Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Financial Concern

[These are the quotes from various sources.]

Arguments will be made that there is ancillary revenue from sports facilities, restaurant, bars, hotels, etc. Probably true, except look at the neighborhood around the Oakland Colesium. If sports facilities brought positive economic development, that area would be booming and prosperous. It is neither.

The A’s claim the entire development will come at no cost from the City of Fremont. I don’t understand how they can make such irresponsible promise as they also seem financially stranded in the current economic downturn. Who will pay the large bill on the infrastructure, road upgrade, maintenance, extra police, etc?

Once the project starts, it will be point of no return, whether you like it or not (sound familiar?). Fremont could be dragged down into deep financial trouble. The A's proposal looks appealing, but I don't think city size of Fremont can sustain such big financial impact. It's better to leave it to big cities. We don't want to see our tax money drain down to help the A's.

The costs behind this stadium are extremely costly! Especially with America's economy slowly dying, this is one of the last things we need.

Research suggests that though citizens bear the cost for the building and upkeep of stadiums they do not partake of the profits.

A stadium in Fremont will only be a burden to the tax payers and also allow for more congestion. Studies have been done showing that stadiums are more a burden than an asset.

No need for any sports arena/stadium for fremont. City and tax payer money is not needed for the multi-millionre sports owner and players. Focus on city's fiscal dicipline and be frugal and run the government like private industry. Reduce the annual compensation of all city employee's which is very high compared to people who work in private industry. $650K for the shed in Lake Elizabeth is a classic example of how ineffective government organizations run. Save every penny and take care of residents and don't waste money and bring crime to city by calling any sports franchise. We don't need. Thanks.

The current Warm Springs has very nice residential neighborhoods and Pacific Commons commercial sites are great success. Please don't bring the A's to ruin us.

2 comments:

  1. The Warm Springs property is not in a re-development zone and not eligible for "tax increment financing" according to Jennifer Lin of East Bay Sustainable Economy. So how will the A's finance this? See ariticle "Field of Schemes" (google it). Also if Pac Commons was to be developed under the tax increment financing then Fremont would not see property taxes or sales tax from the stadium. Hmmm. Catellus/Prologis (PLD)the developer of Pac Commons has a $350 million dollar loan comming due in 2009 and they are at risk. See "doomed stocks" on Motley Fool. Where is our tax revenue in this? Why are we listening to Catellus? Janet

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  2. From: http://newballpark.blogspot.com/2008/05/may-day-faq-day.html
    Q: Will the project be as beneficial for the city/county as is being claimed by its proponents?

    Claims of economic benefit have to be taken with several grains of salt. Let’s be clear. The party that clearly wins in this type of deal is the team. They get a brand new stadium without having to use much of their stadium-generated revenue to pay for it. The city wins because it doesn’t have to raise or levy new taxes in order to get it done, plus it gets a fancy new source of sales tax revenue in the process plus the prestige that comes with having a team call it home. That said it removes a major piece of valuable industrial-zoned land from availability within Silicon Valley. It also adds residents and visitors, which adds strain to an already stretched-thin city.
    Jobs will come most immediately in the form of concrete construction and are not permanent. 300 housing starts a year will be a boon for homebuilders. After construction is completed, there will be a number of retail and hospitality jobs, plus stadium operations and concessions. Many of the ballpark-based, non-construction jobs will be low paying. The situation there will be close to zero sum, since those job will simply be moving from Oakland to Fremont. A number of public sector jobs – police, fire – will be added due to the development’s impact on existing city resources.

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