This applies to spending on public projects, even schools. We just voted again on replacing an expiring local school levy with a new, more expensive levy. In the first recent vote, the pricier expensive levy lost by 134 votes. So it was decided that the voters needed to revote so they could come around to passing the new levy, perhaps in private hopes that some people who voted no last time will neglect or forget to vote this time.
This proposed levy increase will significantly increase each year from 2025 to 2027, supposedly to fund "educational programs and operations not funded by the state." There were two long paragraphs in the voting literature listing all the things lost if the (increased) levy fails to pass, such as: middle school sports eliminated; number of bus stops reduced; larger class sizes; funding for after-school clubs, drama, music and art eliminated.... and on and on.
There were apparently over 500 comments in the county community meetings regarding concerns with the levy before it was voted on the first time, including how past levy funds were used unwisely; competency test scores are low; "controversial" agendas are being pushed; $200K salary staff being added; lack of transparency/accountability, etc.
No matter----because as the levy literature claims, "our students succeed when we fund our schools." God forbid that the school make do with its already high levy, in a blue state that has one of the country's higher property taxes. Schools need MORE MORE MORE to continue their downward spiral.
Yep. And just like hate speech laws or any number of other BS schemes, they only need ONE 'yes', while we need an increasing number of 'nos' to stop them. And if they lose a few times, they have no problem changing the wording so you don't even know if yes is a vote FOR the thing or against it.......
I was very proud to vote 'NO' on that question yesterday. The Royals threatened us locals with leaving the county if it didn't pass, so many of us are ready to supply moving boxes whenever. Way to treat your fan base. Bye-bye.
The problem with all these mega project votes is that many people voting for these projects are not footing the bills. The people paying for these projects mostly vote against the projects but they are outnumbered.
I had a whole little rant about how the only thing in Downtown Seattle near the park are bars, and they're only hoppin during game days, but I axed it. But now you've read it in the comments, so.........
And I take it back. The bullpen blowing this 3-0 lead going into the 8th is the Royals biggest loss of the year. Fade me now.
It's not the Pyramid alehouse anymore -- they shut down during covid. Not sure what the new place is called. But it will always be the Pyramid to me :)
Haha, I do the same thing. We had a brewpub in Midtown in Sac inused to go to weekly called the Rubicon. It's been gone 10 years and been replaced by a different brewer but I still call it the Rubicon. It drives my wife crazy.
The local MLB teams all built new stadiums with taxpayer funds. As a result, I can't afford the least expensive seats in either one. The cost of tickets are absurd, plus the amenities, make being there not so enjoyable. I wonder how people do it.
The Royals have some sort of package deal where you get an entire month's worth of games for like $30, but many people still won't go because that doesn't include parking. The price of every little thing is just jacked up beyond belief.
Just spent $750 to take my wife and kids to ONE Tampa Bay Rays game. Seats were just OK and we had some bleacher food...but still...when I was growing up $1,500 would get you a season of tickets in good seats.
Our local politicians outside the major cities often say, completely unironically and unaware, whenever they do something borderline criminal like building a new sportsball arena for tax money and then selling it to the local team's private owner for a dollar:
"It will put [insert name here] on the map!"
Somewhen around 1990, satire became obsolete and redundant at the same time. Just following the "news" is enough entertaintment.
Yet another impractical and expensive public works project with a Seattle tie-in. The monorail doesn't hold a candle to Sound Transit's choo-choo train though. To SimCom's point, if completion of a project means the money dries up then where's the incentive? We are putting train tracks across a floating bridge (which has never been done) and it will only take as long as the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad (1863-1869)! Great job everyone! /s
Over here in sub-arctic Sweden, there are two teams of looney-tunes trying to out-compete each other when it comes to railroads.
Team High-speed trains, wanting to re-do our entire railroad network (what's left of it after 30 years of capitalist neoliberal mismanagement) with some kind of super-duper high speed trains doing 250mph or more. Apart from the obvious problems, they also demand these trains be "climate neutral" and powered by wind and solar.
