as far as i can remember... this is what we asked for before mayor gray ********ed us on poplar point
No we didn't. But the Post spun it that way, not once but twice. David Nakamura and Marc Fisher worked as hard as they could to kill Poplar Point, Nakamura's argument when confronted was that infrastructure work was the same as paying for the stadium. Of course, Poplar Point died because Fenty wanted his cronies to be the master developers. By the way, how does Poplar Point look today? And then came the PG debacle where one protester at the announcement news conference got like four paragraphs in a nine paragraph story in the Post.
The same Fisher went on either Colbert or Stewart to debate against soccer's legitimacy as a sport in America. And it was one of those "joking, but not really" things. To be fair to the District, though, the infrastructure costs for developing a soccer stadium or anything else at Poplar Point were astronomical, and the idea only works if a large proportion of the plot gets developed in a short amount of time. Because of the Great Recession, if it had been built, it probably would have been a disaster. Also, while Victor MacFarlane did propose to pay for land, nowhere that I know of was it ever disclosed how much he was proposing to pay, or if it was anywhere near enough to actually make it worthwhile. (And again, in hindsight, if he had proposed to pay market value or anything close, he'd have gone bankrupt and the city would still have wound up stiffed.)
Yes indeed. He was calling the Fenty Administration "we" in emails to his chief of staff. BTW, he still works at the Post.
I think it's a fair argument to say that since there are more home games in a baseball season, and more tickets sold overall for baseball (I'm completely pulling that out of my ass, but my guess is it's true - at least for this past season), that the economic impact is greater. Unless they are talking about the impact of actually building the stadium in which case I agree with you.
Sadly, this happens all the time. Newspaper person needs a story and the politician has one to sell. It's a match made in heaven. Only we naively assume the newspaper person is objective and came up with the story all on their own, because they are so talented and professional. When in reality, some staff person called them up and gave them a "scoop" on the story they want to put out there. Massive collusion. Move along, nothing to see here.
Hmmm. That description of the relationship between an organization, a reporter, and a reporter's stories seems familiar to me.
Personally, I kinda doubt it. I think it was more garden variety sensationalism. Newspapers are about selling newspapers. But a big pricetag somewhere near a stadium without explaining how they relate, you generate sticker shock. Generate sticker shock, you provoke anger. Anger sells newspapers. The City Paper stories on Nakamura also smelled sensationalistic to me. I think it's true that the administration fed Nakamura a line on Poplar Point and that he was only to happy to run with it without any skepticism, for sure, but I think that's because he knew it was juicier than a truth that would have been difficult to impossible to track down, and would read as 'weaker' even when he did. But basically the same thing was done with the Nakamura story from the way I read it (which is why the Post wasn't embarrassed enough to bury him for a while on an obscure beat, instead giving him national politics, which is essentially a promotion at the Post). The PG County tale, though, came off to me as a political hit.
Stuff like this doesn't help. Just happened to see when I was reading this article. Although maybe this can just be another reason to hate the Pink Cows for being dead beats. 9. Harrison, N.J. > Credit Rating: Ba2 > 2011 general fund revenue: $36.8 million > 2011 general fund debt: $113.8 million > Median income: $51,193 In 2006, Harrison guaranteed $39.4 million in bonds to buy land for the Red Bull Arena, the stadium used by the New York Red Bulls. The deal has not been profitable for Harrison. Condominium developments, expected to help pay off the stadium, were not finished as of last June. Additionally, for several years the Red Bulls refused to pay property taxes. In July, the franchise paid the town $5.6 million in overdue taxes after a judge ruled the arena was taxable. In late 2011 the state of New Jersey created a $1 million reserve fund to help pay off the city’s debt. Since last October, the town’s credit rating has improved from Ba3 with a negative outlook to Ba2 with a positive outlook. http://247wallst.com/2012/10/25/thirteen-american-cities-going-broke/2/
It's unfortunate that this kind of publicity gets out there, because it's missing some important parts of the situation: The "Condominium developments, expected to help pay off the stadium" bit is inaccurate, because the Red Bulls paid for the stadium itself. The government paid for land acquisition, but they also paid for land acquisition for the condos. The city would actually be better off at the moment (if/when the real estate market returns, that may change) if they had done only the land for the stadium. The biggest cost was a parking lot that is mostly about the PATH train, it's just that the stadium provides a certain number of extra parkers for it. As to the property tax, what seems to have happened there is that the city, when it got into a financial pinch, went back and re-valued the property (which in this case doesn't include the land, since the Red Bulls don't own it, only the structure that sits on it) at more than it originally was, the Red Bulls disputed it, and withheld payment pending the dispute. Essentially, Harrison went nearly broke on a real estate deal, as many cities have during the recession. The only part of that deal that did materialize was the stadium.
So does anyone have any thoughts about if / how the DC elections yesterday might affect Buzzard Point moving forward?
I think having Jack Evans on DCU's side is huge (and having more money & influence don't hurt, either).