“It Takes Allot of Bottles of Opus One to pay for One Arena”
$3,000 doesn’t go as far as it used to. 30 years ago, $3,000 would buy you a new car, make a nice down payment on a home, or send a kid to Harvard for a year. Today, it pays for 12 bottles of Opus One or one Evansville family’s share of the total cost of a new downtown arena. My, how times have changed.
Then again, maybe they haven’t changed so much after all. Drunken excess, scapegoating, and corruption are time-honored political traditions, especially in Evansville.
I can’t help but smile at all the righteous indignation and public outrage over the infamous CVB Christmas Dinner. Don’t get me wrong—it was clearly a colossal lapse in judgment and an inappropriate use of public funds. But it represents a proverbial drop in the bucket in terms of the wastefulness, arrogance, and audacity of Evansville’s political establishment.
To put it in perspective, all those bottles of expensive wine and plates of rich food cost the 100,000 or so taxpaying residents of Vanderburgh County approximately $.03 apiece. That’s a rounding error on a cup of Starbucks coffee. By contrast, the mayor and his coterie of reckless spendthrifts have burdened each and every one of those families with nearly $3,000 of additional and unnecessary debt in order to finance the new downtown stadium project. Those same people met in secret to devise a way to deprive homeowners of $5.1 million in homestead tax exemptions and only fessed up after being caught red-handed. Now, the mayor claims to be “outraged†over a $3,000 dinner party. Is there no honor among thieves?
Meanwhile, Evansville’s ancient sewers continue to rot and crumble leavings swaths of the city virtually uninhabitable during heavy rains, and the city continues to discharge polluted water into the Ohio River in violation of EPA guidelines. The wise and fortunate scramble to escape Evansville’s decaying infrastructure and high taxes, only to be annexed later on by a city desperate for additional tax revenue.
Symbolism is important in politics. All of the lurid excess and injustice of pre-Revolutionary France was crystallized in Marie Antoinette’s relatively harmless, offhand remark “Let them eat cake.†And in modern-day Evansville, the arrogance and disconnectedness of our political class is symbolized by a pricey evening at Biaggi’s during a recession. That is all well and good, but let’s not lose sight of the big picture. It takes more than cracking down on a lavish dinner party to change Evansville’s political culture.
And it takes a whole lot of bottles of Opus One to equal one very expensive stadium.
–Andrew Smith is a former candidate for Evansville City Council and the founder of Sewers before Stadium.
This guest editorial was published without editing or bias on the part of the City County Observer.
Here is a link to a most appropriate cartoon to accompany this letter.
http://city-countyobserver.com/2011/01/07/cartoon-of-the-bacchanalian-fest-vs-ballfield-and-arena-spending/
I can’t even believe this editorial. It just makes me down right sick.
This arena will bring in top notch concerts, it will give the Aces the opportunity to compete in a conference that is increasingly becoming a national contender, it will bring life back to downtown and Main St., and when city hall finally wakes up we will be able to renovate it to add more seats and go after the big NCAA tournaments.
I don’t know how many times it has to be said. The three funding mechanisms for the arena are 1. the downtown TIF 2. the food and beverage tax & 3. Casino Aztar. All of those funds are earmarked for tourism (as they should be) and cannot be used for sewers which made that whole “sewers before stadiums” movement look pointless and idiotic to say the least.
If Smith is really wanting to come flying in on a cape for the taxpayer than maybe he should be worried about the fact that my family and I are having to subsidize rich kids who go to the EVSC to the tune of $200 million a year even though my family is lower middle class but payed my own way from grade school through college (out of state too). Make the rich pay for their public schools (but let the others go for free still) if you’re really concerned about sewers and infrastructure ( and why not lobby to quit wasting $4-$5 billion on I-69 and start building high speed rail?). Just doesn’t make sense to me!
On the flip side, what did that elitist xmas party accomplish for Eville? NOTHING. To even remotely put that party in the same column as this great progressive arena is despicable and I’m embarrassed to even read that. Let’s keep it simple: State-of-the-Art Arena=Good…Elitist Party=Bad. Just about every other city understands that.