And the contenders, Team Mag-Lev. Whose arguement boils down to "It works in Japan".
Neither of them seem to understand the associated costs, for no real gain. If you're in hurry when travelling, go by airplane or car - it's virtually always faster than a train. What does it matter if you shave off 45 minutes on an 11 hour trip?
Since Mr. "the Knife" and I "ironman drive"* from the Pacific Northwest to see family in Phoenix (30 hrs), Albuquerque (26 - 30 hrs), and Minnesota (30 - 32 hrs), I would love just about anything to get out of the car 45 mins faster! 😂🤣 However, not on the taxpayers' dime. To us, it is absolutely immoral to be frittering away the taxpayers' hard earned shekels on these boondoggle projects that are NEVER done on time and under budget, and don't have any ROI. In fact, they continue costing the taxpayers. Our "Sound Transit" doesn't charge anywhere near what it needs to per rider to cover the cost of just operating the blooming thing, let alone recover the costs to build it.
*Ironman driving: One person drives during the day and one person drives during the night until arriving at the destination. Stops are limited and must combine gas/bathroom/food to make up for highway construction, traffic, accidents, etc.
Kudos to the people of KC, for seeing clearly again.
Public funding for private enterprises, tax incentives, "opportunity/prosperity zones", are all just welfare on a societal level, and have rarely, if ever, produced positive long term results for anyone, except the already rich business/team owner.
Exactly. Politicians have no idea what would bring about prosperity in the first place. Handouts to the well-connected won't be used as well as normal people choosing where to spend their own money. (Perhaps keeping some small businesses afloat along the way!)
This applies even to the things I personally enjoy.
The claimed public benefits of entertainment venues never come to fruition. Sports stadiums, concert venues, casinos- always the same story about how much tourists dollars will be generated for local business. And maybe the venue does attract customers, who gamble, go to a game or a concert. Then they get in their cars and go home.
Exactly. The Chiefs are destroying the football world right now, but after the parade debacle I read some extremely troubling statistics about the city. Why hasn't the riches brought about by sports tackled those situations? :/
Sports are entertainment, they don't create wealth like manufacturing or Spyware (errrr software), sports really add nothing to the economy. And this is coming from someone who has donated lots of money to my alma mater for college athletics and has season tickets for the Sac Kings. I love sports, but stadiums are a waste of public money and should only be privately financed. Sacramento will go bankrupt with their dumbass stadium financing plan for a petulant billionaire owner and his millionaire performers.
Well, I willing to expand that circle, to say, that crappy library downtown that only houses the homeless, but that I still taxed for. Shut that thing down, too.
Thank you! It was kind of refreshing to see that we knew the results of the vote on the same day that it happened -- and perhaps the result the voters chose explains why things don't work that way in California.
The fact that California election officials can even count votes surprises the shit out of me. I guess I can take a little comfort in the fact I'm not the lone ranger here as the vote was close on Prop 1 but in my opinion Newsome sure knew where to go to get the votes needed to win. Funny how that works.
I was living in King County (Seattle) when the referendum "passed" to build the baseball stadium downtown. The referendum didn't pass, at first. But lo and behold! A few weeks later the votes had been "recounted" and the referendum to tax and build the new baseball stadium passed.
I live in Seattle area. We voted NO several times to the 2 stadiums we currently have. WE VOTED NO. The county overrode the votes and built the damn things anyway. HUGE COST OVERRUNS we will pay for, forever. The city couldn't afford then from the getgo, and WE THE PEOPLE didn't want them. Now we have stadiums we didn't want, and ticket prices that are done if the highest in the nation for events and sports. Which means the vast majority of tax payers paying for the stadiums, CAN'T AFFORD TO USE THEM. ABSOLUTE BS. So kudos to K.C. for voting theirs down for now.
