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January 14, 2009
Yankin' Our Chain
Here's a round-up of some of today's stories about the Great Yankee Stadium Swindle.
amNY, City's share of Yankee stadium costs double
The city’s costs for the new Yankee Stadium have more than doubled in two years, said City Comptroller William Thompson, who accused the Bloomberg administration of low-balling its original estimate.
The capital cost for the city is now $325 million, up from its estimate of $129 million in 2006, the comptroller’s office said today.
“It’s willful. Costs don’t just go up dramatically like this,” said Thompson, a mayoral candidate.
...“The Yankees have spent $423.5 million on free agents this offseason — for them and the city to ask New York’s hard working taxpayers to foot the ever expanding bill on the new stadium is nonsensical and unfair, especially in difficult economic times,” said Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Queens), a candidate for public advocate.
The New York Times, Yankee Stadium Burdens Mayor’s Campaign
With a vote set on Friday on whether to extend $372 million in additional tax-free financing for the new Yankee Stadium, challengers to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg are trying to halt the subsidies. State lawmakers have subpoenaed team and city officials to an emergency hearing on Wednesday, and what once looked like a gleaming example of the mayor’s financial skill is suddenly looking like one of his biggest vulnerabilities.
...What could give the stadium issue traction this year, however, is the city’s dire financial condition — presenting a stark contrast between struggling, insecure New Yorkers who don’t earn major league salaries, and the hundreds of millions of dollars the new stadium complex is costing them.
NoLandGrab: Remember, Bloomberg engineered the overturning of term limits on the ridiculous premise that only he could guide us through the current economic crisis. By giving our money away to the Yankees?
The New York Times, A New Yankee Stadium, the Same Old Politics
The city is proud of the deal, officials say, because it will create “1,000 permanent new jobs.” If you scratch into the official filings, it turns out that there are actually only 22 new full-time jobs expected. The rest are seasonal positions — valuable, certainly, but only if they really exist.
And what if the team doesn’t create 1,000 new jobs? Does the city have any mechanism to hold the team accountable, to get back some of its investment?
Asked about this on Tuesday, Mr. Lombino, the spokesman for development corporation, said there is none.
The New York Times, Yankees Try New Strategy to Market Premium Seats
The Yankees have hired a division of a prominent Manhattan residential real estate brokerage, Prudential Douglas Elliman, to help sell some of their prime real estate: unsold premium seats and luxury boxes at the new Yankee Stadium.
...Levine said that hiring Prudential Douglas Elliman was not an indication of a slow sales pace on high-end seats at the $1.3 billion stadium. Seven luxury suites remained to be sold, out of 59, and about 1,000 of 4,000 premium seats were available.
NoLandGrab: Sure, Randy, they're sellin' like hot cakes. So why did you have to hire Prudential Douglas Elliman? The Yankees haven't gotten any better at telling the truth in the 30 years since then-manager Billy Martin said "one's a born liar, and the other's convicted," in reference to rightfielder Reggie Jackson and owner George Steinbrenner.
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance, YanKeys to the City
Our old friend Richard Lipsky, who loves the Atlantic Yards project, hates the idea of subsidizing Yankee Stadium. Just for fun, substitute "Atlantic Yards" for "Yankee Stadium" in the passage below:
So, as we anticipate another election cycle where Mike Bloomberg will once again break all spending records, dramatically injecting his own version of an economic stimulus into the local economy primarily for his own benefit, we will be able to add the Yankee Stadium development to a long list of mega projects launched by a mayor who has lost sight of the needs of average New Yorkers in the pursuit of monuments to his own ego.
Posted by eric at January 14, 2009 10:30 AM