We’ve finally gotten the elitist out of the ECVB, reduced GAGE once more so that it can only do minimal damage to our city, and gotten a mayor out who hasn’t lived by the master plan and wants to demolish historic and healthy Roberts Stadium. Make no mistake, this arena is a drop in the bucket for what we need to do and are going to do downtown so the regressives just need to accept that.
I’m very glad that Andrew Smith is not in Evansville anymore! Regressive attitudes like his have been contagious in Evansville for over 50 years now and I just can’t express how disappointed I am to see cities like Oklahoma City, Omaha, and Louisville pass us by because we believe our arena (which is half the price and half the quality as theirs) is the end of the world and will drive us into debt forever.
That right there my friends is why there is a pal over Evansville!
AM Evansville… Thanks Lauren!
It blows me away this weird theory about how a new stadium will allow the Aces to compete. (and allow “top notch” concerts)
How in the hell do you explain that the Aces negotiated the UNC Tar Heels to visit, Robert’s? How do you explain the top concerts we already get?
Evansville politics is not a conversation about “progressive” vs. “regressive” at all… To get to a conversation about that, well, you need a lot of things we don’t have.
The main difference between the stadium (non-furor) and the CVB tab (full furor), is that UNION protectionism is a powerful force here.
Evansville is not Louisville, with it population of over 1MM.
It is not Oklahoma City, with its NBA franchise.
Heck, it isn’t even Fort Wayne with it’s NBADL team the Mad Ants!
There is nothing “progressive” about burdening taxpayers with an unnecessary and money-losing arena whose only purpose is to sate the egos of a few politicians and business leaders.
You can spend $1bn on pretty new downtown buildings, and it still won’t address the root problems of Evansville: decaying infrasture, a moribund economy, and a political class that is more interested in feathering its own nest than in spurring genuine competition and economic development.
But by all means, continue to wallow in partisanship and class envy. After all, those are the drugs of choice in Evansville (along with meth!).
Painful to read, but a very astute and fair assessment of our underlying problems.
Respectively disagree. Do you realize that at one time Evansville was the 56th largest city and every census has fallen further back? There’s a reason why those cities moved ahead, they didn’t say ” Well that’s Evansville we will never be able to do what they did.” No, they went out and beat Evansville.
Believe it or not OKC had the same problem we have now in 1990’s. Many companies told them, no we don’t want to go to your city because you have ” A quality of life issue.”
And that’s when they introduced MAPS (Metro Area ProjectS)
Take a look…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Area_Projects
http://www.okc.gov/maps3/
They are now on their third program. I want to say they’ve invested something like $700 million something from the sales tax and have brought in around $3 billion.
They built that arena that brought in the Thunder you mentioned, they built a convention center, and they built a library. We already ahead by building all of those..
Next, they built a canal, a ballpark, and are working on street cars and high speed rail lines. Most of this was already in our 2001 master plan.
WE MUST DO THIS! Most importantly, with a MAPS program, we would listen to what the people want, let them vote, and then do the temporary sales tax which will draw several million in interest while it accumulates.
Make no mistake, we can do BOTH the sewers AND MAPS, but we have to realize that this arena is just the beginning. We can’t be satisfied.
Rail,
It is hard to have a serious conversation with someone who doesn’t understand the VAST differences between Oklahoma City, Louisville, Omaha, and Evansville.
As the old saying goes, “one of these things is not like the others.”
The first three cities have metro-area populations ranging from almost 900,000 to nearly 1,500,000. The standard of living in each of those cities is significantly higher than Evansville.
Evansville is essentially a purpose-built slum or a vast Section 8 housing project.
The greed of Big Business and Big Labor along with the political establishment have managed to drive nearly all real industry and innovation out of the city over the last 50 years.
Building a stadium won’t fix that. It will, however, place an additional debt burden on a town of poor people who can’t afford it.
There is no quick fix for Evansville’s problems. It will take many, many years to undo the damage done by the political, business, and labor elites. It will also take some luck–perhaps an entrepreneur who chooses to stay in Evansville rather than relocating to a friendlier locale, or a large corporation that temporarily loses its mind and decides to invest in a town like Evansville.
