So they are trying to force a new arena down our throats. Apparently the state (the tax payers) will pay for most of it. John Moag says that it could cost close to $400 million. Last year the citizens of Maryland were told that we had a budget shortfall and that our sales tax would go from 5% to 6% in order to generate $780 million. The current arena is profitable by the way. Would you rather the state magically come up with $400 million for a new arena or would you rather them not spend money they either have or do not have and drop the sales tax back to 5%?
If we had a budget shortfall last year then I do not see how we suddenly have an extra $400 million to overpay politically connected developers to build a new arena that we do not need. The state is setting a horrible example by spending money they do not have on things they do not need!
We are not getting another major league professional team! We will just end up like Kansas City with a brand new arena and a few more events a year. Do you really want to be the next Kansas City or do you want to be Seattle where they stand up to the corporate bully otherwise known as the NBA?
Right now our arena is profitable and it is a positive economic contributor to Baltimore. At the end of the day after you consider the following factors will Baltimore and Maryland end up in a better economic situation once the new arena is built?
- To build a new arena the old one must be shut down for two years. No revenue will be generated, no taxes will be collected, no people will come to an event and spend at surrounding businesses, no parking garages will be filled...
- The new arena will cost close to $400 million. Where will the money come from?
- How quickly will the arena be able to generate a +$400 million impact for the state of Maryland?
- Will we end up with a 6.5% sales tax to fund this new arena?
- Once the new arena is fully operational will it be as profitable as the old one?
- Once the new arena is fully operational will it really attract new events that the old one could not? How profitable will these events be and how much money will they bring in for the local economy?
Comments
I love how the Examiner is jumping to conclusions and saying we will have to raise sales tax and then passing their bias assumptions as news. Bravo.
If Adam Meister's scribe spreads his innate enthusiasm for all things Baltimore--and, in particular, the political inner workings of his beloved hometown, he would be for a stadium that would revitalize a dying west side and possibly bring another sports team here.
It's just too much money. Until the property values turn around, this is too big a project to swallow for the taxpayers. Adam is right.
Let's try something new this time and have Ed Hale build it with his own money. The people's money has built enough in a city that continues to go broke. If the people come, the money spent on the construction will be returned two fold. The other day I was at the ballpark and that new hotel O'Malley built is an empty eye sore. How much did that cost 'we the people'? I also feel safer driving to Hershey Park, PA to see a concert than I would to drive in the city of Baltimore. Just today there were two more shot in broad daylight.
Waaaaaaaaaah! I hate progress! Waaaaaaaaaah!
Hey Adam, why don't you put on one of those leftover diapers that you were passing out at the Ravens-Browns game?
MK--Enthusiasm is not the same as ignorance. The new arena is not about getting a new sports team. It's about padding pockets with over-taxed taxpayer dollars.
Hey, Cal, get your owns facts straight. Examiner.com is not The Examiner newspaper. And Examiners are not reporters--which makes them more credible in some ways.
So we will still have high taxes in the city, but now we will have people driving in from the suburbs, clogging our streets, to come and enjoy a brand new venue.
No matter what you put downtown, people won't move back to the city until the property tax goes down and the quality of the schools go up.
O'Malley and Franchot are bamboozeling you if you think the sales tax is at 6% now. Check out the tax bracket sheet on the comptroller's site. The first six cents of the tax starts at eighty four cents, not a dollar. Any tax would have to increase to an actual 7 cents on a dollar.
http://business.marylandtaxes.com/taxinfo/salesanduse/tax_rate_chart.pdf
The new arena is a joke. They will build a peice of crap facility and we will not be able to attract an NHL or NBA team. Even if we were to get a team (Looooong shot), who is going to these games? Anyone been to a Caps or Wizards game lately? Baltimore cannot support a third franchise.
Moreover, who wants to go to that area at night anyway? I work down there in the day and it is scary enough with all the mentally ill homeless people and people begging for dough on every corner.
Well it's good to see our government has the priorities straight. But instead of a tax hike, couldn't we just close a couple more fire houses or maybe a school or two...
The only budget shortfall last year was that O'Malley didn't have enough money to spend. After they blow all the money they have stolen from the taxpayers, they will be back for more. Of course there will be another crises like the schools falling down or not enough money to give the illeagal aliens health care. When you vote for liberals this is what you get. The only thing liberal about them is their fiscal policy.
Carole has it correct. Let the team owners pay for it.
The real bias is with the Sun paper.I knew it would be bad with O`malley in there but not to this degree.Just wait until the Dems control everything.The Carter years all over again.
Everyone one else is quoting price of 300 million. Where did the extra 100 million dollars come from? Where are you pulling this 6.5% sales tax from?
I guess we don't need sources here at the examiner.com. When you learn from the Fox News school of journalism, you can just make things up and pass it as news.
