Early voting is underway for San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt’s ballot measure to get $311 million in Bexar County tax money over 30 years (about $150 million in present value) as part of a $750 million public funding deal, and here’s what’s happening:
- Opponents and proponents of the measure disagree on whether it would be a good thing, fancy that!
- “Downtown Spurs arena campaign raises more than $7M” reports a headline in the San Antonio Express-News, which if you read further turns out to actually mean “Spurs owner has donated $6.5 million to his own arena campaign.” Opponents have raised $219,000.
- The Spurs are 4-0 to start the season, and a political science professor says history shows that probably won’t make any difference in how people vote, but that won’t stop KENS-TV from running a whole report on it anyway.
- UNITE HERE Local 23 has come out against the deal, because there’s no guarantee hotel jobs at the new Project Marvel arena complex will be union or pay a living wage.
- A proposed land bridge over I-37 is now no longer part of the project, because the Trump administration won’t pay for it.
- While Holt has said there’s “no Plan B” if the arena measure fails, former longtime local official Nelson Wolff says there’s still time to extend the Spurs’ lease and rework the deal, maybe this time in a way that’s not so piecemeal and confusing to voters.
Guessing at what will happen when the polls close is always fun, and with surveys showing county voters slightly opposed to the arena funding measures, and being outspent by only a 32:1 ratio often being enough to defeat a sports subsidy measure, it’s fair to say that Holt is going to need all of that $6.5 million to spend on last-minute campaign ads. Not that a defeat on Tuesday would be final: As Wolff observed, there’s nothing stopping Holt from coming back with a slightly different plan — he could even do so the very next year, lots of other team owners have! His arena is just 23 years old and was just renovated 10 years ago, you’d think he’d be in no rush, but billionaires gonna billionaire, it’s how they got to be billionaires in the first place.
I would assume it would fail if most eligible voters actually voted, but I think the people who support this will show up for sure and it’s a toss up whether the people who say they’re against this monstrosity actually show up. But who knows? It’s not popular. It could fail. The Spurs are resorting to pleading for votes during the actual broadcasts of the game.
That’s nothing — in 1998 the Padres put a giant “Yes on C” ad board on their outfield wall during the World Series to get their stadium money approved.
Okay, but is “Bexar” pronounced “Bear” or somehow differently?
Bear.