One thing is certain: spending money we don’t have on things we don’t need won’t impress anyone outside of the Evanspatch…
Rail,
Smith wanted to prioritize the sewer issue higher than any ball field.
When his critics heard “Sewers before stadium”, they seem to have heard… for some reason “No stadium ever, only sewers”. That take is dishonest in my view.
There is a large part of the population that fails to understand an intellectual point addressing prioritization!
Choosing to prioritize EVERY dream under the sun as essential, is ignoring economic realities, and is in no way being regressive!
I could compare for you the “progressive” policies in California and compare them to OKC and label them “regressive”. I could then document the near bankrupt state that is California, and ask you where you draw a line financially? (Or do you draw any lines in that respect?)
Also, to clarify why I’m so agitated with your response is your statement, “I’m very glad that Andrew Smith is not in Evansville anymore!” You can label people regressive all you want, but excluding people from a society based on their THINKING and THOUGHTS? That’s nuts. Well wishing that he didn’t win an election is one thing… But you didn’t stop there. Unfortunately, that’s a phenomenon that history has proven very barbaric, very contagious and very destructive. Unfortunately, it’s alive and well here in Evansville.
Is the PAL you speak of, an attempted public dialogue of priorities, or is is a soft bigotry of ideas?
New York, LA, and Chicago are 1, 2,and 3. And they’re all basically broke. I wouldn’t want to trade places with them. I don’t think it makes much sense to judge a city’s health by its high visibility public works projects.
That doesn’t mean none of them are worthwhile. But it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking they all do.
Rail, have you ever been to OKC, 3/4 of it is a shithole
@ tcl
I sure have and I would be there now if the Thunder were willing to hire someone outside of the OKC area.
Have you been there since the MAPS programs and the “core to shore” initiative has launched?
That’s just my point right there… OKC is in the freaking dust bowl. Do you think they said, well we aint chicago and we aint nyc and we aint dat fancy LA. We aint gonna build no stinkin arena.”
Hell no, they’ve built just about everything that their public wants and still is. What once was a dirt town is now Boom Town. The saying now is “Go to Oklahoma Young Man,” and that they are. Worse yet, they’re coming from cities like Evansville.
Well said.
“Sewers need to flow before the Opus”?
When the smoke clears 30 years from now, “The John” will have cost about $250 Million+ of this community’s resources, and that is not including an expected shortfall in expenses each year as it fails to pay it’s own way,–and is a drag on community revenues as far as the eye can see. Take off the Rose colored Glasses Railoverauto,–There is No Santa Claus, only a Dwindling Tax Base. The COIT has been pledged as well to secure “The John” Bonding and the city’s bonded debt is reaching toward a Billion dollars, not to mention the $500 million+ needed to comply with the Feds on the Sewer Pollution that is discharged in to the Ohio River(water supply). I won’t be here to pay for it all and I expect my Grandchildren to seek success somewhere else. So get out your check book it’s going to be a long haul for you and Evansville.
200 employees? The new arena will employ 530 http://www.evansvillearenaproject.com/content/economic-impact
Look we have plenty of elitist in this town who probably employ well over 200 people, but where has that gotten us? The ballfields probably would have gotten over 40,000 people to them but was that project in any way progressive?
Kind of funny you mention “relocated to Louisville.” You wouldn’t suppose that he moved there from here to there because their people realize you don’t just penny pinch and watch your city die do you? You go out and make your city what it is.
There is a pal over Evansville, and it’s because people think if you don’t build your city will still be able to compete with the others. WRONG!
LOL at someone citing the “economic impact analysis” of the people who are responsible for building the arena.
There have been countless unbiased economic impact studies on metropolitan arenas built over the last 20 years. Not a single one of those studies showed that the arenas make money or lead to genuine economic development. On the contrary, each and every one of those studies showed that areans were net money losers.
Many other cities have figured this out, choosing to invest instead in redeveloping waterfront property, attracting business investment, furthering local education etc. But not Evansville.
