I thought we were done giving bailouts to multimillionaires after the 2008 crash. So far, Mr. Kimball has my support.

However I am curious if the fields by Fort Boise are large enough when combined for such a space.

“Fieldofschemes.com is the companion website to Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit, by Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause. Since 1998, we have been casting a critical eye on the roughly $2 billion a year in public subsidies that go toward building new pro sports facilities.”

In particular why should the public fund a stadium for only 5,000 fans. In the early 1950’s Boise had a baseball stadium with space for 5,000 customers. Boise is now 6 times as large as in the 50’s and should be building a 25,000 seat stadium so we can attract a AAA baseball team. All at no cost to the taxpayer.

I would appreciate someone who has all of the time and information about sports facilities, private, state, city, or school, making a list to show how much this area actually has.

EDITOR NOTE– Clarification is in order. The taxes on improvements and appreciation are diverted to CCDC. The base value when the urban renewal district was created goes to the local governments and schools.

Projects like this makes everyone involved in saying YES feel impotent, er I meant important. The fact is a new, shiny stadium will result in higher costs in too many ways.

If I don’t attend the Hawks games now why do you honestly believe that I am going to spend even more money to attend the games just because you feel I should visit your new stadium?

REMINDER: we elect people to do our “voting” for us.

A vote:
We saw how that went in the past- where the city hijacks city money to advertise and promote their opinion.

A private developer would never do the project- the benefits are not enough for ONLY the property owner. However, the benefits to the overall city ‘could’ justify such a project.

I’m not saying it’s a good project, but opposing it simply because there is not a vote or that is uses taxpayer money is more than a little short-sighted.

Stating (emphasizing “never”) if the city owns it, “it will NEVER generate any tax revenue to the city” is NOT exactly correct. That’s like saying the BSU stadium doesn’t bring any tax revenue to the Boise.
Such a facility will generate sales tax with admissions and concessions. Sales tax does come back to the city (ies). Additional wages, visiting tourist lodging, beer sales, permits and licenses, and increased property values on adjacent properties would indirectly benefit the city/county as well.
Growth is growth and it inherently means more taxes for the city.
And when the city (county) gets more tax dollars, they WILL find some way to spend it– even if it is wasteful.

EDITOR NOTE: Easterner, you are pickier than my 8th grade English teacher! City owned property never generates PROPERTY TAXES, ok? As for the surrounding “appreciated property values,” the taxes on those parcels are DIVERTED to CCDC for 20 years. Hot dog and beer taxes generated by Lyle Smith-Bronco-Albertson Stadium do little to offset lost property tax revenues BSU has taken from Boise just through buying houses for expansion.

Let’s say the stadium becomes privately owned. How would it be assessed? There are few if any comparables. The assessor would have to use the income method of appraisal. And if it makes little to no income, as most of you think, what then would they pay in property tax? $0? Or maybe only on the land but not the business?

Remember the special assessment deal Micron got due to the uniqueness of their property?

EDITOR NOTE–Good point! You refer to the same Micron that just announced layoffs of 500 employees, previously dumped hundreds more, and always “put Boise on the list” for possible sites for new facilities.

Of course services are concentrated there, that’s where the people concentrate. 10s of thousands flood the downtown area from other Boise neighborhoods and elsewhere every single day except Sunday.

Move the homeless shelters to Meridian if you want police service to be less frequent.