Sports Arena: Who Should Pay for It?

The controversy over the new downtown sports arena is not about whether we should have it. It’s about who should pay for it. And who should pay for a new professional football stadium at the Coliseum or a new baseball stadium in Chavez Ravine.

If ever the public has a right to be heard over how it wants its tax money spent, it should be with regard to the financing of new professional sports facilities.

I love professional sports. But they’re big business, with billionaire team owners and megamillionaire players. I don’t believe that taxpayers’ money should be used to subsidize them, at least without giving the voters a right to approve it.

That is why I am circulating an initiative petition called the “taxpayers right to vote act.” Patterned after the 1984 Olympics guarantee, it would prohibit the city from subsidizing any professional sports facility without first giving the people a right to vote on it.

The initiative reflects the grave concern that people have over the way professional sports teams have gone from city to city extracting huge sums of public money under threat of going elsewhere.

It reflects the equally grave concern that people have over the countless unkept promises that teams repeatedly make in an effort to obtain taxpayer subsidies, despite the fact that virtually every prominent economist who has studied the issue has concluded that with few exceptions, stadiums and arenas have little measurable effect on a city’s economy.

As a USA Today editorial recently concluded: “Tantalizing promises of economic growth, new jobs and tax revenues are myths. Few communities ever realize that. Most jobs created by sports teams are low-skill, low-pay and seasonal. Most spending generated by sports facilities tends merely to be shifted from other local activities and businesses. And public funds set aside to finance sports facilities are not available for more productive uses.”

The initiative is a statement about priorities, about values that put textbooks in our classrooms and police officers on our streets ahead of luxury sports boxes and skyrocketing players’ salaries.

It is also a reflection of the public’s growing concern over the secrecy in government that has shrouded the arena deal from the start.

Already it has brought us a long way since Mayor Richard Riordan’s aide Steve Soboroff first cut a deal with the arena developers that could have cost the city more than $180 million. Although the developers’ recent guaranty offer has substantially reduced this risk, it still does not go far enough to protect the city’s interests.

Why? Because the guaranty is really not a guaranty. It’s simply a letter from a bank saying it will be happy to talk about one in the future. It also doesn’t guarantee that the developers will pay for all of the city property they’re receiving. Finally and most important, because the developers want to repay their loans by “double counting” the taxes they’re already obligated to pay. That is, the developers want to use their taxes as an offset against their loans. That’s using the city’s money to repay the city. No other business or taxpayer in Los Angeles gets to do that.

I believe we can do better. And the people will drive a tougher bargain, just as they have in virtually every city in which they’ve been given the right to vote.

Angelenos already vote on new police stations and fire stations, new libraries and schools. Why shouldn’t they be able to vote on new stadiums and arenas? Let them decide whether the benefits the developers are promising are worth the dollars the taxpayers have to put up.

Surely that will not give Los Angeles a bad name as a place to do business. On the contrary, it will say that Los Angeles really means business. That it will be as tough with the taxpayers’ money as people are with their own. That it will not invest money on wishful thinking, unsubstantiated economic projections and nonbinding promises. And that it will do the public’s business in public, making people a part of the process.