Now, now, I'm sure you didn't understand what a mistake you were making. Luckily, the county knows better than you and was able to correct your error. ;)
Building stadiums for billionaires is an almost insignificant problem compared to the use of public money to encourage homelessness and destroy beautiful places. The beautiful red rock City of Sedona has plans to create a homeless problem here where none currently exits by using public funds. My recent editorial in the Red Rock News summarizes the problem. https://sedonavotes.com/guest-essay-by-william-noonan/ The story has been reported from New York to New Delhi and my objections to it reported in USA Today, WaPo and the London Daily Mail. I would be glad to give you more information if you wanted to write about it.
I've lived through the entire cycle in Portland (assuming the 'leaders' are actually serious about cleaning up the problem now). I don't see how anybody in the country would think this was a good idea -- but it doesn't HAVE to be a good idea if you can just steal from the taxpayers!
It is interesting to me that Baltimore is used as an example vis a vis Camden Yards. I actually have always ascribed to that notion of the success of urban renewal via publicly funded stadiums and commercial projects such as the now defunct Harborplace. On second thought however Baltimore is in such a state that many people fear going into the city and the news reports that citizens adjust their activities to avoid rampant crime. So it seems urban renewal is not helping the people who are being asked to pay for it. Rather it serves to further separate the haves and have nots.
And Kauffman stadium is still one of the parks in MLB. And you’re right about public funding. The Ballpark at Arlington was a great stadium and still is but the billionaire owners just had to build a new enclosed park because it gets hot in Texas. BFD baseball shouldn’t be played in an air conditioned stadium.
To each his own. In June 2010 went to the last Rangers game with my dad. It was 98 at game time. But it was last game my Dad went to. Baseball is greatest game ever and timeless. Even when Manford tries to screw it up.
This applies to spending on public projects, even schools. We just voted again on replacing an expiring local school levy with a new, more expensive levy. In the first recent vote, the pricier expensive levy lost by 134 votes. So it was decided that the voters needed to revote so they could come around to passing the new levy, perhaps in private hopes that some people who voted no last time will neglect or forget to vote this time.
This proposed levy increase will significantly increase each year from 2025 to 2027, supposedly to fund "educational programs and operations not funded by the state." There were two long paragraphs in the voting literature listing all the things lost if the (increased) levy fails to pass, such as: middle school sports eliminated; number of bus stops reduced; larger class sizes; funding for after-school clubs, drama, music and art eliminated.... and on and on.
There were apparently over 500 comments in the county community meetings regarding concerns with the levy before it was voted on the first time, including how past levy funds were used unwisely; competency test scores are low; "controversial" agendas are being pushed; $200K salary staff being added; lack of transparency/accountability, etc.
No matter----because as the levy literature claims, "our students succeed when we fund our schools." God forbid that the school make do with its already high levy, in a blue state that has one of the country's higher property taxes. Schools need MORE MORE MORE to continue their downward spiral.
Yep. And just like hate speech laws or any number of other BS schemes, they only need ONE 'yes', while we need an increasing number of 'nos' to stop them. And if they lose a few times, they have no problem changing the wording so you don't even know if yes is a vote FOR the thing or against it.......
I'm all for a fancy school if the kids perform. How about a tax on every failing family???
Mean? Sure, but at least someone will be held accountable for low scores, the parents!!
Excellent idea. Schools dont fail; parents do! Good luck passing that in California. California politicians want children to fail.
I was very proud to vote 'NO' on that question yesterday. The Royals threatened us locals with leaving the county if it didn't pass, so many of us are ready to supply moving boxes whenever. Way to treat your fan base. Bye-bye.
I made a comment in the Royals subreddit that after today's loss, the fanbase might demand they get out of town :p
Towns should kick out crappy teams. The city of Detroit should have banned the Lions from using their name.
You live near KC?
🎯
ROYALS GAME MEETUP
The problem with all these mega project votes is that many people voting for these projects are not footing the bills. The people paying for these projects mostly vote against the projects but they are outnumbered.
Baltimore and Seattle are still being reinvigorated by two stadiums built in the '90s?
How about Detroit? The Tigers' stadium opened in 2000.
