by Susan Ives, Alamo PC

 Arena. 

 On November 2nd we will be voting on whether to build a $175 million tax-funded arena for the world-championship San Antonio Spurs, financed by a 1 ¾ percent increase in the hotel occupancy tax and a 5 percent increase in car rental receipts. Now, I'm not going to tell you how to vote. But I am going to show you how the Internet can be used to make you a smarter voter. 

 The logical place to start is at the Bexar County website. They have a section on the arena proposal, which includes everything from the ballot language to a comparison between the city and county proposals. The documents are in Adobe Acrobat format, so if you haven't yet installed the free Acrobat Reader, now is the time. Get it at www.adobe.com. 

 Now that the city is out of the arena funding race you won't find anything on their website. However, the next time there's ballot, the best place to look is the public information office. They still have the stuff online about May's bond vote, and will undoubtedly put stuff up the next time we hit the polls. 

 The Express-News hasn't set up a special section where they archive the dirt about the arena, but several columnists have written about it and you can read their past columns: 

• Rick Casey
• Mike Greenberg
• Carlos Guerra
• Travis Poling
• Roddy Stinson

 Other cities have struggled with the arena funding issue, and their experiences can help us make a wise decision. 

 A report from the Brookings Institution predicts that more than $7 billion will be spent on new facilities for professional sports teams before 2006. Economists Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist analyzed the four justifications given for public subsidies of arenas: building the facility creates construction jobs; people who attend games or work for the team generate new spending in the community; a team attracts tourists and companies to the host city and, finally, all this new spending has a "multiplier effect" as increased local income causes still more new spending and job creation. They think it's all horse puckey. 

The Brookings article is based on a book, Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums by the same authors. Other books on this topic are Field of Schemes and Major League Losers. All three are available from Amazon.com, and the second two are on the shelves in the San Antonio Public Library. 

 The Field of Schemes website is out-of-date (they still refer to the aborted tax increment funded stadium in the Northwest rock quarry as a viable plan) but their top-ten list of dumb reasons to build a stadium is a classic. My favorite: "Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell, who moved his team to Baltimore in exchange for a new stadium built entirely at public expense, told reporters that "The pride and presence of a professional football team is more important than 30 libraries." Not to me, Art! 

 A group called Grassroots Against Government-Mandated Entertainment bluntly calls their website Anti-Stadium. From Minnesota, they started out protesting subsidies for a new Twins baseball stadium and now have their beady eyes trained on Red McCombs, the San Antonio Car dealer who own the Minnesota Vikings. Good links to other cities, and some useful economic analysis here. 

Ohio State Senator Charles Horn is bugged about stadium subsidies and has a great list of links on his site. Especially good was an article by Washington Post writer Neil Pierce, Worm Turns on Stadium Ripoffs. He wrote, "Academia weighed in with hard analysis showing that the projections of big local economic gains from stadia, provided by self-interested promoters and their hired economists, tend to be so much baloney.." 

The New York based New Rules Project is an advocate of community-owned sports franchises. Executive director Dan Kraker puts the economic impact of pro sports into perspective: "… stadium subsidies suck valuable funding resources away from struggling city centers. In the wake of the Oilers' move to Nashville, Houston mayor Bob Lanier passionately defended his city's choice to fund neighborhoods, parks, police, and youth programs over a new stadium "playground." 

 The National Conference of State Legislatures has an extensive report online. It's called Playing the Stadium Game: Financing Professional Sports Facilities in the '90s. They conclude, "As long as stadiums continue to generate revenues and as long as teams seek better stadium deals, the debate on the public financing of stadiums will continue." Another legislative perspective is offered in The Committee On The Judiciary Legislative And Oversight Hearing On "Professional Sports Franchise Relocation: Antitrust Implications." It's fun just reading the list of people who testified, which includes former Senator John Glenn and Mr. John "Big Dawg" Thompson, Cleveland Browns Fan. You gotta love it. 
 
 

Because the arena vote is scheduled for November 2nd, this article was posted to the Internet early, in advance of the publication of the magazine.

 Susan Ives, the past president of Alamo PC, votes early and often.