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September 18, 2008
Yankees didn't blink when lawmakers swung
A congressional panel found the new Yankee Stadium to be a "waste and abuse of public dollars," but baseball executives and city officials stood by the project.
AP via Crain's NY Business
Crain's slapped the hugely misleading headline above onto this report from the AP, misleading because the reason the Yankees didn't blink was because they weren't even in the ballpark! No one from the Yankees was on hand to testify (it's reported that someone from the team may appear in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on October 7th), and city officials, as was reported yesterday, couldn't be bothered.
The original AP headline, which you can see here, was "Yankee Stadium deal criticized by lawmakers."
Rep. Dennis Kucinich said Thursday he found "waste and abuse of public dollars" in the financing of the new stadium under construction in the South Bronx.
Mr. Kucinich is an Ohio Democrat who heads a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee. He charged that city officials misrepresented to the IRS the value of the property, helping them to get special tax deals from the federal government and in effect dumping the cost of construction onto taxpayers. No one from the either the city or the Yankees spoke at the hearing.
..."In the case of the new Yankee Stadium, not only have we found waste and abuse of public dollars subsidizing a project that is for the exclusive benefit of a private entity, the Yankees, but also we have discovered serious questions about the accuracy of certain representations made by the City of New York to the federal government," Mr. Kucinich said.
The panel's investigation found "substantial evidence of improprieties and possible fraud by the financial architects of the new Yankee Stadium," he added.
The criticism highlights tensions felt nationwide as governments increasingly support stadiums for profitable pro sports teams with multimillion dollar payrolls.
Rep. Laura Watson, D-Calif., said her hometown of Los Angeles has gone without a professional football team for decades because city officials are unwilling to pay for a new stadium.
Given the current financial crisis gripping the U.S. economy, she said it made no sense for taxpayers to pay for construction of buildings for the benefit of sports owner tycoons.
"In this country we have allowed the upper class to destroy the middle class," Ms. Watson charged.
NoLandGrab: While Yankees and City officials may be standing by the project, it's not surprising that they wouldn't want to testify in front of a Congressional subcommittee, since if they did so under oath, their "standing by the project" would likely result in perjury charges.
And shame on Crain's for such naked boosterism of the Yankees, and projects like Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards. They may call themselves the most trusted name in New York business, but preaching socialism for big corporations and sports teams and capitalism for taxpayers and small businesses is intellectually, and morally, bankrupt.
Posted by eric at September 18, 2008 4:29 PM