I had a whole little rant about how the only thing in Downtown Seattle near the park are bars, and they're only hoppin during game days, but I axed it. But now you've read it in the comments, so.........
And I take it back. The bullpen blowing this 3-0 lead going into the 8th is the Royals biggest loss of the year. Fade me now.
No. Sorry but you're wrong about the Seattle stadium. The only thing around it is bars AND homeless people....
West of I-5 and the railroad and very close to the two Seattle stadiums, things aren't too bad, but there's nothing resembling a neighborhood there.
And if you've parked a few blocks away to save money, you'll see some uncomfortable things, walking to and from your game.
Exactly. Doesn't seem like a whole lot of downtown rejuvenation if the only time it's a destination is when the baseball/football games are scheduled.
That said, the Pyramid alehouse remains my favorite place to kill some time until the gates open :)
I thought the Pyramid brand was canceled? Maybe it is local up there.
It's not the Pyramid alehouse anymore -- they shut down during covid. Not sure what the new place is called. But it will always be the Pyramid to me :)
Haha, I do the same thing. We had a brewpub in Midtown in Sac inused to go to weekly called the Rubicon. It's been gone 10 years and been replaced by a different brewer but I still call it the Rubicon. It drives my wife crazy.
Wait - you mean the working poor shouldn’t be taxed to pay for billionaire vanity projects?
Crazy, I know!
The local MLB teams all built new stadiums with taxpayer funds. As a result, I can't afford the least expensive seats in either one. The cost of tickets are absurd, plus the amenities, make being there not so enjoyable. I wonder how people do it.
The Royals have some sort of package deal where you get an entire month's worth of games for like $30, but many people still won't go because that doesn't include parking. The price of every little thing is just jacked up beyond belief.
Just spent $750 to take my wife and kids to ONE Tampa Bay Rays game. Seats were just OK and we had some bleacher food...but still...when I was growing up $1,500 would get you a season of tickets in good seats.
WTF how is that possible
It ain't because I set a world record with drinking piss beer.
Although I did have a few to forget how much money I was spending.
It was that much after tickets, parking and food. Seats were a little better than average...but still...
For that kind of cash you should be able to get a full suite with the food included!
Now I've got the monorail-song stuck in my head.
Now we all do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGg5rfBfWT4
Our local politicians outside the major cities often say, completely unironically and unaware, whenever they do something borderline criminal like building a new sportsball arena for tax money and then selling it to the local team's private owner for a dollar:
"It will put [insert name here] on the map!"
Somewhen around 1990, satire became obsolete and redundant at the same time. Just following the "news" is enough entertaintment.
Just like this wonderful new.......eh, it's more of a SHELBYVILLE idea.
Yet another impractical and expensive public works project with a Seattle tie-in. The monorail doesn't hold a candle to Sound Transit's choo-choo train though. To SimCom's point, if completion of a project means the money dries up then where's the incentive? We are putting train tracks across a floating bridge (which has never been done) and it will only take as long as the completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad (1863-1869)! Great job everyone! /s
Over here in sub-arctic Sweden, there are two teams of looney-tunes trying to out-compete each other when it comes to railroads.
Team High-speed trains, wanting to re-do our entire railroad network (what's left of it after 30 years of capitalist neoliberal mismanagement) with some kind of super-duper high speed trains doing 250mph or more. Apart from the obvious problems, they also demand these trains be "climate neutral" and powered by wind and solar.
And the contenders, Team Mag-Lev. Whose arguement boils down to "It works in Japan".
Neither of them seem to understand the associated costs, for no real gain. If you're in hurry when travelling, go by airplane or car - it's virtually always faster than a train. What does it matter if you shave off 45 minutes on an 11 hour trip?
Since Mr. "the Knife" and I "ironman drive"* from the Pacific Northwest to see family in Phoenix (30 hrs), Albuquerque (26 - 30 hrs), and Minnesota (30 - 32 hrs), I would love just about anything to get out of the car 45 mins faster! 😂🤣 However, not on the taxpayers' dime. To us, it is absolutely immoral to be frittering away the taxpayers' hard earned shekels on these boondoggle projects that are NEVER done on time and under budget, and don't have any ROI. In fact, they continue costing the taxpayers. Our "Sound Transit" doesn't charge anywhere near what it needs to per rider to cover the cost of just operating the blooming thing, let alone recover the costs to build it.
