PAC backing $1 billion baseball stadium in Arlington kicks off election campaign

[TexasTowelie]

ARLINGTON -- After a couple of 9-year-olds took their swings with plastic bats at plastic baseballs, Fred Pennington, 77, stepped up to the plate, long gray beard and seafoam bandana snug on his scalp.

He was kind of crashing a kid-oriented miniature batting event — though he wasn’t the only adult to do so — in an oversized room at the Arlington Convention Center on Sunday. It was one of the festive activities during a three-hour kickoff of a campaign supporting a proposed $1 billion retractable-roof, climate-controlled stadium for the Texas Rangers.

On Tuesday, the City Council is expected to cast its second and final vote for a Nov. 8 election to determine whether the project will get public financing for the city’s $500 million share.

Pennington might have been the only one there, among the 200 to 250 people present at any one time during the come-and-go event, who didn’t show up ready to start putting out yard signs and other campaign materials on behalf of the Political Action Committee Vote Yes! Keep the Rangers.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article94285792.html

[Javaman]

1. are they going to screw over a farmer or someone else like george w. moron* did way back when?

and a host of other people?

http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/vol16/issue42/pols.bushstadium.html

George W. Bush loves baseball. And why not? After all, baseball has been very very good to the governor. When it comes to power, the governor is a true triple-threat. Consider his record: (1) His initial baseball investment of $600,000 carries the current potential of a 3,200% return. (2) Through savvy PR and political maneuvering, he and his partners have persuaded a city and the state to directly subsidize a facility for their business. (3) Not content with taxpayer subsidies, he and his fellow owners have also successfully used the power of government to take land from other private citizens so it could be used for their own private purposes.

Yes, baseball has been very good to Bush. Moreover, the biggest deal Bush has ever done, the career-shaping transaction he boasted of on the campaign trail -- the planning, funding and construction of the Texas Rangers' Ballpark at Arlington -- has been largely ignored by the national media as they rush to paint Bush's presidential portrait.

Yet whether the public interest issue is taxes, size of government, property rights, or public subsidies of private sports ventures, Bush's personal ownership interest in the Texas Rangers baseball team has been wildly at odds with his publicly declared positions on those issues. And litigation over the Ballpark deal has revealed documents showing that beginning in 1990, the Rangers management -- which included Bush as managing general partner -- conspired to use the government's power of eminent domain to further its private business interests.

Ever since he took to the stump three and a half years ago to run for governor, Bush has railed against "big government." On the very first day of his campaign, November 8, 1993, Bush told supporters in Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and Dallas that "the best way to allocate resources in our society is through the marketplace. Not through a governing elite, not through red tape and over-regulation, not through some central bureaucracy."

much more at line...

[TexasTowelie]

2. Thanks for the reminder.

The fact that he was blessed on this one business deal which propelled W into the spotlight which resulted in him becoming governor and then president is disgusting. If this con artistry had not not occurred we would have reelected Ann Richards as governor and thousands of people wouldn't have died in Iraq and our sodiers wouldn't have been maimed or killed either. The costs in lost productivity and expenses for the injured veterans could have been redirected for infrastructure and other social programs.

I want to again thinking about the evil associated with W.

[Shell_Seas]

3. Which tax will this impact?

[TexasTowelie]

4. The impact will be on the sales tax, hotel tax and car rental tax.

When they built the AT&T Stadium (aka Jerryworld) the city of Arlington allocated a portion of their sales tax to finance the bonds for the stadium. The city managed to pay off the bonds for the stadium early so this enabled the city to have the option of reallocating the sales tax to the new baseball stadium.

Some other considerations that come into play are that the city could have reduced the sales tax (1/2 cent per $1) or they could join either the Dallas or Fort Worth rapid transit systems. Arlington is the largest city in the country that does not have bus service throughout the city, although I believe that the now have a limited spur route that connects the major sites (the stadiums and UT-Arlington) into a connection spot south of the DFW airport so that they can connect into the train route running between Dallas and Fort Worth. There is also some discussion that the high speed train route proposed between Houston and Dallas might continue to Arlington.

The hotel tax and car rental tax are 0.1 cents per $1.

[TexasTowelie]

5. Oh, and I forgot

Welcome to DU.