Why? Because Big Business and Big Labor stand to make too much money by colluding with the politicians on these boondoggles.
Meanwhile, the taxpayer is left holding the bag.
Well, guess what: Evansville is RUNNING OUT OF TAXPAYERS. And no, a brand new stadium is not going to bring them back.
Just to clarify the employment vs. cost. I will take both numbers as truth. The arena is costing $128M of public money and creating 530 jobs (janitors and hot dog peddlers) so each job costs the public $241,509. Chrysalis invested $5M in AchieveCCA to create 200 jobs (so far) so each job cost $25,000 to create yet the cost to the taxpayers is ZERO!.
As a point of order. Moving a job from Roberts Stadium to the new Arena is not a job created, it is just a job moved. It is no more significant than closing one McDonald’s and opening another one in the same city. 10,000 people will need less support in the new arena than 12,000 did at Roberts. The Arena is not a net job creator, it is only a job relocation tool.
Railoverauto, It is my understanding that Mr. Smith with his “regressive attitude” that you suggest defines him, employs around 200 people in his growing business that he has relocated from Evansville, to Louisville,–and your “progressive attitude” today employs how many?
Optimism must be rooted in reality and thoughtful planning, and not wishful thinking.
Rail, you got it 100% exactly right.
Thanks for mentioning the COIT, which Mr. Smith omitted.
Having top notch concerts booked does not guarantee they will ever take the stage. What makes Rail, or the mayor think people in this depressed area will be able to afford to buy tickets? How many shows at the Centre, with it’s meager seating, have been canceled for lack of advance ticket sales? Of course, they usually announce a change in the schedule of the act, but we know better. If the money isn’t in the bank, they will go where the tickets can be sold.
What we said about the arena in the beginning still goes. Wrong time. Wrong project. Wrong place. It will get off to a rocky start due to the lack of accommodations for out of town attendees. That will also take it from consideration in the future. People will go elsewhere, without checking to see if things have changed. Humans are creatures of habit. The hotel fiasco is just another example of the mayor’s inability to consider more than one facet, of a big change, at a time.
Ready-Fire-Aim!!!
Ah I love you guys, I really do.
A lot of things here to reply to but I’ll give it a try.
1. Anyone who believes that jobs are just ” going to move from Roberts to the new arena” doesn’t understand how arena’s work. Most arena’s create jobs indirectly not directly. This one is no different…
http://www.evansvillearenaproject.com/content/property-values-rise-because-arena
Most new sports venues are built with ballpark villages. It was a mistake not to incorporate one into this arena but hey what are you going to do when the regressives are hellbent on destroying anything you even try?
Furthermore, Roberts Stadium does not currently have a strong enough roof to support main stream concerts. All of these will come to town now.
I support the decision to build downtown because to renovate Roberts would have compromised the lasting remnants of the original historic structure. Two groups that I just don’t get are 1. the group who says Roberts should have been renovated no new arena & 2. the group who says Roberts Stadium is junk and should be demolished. Please! There isn’t one thing wrong with its structure it will be fine with another use.
Next, I like how I’m the one is out of line for suggesting this notion that hey we might want to aim a little higher than poseyville, owensboro, and whatever basic town when planning our future.
You can spin the OKC population all you want. The fact is, we have just as great of an opportunity to build a canal, build a ballpark with its village and marina, build on and around our river, and build all the way done Main Street and it will prosper.
I don’t know if you’re aware of this but there is an extreme brain drain here and if you look at the cities they are going to you will see just why they went there. Yes good sewers factors in, but so does the quality of life projects I just mentioned and all of that is still the tip of the iceberg so everyone better get ready because we are going to build! We are going to build downtown and we are going to Save Roberts Stadium!
That whole sewers before stadiums thing was nothing more than a gimmick. I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me how the 3 funding sources for the arena are going to be used for sewers when they are specifically earmarked for tourism and special districts. ANYONE?
Again, please understand that the city has more than one hand. To say its sewers OR stadiums just isn’t truthful.
I’m still waiting for sewers before I-69 or sewers before giving the EVSC 149 mil to go blow on a school out in the boondocks. Now you can sign me up for that!
