Pyrrho
31st January 2004, 08:19 AM
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/summit/1075545450213370.xml
Cleveland developer Bert Wolstein is giving local and state officials 60 days to help him build a $110 million soccer stadium or he will abandon his efforts to bring a major league outdoor soccer franchise to Northeast Ohio.
These guys gall me. Cleveland has a football stadium, a baseball stadium, a basketball arena, and a "convocation center" at the downtown university which also hosts sporting events, all built using public money and increase taxes. Lately there has been a lot of talk about raising public money and raising taxes to build a new convention center to replace the old one. Now, this developer is demanding public money and increased taxes for a new soccer stadium.
In all of these cases, the mantra has been that the new stadium/arena/convocation center/whathaveyou will generate millions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of jobs, and the promise that the downtown district will be revitalized. Well, downtown Cleveland is deteriorating, dozens of policemen and firemen have recently been laid off, companies with decent jobs are leaving, and the districts that the new facilities supposedly would revitalize are pretty much the same, except for a few new restaurants which seem to change management frequently.
He wants a stadium? Let him pay for it himself.
Cleveland developer Bert Wolstein is giving local and state officials 60 days to help him build a $110 million soccer stadium or he will abandon his efforts to bring a major league outdoor soccer franchise to Northeast Ohio.
These guys gall me. Cleveland has a football stadium, a baseball stadium, a basketball arena, and a "convocation center" at the downtown university which also hosts sporting events, all built using public money and increase taxes. Lately there has been a lot of talk about raising public money and raising taxes to build a new convention center to replace the old one. Now, this developer is demanding public money and increased taxes for a new soccer stadium.
In all of these cases, the mantra has been that the new stadium/arena/convocation center/whathaveyou will generate millions of dollars in revenue and hundreds of jobs, and the promise that the downtown district will be revitalized. Well, downtown Cleveland is deteriorating, dozens of policemen and firemen have recently been laid off, companies with decent jobs are leaving, and the districts that the new facilities supposedly would revitalize are pretty much the same, except for a few new restaurants which seem to change management frequently.
He wants a stadium? Let him pay for it himself.