Friday roundup: This post is all about the Bears (or the bears), even the parts with no bears

What did we learn this week, class? We learned that bears are good for SEO, that elected officials can vote down democracy, and that rich people like public subsidies because it’s where the money is. In another sense, of course, no one has learned anything, which is why we are still here, 24 years into this website, still with the bullet points of outrage to mark the end of the week, every week, never ending or changing, oh now I see why you perk up when there are bears:

• The Buffalo Bills and Erie County missed their September 1 deadline for finalizing a stadium agreement, and may miss their October 15 deadline, but what are deadlines among friends? “If we get it done before October 15, great,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz. “If we get it done in the last few hours like Kaleida did, great. If it takes a few extra days, great.” The bit about New York taxpayers spending $1 billion while the Bills owners contribute negative $90 million has been set in stone for a while, so really it’s over but the shouting over a community benefits agreement, out of sight of the public, lord knows, you don’t want those people and their ideas getting in the room when the grownups are talking.
• The city of Oakland and the A’s owners missed their October 1 deadline for finalizing a stadium agreement, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal thinks that “could be good news for Southern Nevada” in the sense that maybe the Oakland deal will fall apart and the team will move to Las Vegas and Southern Nevada will have to spend a billion dollars instead of Oakland. Silly Review-Journal, allow me to introduce you to the sage Mark Poloncarz, and also the 184th rule of acquisition.
• When will Seattle get a new NBA team? asks the Los Angeles Times. (scroll scroll scroll) Okay, no actual answer in the article, but Macklemore is getting impatient, that’s sort of like a deadline, no?
• A Baptist pastor who supports a development group led by former Sacramento mayor, former NBA star, and sexual harassment charge magnet Kevin Johnson that wants to redevelop the site of the Tampa Bay Rays‘ Tropicana Field is opposed to the Rays getting to redevelop the stadium site, because then KJ wouldn’t get to do it. Really, that’s the whole article, must not be anything else newsworthy going on in Florida’s Gulf Coast.
• The Columbus Crew owners only pay $10 a month in rent on their new stadium, but they still managed to be late with the check.
• It’s not super-interesting news that the owners of the Kansas City Current NWSL team broke ground on their $110 million stadium (which was supposed to be publicly funded but the owners decided to ask for $6 million in tax credits once they realized it would cost $110 million) this week, but any article about a ceremonial groundbreaking that manages to begin “Just over 200 hundred years after French fur traders landed here via the Missouri River and settled in rough cabins along its banks” deserves a Pulitzer for Chutzpah.
• Finally, some actual news that we don’t hear every week: A Georgia judge has blocked a deal for $700 million in property tax kickbacks for a construction project, on the grounds that the people seeking the money didn’t actually show how it would help the local economy or create jobs or any of the other reasons why they said they should get $700 million. True, it was an electric car plant and not a sports facility, and also the only reason the judge was able to weigh in at all was some convoluted financing scheme that she needed to sign off on, but now the would-be subsidy recipients will have to settle for the $500 million in other tax subsidies that they’re already getting. I swear this started out being good news, sorry for the late plot twist, but I don’t write these storylines, I just report them.