Next………….
You do understand that there are limits to the amount of bonded indebtedness a city of Evansville’s size and economic strength can take on, don’t you Rail?
The fact that the funds for the Stadium are supposedly coming from earmarked sources is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that money is both fungible and finite, especially in Evansville. If you spend money you don’t have from sources that are inadequate to the size of the projects you undertake, you will end up broke. That’s where Evansville is headed.
Speaking of funding sources, do you understand that Evansville is not paying for I-69? Not a penny. It is a state and federal project. It also is a PROVEN driver of economic development, unlike ballfields and municipal arenas, which never make money. The school I could go either way on. But at least it is something that will lead to the betterment of our community, which is woefully under-educated as compared to national standards.
You strike me as someone who is idealistic, but terribly naive and uninformed. You have no sense of the cost of things like a “ballpark village” a canal and a marina. Why not just advocate building a NASCAR track, an Olympic Village, and a spaceport while you’re at it?
As long as someone else is paying for it, it might as well be free, eh?
Ah let’s see..
Ballpark- $35-$50 mil ( granted we must get the slack water port issue worked out first)
Canal- $20-$30 mil
Ballpark Village- probably $10 mil but would be a private developer
Marina- ok I have no approx ans but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say it would be < the $20 mil for the canal.
Thats approx = or < $110 million ($40 mil < EVSC project). $400 million has already been spent downtown and $110 million would easily be covered by a MAPS program. The land value aroud these two areas would skyrocket. They always do around canals and ballparks but here we go again " Lets not aim for where the ball is going, let's aim to where it is or is coming from."
You're idea that nothing should be built downtown is laughable and will never make it here. You can't name one successful city in the U.S that has taken a laissez faire attitude and succeeded. It just doesn't work. Period.
I'm not even going to get into an I-69 argument. You're way too far off base for me to even try that.
I don't know about a NASCAR track but we do need a NASCAR Speedpark here as well as the development the museum is currently undertaking.
1) Nobody has said that “nothing should be built downtown.” That is a strawman argument. It would be akin to my saying: “your idea that EVERYTHING should be built downtown is laughable…”
2) Judging by your name, you’re probably one of the freshly brainwashed young graduates of our fine institutions of higher learning. I guess your argument is that we should build a “light rail system” connecting Boonville, Chandler, and Tell City to Evansville. LOL.
3) This entire discussion is about priorities. Why are you so concerned with what other cities, especially cities 3 and 4 times our size, are doing? Do they have all the answers? More importantly, do you think that the fact that their tax base is EXPANDING and is already 3-4 times the size of Evansville might have something to do with the quality of life measures they can successfully undertake.
That’s the problem with all of the pie-in-the-sky stadium supporters. You think the tail can wag the dog that by building an arena we’ll actually spark economic development and reverse brain drain. That is false. the only way to spark economic development and reverse brain drain is to create jobs…Once that happens, it will make sense to take on capital projects like a stadium.
Evansville is like a poor family that wants to emulate their rich cousins. “Heck, they bought a Lexus, and a Sea-Doo, and a Labra-doodle, too! We ought to do that!”
Yeah, well, your cousins have a job, pay their bills on time, and aren’t in debt up their eyeballs.
4) What about a spaceport?
There you go again Outside Observer just spin, spin, spinning.
1. You’ve complained and complained about this huge overriding debt (even though most of it is due to new schools, new libraries, new roads, etc) and you’ve complained about the new arena and now you’re saying you’re not against building downtown. I’m just curious, please tell something you think should go downtown. You’ve listed what you don’t want, now tell me what you would accept and maybe we just might find something we could work on together for the town.
2. Yes I am about 2 years removed from college but for the record in no way shape or form am I a product of the system. I hated college the whole time I was there, I will never donate a dollar to my university, and I hope I never ever have to spend one second on campus again. These universities are a joke and I want nothing to do with them.
Yes I do support rail. I’m not sure about a light rail to boonville, chandler, tell city. I believe in high speed rail, and I believe in intra city light rail ( and personal rapid transit) maybe going to henderson though. I despise the auto and want nothing to do with it. I could see you supporting something auto based though.