Adam, this proposed new arena is going to cost far more than $400 million. Meantime, the new taxes that O'Malley has already slammed upon us are a horrible burden, and he's already planning a much larger tax increase come the next session of the legislature in January of '09 and because it's a democrat majority state we're really going to be socked. AND the planned tax increase in '09 doesn't even take into consideration this $400 plus million for the arena. When are the taxpayers going to finally wake up and say, "NO, we can't afford this"?
MK- "John Moag says that it could cost close to $400 million"
That is a quote from my post.
Do you know who John Moag is? Moag was one of the main people behind the Ravens moving to Baltimore. He knowns about franchise relocation and stadium costs.
http://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/stories/1999/09/06/focus2.html
Issues I have with your reporting in this article:
1. Your logic for potentially rising the sales tax is that the state of MD was 800 million in the red last year, so they would have to raise it by a half point to pay for it. That 1% rise in sales tax probably nets far more than that each year. Not to mention it isn't 400 million dollars annually! By your logic we would be funding the construction for a new arena each year in tax dollars. The article title is extremely misleading. Your source apparently is your own failed accounting.
The reason for the sales tax raise was to improve Maryland in general. In order to modernize the state we needed more revenue. While we could have balanced our budget by cutting programs like education and transportation, a raise would allow us to minimize losses and reinvest in infrastructure. If I am paying more for sales tax I want to see improvements like this. A new arena I can enjoy and take my children to is a good reward for slightly higher taxes. In order to fund a new arena, and perhaps new projects such as additional rail lines and a second bay bridge, I am willing to pay slightly higher taxes. This is what the raise was for! These are sorely needed projects that could not be funded under the Ehrlich budget. To theorize that taxes will go up again is absurd.
2. I cannot find where John Moag said 400 million. The article you pointed to as a “source” is more than 9 years old. I also have not seen John Moag actually say that anywhere, unless he said it directly to you or another examiner "reporter." While I would concede his expert opinion as a former chairman on the stadium authority, other credible sources are quoting an estimated 300 million. Construction costs may very well exceed 100 million; however that is a lot of money to just throw out there.
Source: http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/other/bal-te.arena25jul25,0,5729320.story
3. Your article also assumes that a new arena in Baltimore will be a financial failure and the tax payer will carry the burden. The same was said about the Inner Harbor in the late 70's and that Baltimore could never support a football team in the early 90's. We heard naysayers like you say the same about the Convention Center and the recently built convention headquarters hotel, both of which have already proved to be hugely successful.
Naming rights for new arenas alone net close to 100 million in long term deals.
The only thing holding our city back is a defeatist attitude. Smaller cities have succeeded in luring pro NBA franchises recently, such as Oklahoma City (whose total metro area is half of Baltimore). “If we build it they will come.” There are a lot of unhappy Hockey and Basketball franchises that would love a shiny new 18.5k capacity arena with a fresh new fan base.
This arena is an investment for the next 50 years. With gas prices on the rise more and more people are moving to the city to be closer to work, the population in Baltimore is increasing. The city is a much safer place than it was even 10 years ago. It is getting bigger and better. Maybe if you stopped trying to pass your speculative blogging as real news and got out of your parents basement and took a walk around downtown, you’d see the progress the city is making. This is not an investment for the present, but for the long term future of the whole struggling west side. Baltimore is big enough for 3 world class venues and that many sport franchises. It even supports two newspapers, one good and a second mediocre free one. The stadium is a foundation of hope for the city. It says that our leaders are not scared to take chances in its future and neither should its people. If you don’t think Baltimore is worthy to be invested in, maybe you should live somewhere else.
Let's get this Democrat out of office before no one can afford to live in Maryland.
The money can be better spent elsewhere.
While a new arena would be great the current one is adequate for it's existing bookings. When the economy improves the issue can be revisited, but for now tax dollars shouldn't be appropriated for this.
Bloomberg and Patterson from NY just held a press conference to warn of impending revenue loss in the city and state and that taxpayers would have to be prepared for belt-tightening. And what does Maryland talk about? Spending more. Let's wait until economic forecast is looking up rather than down before making an investment.
People sure do think small in this "town".
Oh there is no doubt this arena will get built. We live in Maryland; do you expect anything except cronyism and corruption? And while taxpayers will pay for it, bet the average family, once it is built, won't be able to afford to attend events there. One excuse our leaders always use for building new sports venues is increased revenue and jobs. What I would like to see is just what percentage (no, an exact number) of those jobs provide wages enough to LIVE on. We never hear about that.
There is a reason that, with some exceptions, most of the best recording artists bypass Baltimore entirely and play in nearby DC or Atlantic City or Virginia or New York. It's called incompetence. And in Maryland, incompetence by our political leaders is and has always been elevated to an art form, proudly practiced.
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