First off, I have to state that I am against the use of public funding for stadiums. The information below is simply to answer some questions on finance and funding.
Jeremy Wieland wrote:
One question that I have for both the pro- and anti-stadium crowd is why we can't hang the public obligation for a new stadium on ticket prices?
Supply and demand. A surcharge just adds to the ticket cost. The higher that you make ticket prices, the fewer people that will buy them. The Twins would argue that they have set ticket prices so they get the maximum amount of money from the consumer. That amount of money does not let them both maintain a viable team, pay talent at the market rate, and pay for a stadium. That is why they are looking for public financing of the stadium. Mark Snyder wrote
Because bond interest rates are determined in part by the "risk" associated
with a project. Taxpayer-backed bonds are lower risk than bonds backed by ticket surcharges and so the interest rates are lower and the overall project cost is lower.. This is correct. The City (or another governmental entity) pledges what is known as its "full faith and credit" meaning that the taxpayers will step up should something happen to the pledged revenue sources (tickets, parking, etc). St Paul had issues with this when hockey took a year off and there were no revenues to pay bonds. I would remind folks of how we financed the Metrodome. Love it or hate it, it was paid for almost solely by user charges (ticket surcharge, food surcharge, etc). There was a county sales tax for like a year and a downtown sales tax for a couple of years. That was blinked off in about 1983ish and then no longer necessary as the internal revenue sources were enough to make the project work. This worked because the Metrodome was well, cheap as far as stadiums go. It would seem to me that there would be stadiums that could be built with a ticket surcharge/concession surcharge/parking surcharge but they would be much more modest than what is being currently proposed. No surprising, in looking around the Country where stadiums have been privately financed, they are much more modest and public involvement seems to mean a more expensive stadium. Because of this, I would like to see a proposal that says, "We can get this much from internal sources and this is what we can build with it" to reconnect the funding available to the asset being built. Carol Becker Longfellow Future Member, Board of Estimate and Taxation (And for fun info, the stadium proposed before the Metrodome was killed at the Board of Estimate and Taxation..) REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
