Arizona officials are starting to take sides on the proposed $300 milliion-ish tax fund for Diamondbacks stadium renovations, and it comes down to: Gov. Katie Hobbs is for it so long as city and county leaders are, and city and county leaders are all hell nah.
Hobbs first:
“If they can reach an agreement that is acceptable to all the parties, then yes,” Hobbs said when asked if she supported the plan. “I want to keep the Diamondbacks here in Arizona.”
Nice job, governor, both ducking the specifics of the public spending (don’t look at me, I’m just the governor, I’ll do whatever everyone else wants!) and reframing this as keeping the Diamondbacks in Arizona when the team hasn’t threatened to leave. (The closest D-Backs owner Ken Kendrick has come to a move threat is declaring that unnamed “cities” would be happy to have a team, without mentioning that none of the cities currently without a team is anywhere close to the market size of Phoenix.) Now what about Phoenix and Maricopa County officials?
A spokesperson for Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said the mayor opposes the plan.
“Mayor Gallego supports the Diamondbacks’ commitment to staying in downtown but opposes diverting essential tax dollars — funds crucial to Phoenix’s police and fire departments — to finance sports facility renovations, particularly without an end date,” spokesperson Arielle Devorah said. “She believes the public deserves a voice in any decision to redirect their tax dollars.”
And:
Assistant County Manager Zach Schira told lawmakers last week that if the bill was amended so it did not draw on voter-approved taxes for transportation projects and jails, the county would shift its position to neutral on the bill.
What Hobbs means by “acceptable to all the parties” could be key, as apparently the state can siphon off sales and income taxes from the stadium and give the money to Kendrick without requiring city or county approval, even though this would include city and county taxes.
State Rep. Jeff Weninger, meanwhile, has co-penned an op-ed in the Arizona Republic (with the head of the state chamber of commerce, as one does when one is a sandwich shop magnate) declaring that it’s all good, because this tax money isn’t really tax money:
The plan doesn’t create a new tax — it reinvests revenue that Chase Field is already generating. If you don’t attend games, your tax dollars won’t, either.
Yes, it’s the Casino Night Fallacy, everybody drink! Weninger and his chamber pal double down by declaring that the Diamondbacks are a “powerful economic engine” and citing a claim that the team’s 2023 playoff run generated $107.6 million in local economic activity, according to the Seidman Research Institute at Arizona State University, a business consulting firm that previously insisted spring training games are worth a bazillion dollars despite actual data showing they don’t increase the economy at all. “We fact-check commentary as we would a news story,” says the Arizona Republic’s op-ed policy — if that’s true, I’m suddenly concerned about the fact-checking standards of Republic news stories…
Governor Hobbs better focus on Arizonas imploding public school system. Climate change and the ongoing drought are more issues for Hobbs to worry about before she pays any attention to Kendrick’s threats to move the Diamondbacks. Where are the Diamondbacks going to find a city of 2 million, with a metro area over 5 million and growing fast? If Kendrick wants to follow the Coyotes to Salt Lake City, let him.
It seems to me that the simplest solution to the never ending extortion of cities, counties, states by billionaire team owners is for every major professional sports league to have a building fund that every team in that league contributes several million dollars to every year. Then, whenever an owner starts crying about the state of their facilities, instead of threatening the local government, they can just dip into the fund. In an ideal world, of course, each billionaire would already be happily paying for their stadia upkeep without a peep. Being civically responsible and all. But, well, you know…
That would work if the problem on the table were “How can team owners keep building new stadiums?” and not “How can team owners keep getting new subsidies?”
That doesn’t work because the entire point of the stadium subsidy grift is getting subsidies. It’s not that they can’t afford to build their own stadia, even stadia with tons of the high-dollar amenities that the owners demand these days. It’s that if they can afford to build a stadium for $X with their own money, then certainly they can afford a stadium for $X+Y if that Y is free money from taxpayers. And if you can get Y, then why bother with X?
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I always insist on Dom Perignon and fresh Beluga caviar flown in that very morning when someone else is paying.
I see no reason why my standards should be compromised by someone else’s inability to pay.
When Fisher screws up the Vegas deal I bet the D-backs dust off their plans for Henderson, NV!