and five pals he appointed

When we last left off with Rhode Island’s plan to bring a USL soccer team to Pawtucket, the stadium was wildly over budget, and Gov. Dan McKee and Mayor Donald Grebien were proposing to fill the gap by taking money that was budgeted for infrastructure for the surrounding development and putting it into the stadium instead. (The missing infrastructure money would be replaced by [waves hands in air, tries to distract taxpayers by promising them an ice cream cone when it’s all over].) So how’s that going?

The proposed and embattled Pawtucket minor league soccer stadium and adjacent development was approved Monday night by the Rhode Island Commerce board by the narrowest of votes — 6-5 with the chair, Governor Dan McKee, voting in the affirmative, breaking the tie and giving the project the green light.

Wow, a 6-5 vote of the … Rhode Island Commerce board? What the crap kind of weird government structure are these little New England states getting up to now?

The Rhode Island Commerce Corporation works with public, private and nonprofit partners to create the conditions for businesses in all sectors to thrive and to improve the quality of life for our citizens by promoting the state’s long-term economic health and prosperity. We offer business assistance, access to funding and red tape reduction for companies of all sizes.

It’s a quasi-public development agency, in other words, with the power to spend public funds but none of the accountability, as has become common in most states and major cities. (Rhode Island Commerce’s board is entirely appointed by the governor.) Still, it’s pretty alarming to see that a $27 million public subsidy for a pro soccer team on top of the $46.2 million in state tax kickbacks and $10 million from Pawtucket was decided by a bunch of retired politicians and Chamber of Commerce and union execs — if Karl Wadensten, CEO of VIBCO Vibrators (not that kind of vibrators, though when the ad copy reads “stop jerking your hoist” it’s hard to be 100% sure) had voted no instead of abstained, this could have gone a completely different way.

Pouring more than $80 million in public money into a $124 million minor-league soccer stadium, plus whatever it will now cost for the infrastructure for the rest of the project, doesn’t sound like a great idea, and economists quickly told the Boston Globe as much, with Holy Cross’s Victor Matheson calling it “a terrible idea” while Kennesaw State’s J.C. Bradbury noted, “Everyone knows it’s a joke.” (“For once, I am not the most negative economist in the story,” added Bradbury on Twitter.) The Globe described this as “Some economists aren’t sold” and immediately countered with USL “senior vice president of club expansion and real estate” Dan Holman, who had this to say in response:

Economists tend to look at things in a silo, Holman said, while a soccer fan would be able to see the whole pitch.

“The economic impact is huge,” Holman said, “but it’s the community impact as well.”

There are several followup questions that the Globe reporter could have asked — “What is that even supposed to mean?” and “You do know that Victor Matheson is a goddamn soccer referee in his spare time, right?” come to mind — but that would not serve journalistic balance, so the article ends there.