3. No it’s not. This was nothing but a political scheme that went nowhere. You still haven’t told me how you’re going to finance sewers with tourist taxes.
And since this ” O no we can’t be that mighty OKC” why don’t you look at what Augusta,GA is going to build http://www.bringbaseballdowntown.com/renderings.asp
Better yet, why don’t you look at all the cities in minor league baseball and the NBDL and tell me those are all cities outside of Evansville’s goal.
All these woe is me people in this city are getting ridiculous. They act like it’s detroit here. In no way shape or form am I satisfied with the current state of the city. But come on people, fighting every project to the core isn’t going to get you anywhere.
That’s why we need MAPS. If we continue to try to go project by project piecemealed we will never get past the NIMBY’s here.
4. I guess this is your attempt to be funny. I’m very glad you aren’t in Huntsville. Northern Alabama isn’t necessarily Houston or Florida but I don’t see them sitting on the side line.
I love it when people that have absolutely no concept of what it takes to present a concert use the concerts that have been in Roberts Stadium as proof we don’t need a top notch arena. The roofing trusses at the Roberts will not hold the major rigging needed for a full scale concert. What do you do when the structure won’t hold that weight? You rent trussing on pneumatic lifts to raise the trussing. If you can’t use the tour trussing with the equipment already in it what do you do? You also rent the equipment with the trussing. So how much extra per ticket or how much profit do you lose to rent truss, lifts, lighting, labor to hang, focus, and cable? To add an extra day to the concert cost to install the equipment? To pay union overtime to load in? If you really don’t know anything about a subject, I suggest you stop making up lies and passing them off at the truth.
RailOverAuto:
The system won’t allow further replies in our thread, so I’m re-starting it here.
Your basic mistake is that you fail to understand two things: priorities and scale.
1) Priorities
Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, and jobs should be at the top of the list in Evansville. We need a mayor and a business community that is willing to go out and recruit new business to the area. Two problems with that: a) it’s hard work with no guaranteed “reward,” so no politician is likely to take it on, and b) the local business community is so intent on protecting its turf that it views any outsiders as unwelcome competition.
Evansville is going to have to get lucky in this regard. Either some local entrepreneurs will have to stay in the area and create highly successful, growth-oriented businesses, or a large corporation is going to have to decide to invest $$$ in Evansville. Unfortunately, the opposite is happening. Entrepreneurs flee Evansville as fast as they can, and large corporations like Whirlpool continue to seek friendlier places.
2) Scale
Regardless of what Evansville WAS, it is now a small, shrinking rust belt town with a low average incomes, low education levels, an aging population, and a toxic business and political climate. You mention Detroit–Evansville is right up there with Detroit in terms of the rate of shrinkage.
There are limits to what Evansville can do. I’m sorry if you don’t want to hear that, but it is the simple, immovable, immutable truth. Perhaps it would help to separate Evansville from the equation for a moment to illustrate the point: let’s take Madisonville, KY as an example. Would it make sense for Madisonville to build a $150MM municipal arena? How about your ballpark village? Or Boonville. Should Boonville “invest” in a Nascar speedpark? Perhaps a multimillion dollar highrise condominium compex for Mt. Vernon?
You see the point. Evansville trying to do the things you describe is like a snake trying to eat a hippopotamus. Even if we can pry open our jaws wide enough to get it in…it ain’t going to be pretty on the other end.
Now, you asked me what I think would work downtown. I’ll tell you: I thought Russ Lloyd’s baseball park was a great idea. It was relatively cheap, and Evansville is a baseball-loving town.
I also think it is a tragedy that Weinzapfel and his cronies have helped destroy Aztar. That property was primed for re-invention as more of an “urban casino” experience, but the mayor allowed his outsized ego to destroy the relationship between the casino and the town.
But again, these are side-shows. The real issue is economic development, or the lack thereof. If we had corporations relocating to Evansville or entrepreneurs staying in Evansville, perhaps they would use PRIVATE funds to build facilities downtown. There’s a novel concept for you, eh?
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