Surely there must be some low income housing that can be razed for a stadium.
81 times a year? on average a week out of every month? No. That’s not the nightmare the residents purchased when they moved there.
So this fantastically expensive ball park is going to be completely empty 284 times a year? What a dilly of a waste. It still has to be maintained, water and electricity has to run, people still have to guard and staff it - oh, wait, maybe you can have a car show there! Or carnivals! Hey, here is a big space to be used to pay for the outrageous costs of maintaining it (well, no, it’s paid for heavliy by tax money, the team pockets the rest, right?). Oh, wait, so there is going to be cars broken into, traffice, pollution, litter more than 81 days a year. Wheee.
No welfare programs (tax breaks, incentives, etc) for baseball. And keep it the hell out of the DC area.
I’d say because it allows the growth of the idea that teams should pay for their own playgrounds. And MLB sure doesn’t want that idea out there! The commissioner’s office is still cheesed off that the Giants financed their own park when they believe that policy should be that government should pay for all park development.
Bastards.
There is alot of well directed anger at MLB here - Bravo.
However, it bears pointing out again that one way to view this in bold (with italics is another view) **MLB negotiated in good faith ** (extorted and evilly used DC) **and reached an agreement ** (forced concessions). **The City Council had problems ** (reigned in Mayor McHappy spend) **and Baseball came up with close to 20 mil to meet those demands ** (threw an insulting pittance back).
It is only fair to say that it is the DC Council and not MLB who are canceling this. MLB, in fact, would rather not come to DC – it has turned hand springs for 3 decades to avoid it – only when offered the moon did they agree to come – and yet after they did, DC pulled the moon back. Wilbon or Boswell in the Post likens it (paraphrase):
“A dorky guy asks a beautiful girl out for years and years, finally she agrees and then on date night he stands her up.”
Yeah, but Boswell sold his soul years ago.
Allow me another interpretation.
Mayor and MLB negotiate and agreement.
Mayor does this without Council authorization.
Council calls him on it.
MLB gives concessions. Council agrees to vote.
Vote goes against.
Voila.
There’s enough hypocracy to go around on this one. Linda Cropp, DC Council Chairwoman, was consulted on all the major aspects of the deal as it was being negotiated. When the agreement was announced, she was front and center cheerleading for the plan. But as soon as she got a whiff that the political winds were turning against it, she did a complete 180.
Frankly, I think that taxpayer-funded stadiums are a crock. But this isn’t an enlightened debate over the best use of resources: it’s just typical political point scoring.