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/the-true-cost-of-light-sound-transits-light-rail-is-becoming-more-obvious
https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/in-five-years-sound-transit-has-racked-up-an-additional-50-billion-for-rail-plan
ARRRRRGH!
Mrs. "the Knife"
*Ironman driving: One person drives during the day and one person drives during the night until arriving at the destination. Stops are limited and must combine gas/bathroom/food to make up for highway construction, traffic, accidents, etc.
Kudos to the people of KC, for seeing clearly again.
Public funding for private enterprises, tax incentives, "opportunity/prosperity zones", are all just welfare on a societal level, and have rarely, if ever, produced positive long term results for anyone, except the already rich business/team owner.
Stop all government grants,
Stop all public/private partnerships,
Stop all business tax loophole incentives,
Stop all foreign aid,
And watch America begin to flourish again.
Exactly. Politicians have no idea what would bring about prosperity in the first place. Handouts to the well-connected won't be used as well as normal people choosing where to spend their own money. (Perhaps keeping some small businesses afloat along the way!)
This applies even to the things I personally enjoy.
The important thing is understanding what /not/ to do.
It's like downhill skiing - or slalom if you will.
Everyone can slide down a slope. Not everyone understand how to "read" the snow. Fewer still can go off-pist, or in among the trees.
"Man's gotta know his limitations" as a certain someone said.
SO MUCH THIS!
The claimed public benefits of entertainment venues never come to fruition. Sports stadiums, concert venues, casinos- always the same story about how much tourists dollars will be generated for local business. And maybe the venue does attract customers, who gamble, go to a game or a concert. Then they get in their cars and go home.
Exactly. The Chiefs are destroying the football world right now, but after the parade debacle I read some extremely troubling statistics about the city. Why hasn't the riches brought about by sports tackled those situations? :/
Sports are entertainment, they don't create wealth like manufacturing or Spyware (errrr software), sports really add nothing to the economy. And this is coming from someone who has donated lots of money to my alma mater for college athletics and has season tickets for the Sac Kings. I love sports, but stadiums are a waste of public money and should only be privately financed. Sacramento will go bankrupt with their dumbass stadium financing plan for a petulant billionaire owner and his millionaire performers.
As a sports fan, you understand that when you go to the stadium and buy a ticket and a hot dog and a beer, you're supporting the team. Voluntary.
When people who couldn't care less about sports are forced to finance our entertainment, that's crossing a line.
I'll second that!
Well, I willing to expand that circle, to say, that crappy library downtown that only houses the homeless, but that I still taxed for. Shut that thing down, too.
Good piece, well stated.
Thank you! It was kind of refreshing to see that we knew the results of the vote on the same day that it happened -- and perhaps the result the voters chose explains why things don't work that way in California.
The fact that California election officials can even count votes surprises the shit out of me. I guess I can take a little comfort in the fact I'm not the lone ranger here as the vote was close on Prop 1 but in my opinion Newsome sure knew where to go to get the votes needed to win. Funny how that works.
And how crazy is it that they counted for 15 days and then as soon as Prop 1 pulled ahead, stop counting.
What does that remind me of..............
> but in my opinion Newsome sure knew where to go to get the votes needed to win
The printer attached to his desktop?
I was living in King County (Seattle) when the referendum "passed" to build the baseball stadium downtown. The referendum didn't pass, at first. But lo and behold! A few weeks later the votes had been "recounted" and the referendum to tax and build the new baseball stadium passed.
REALLY? I don't recall that! (Didn't pay much attention at the time.)
I'm on the record stating that election shenanigans were perfected in Washington state.
SC: Here's the link:
https://www.historylink.org/File/3429
Sweet! Thank you! Looks like this shady stuff has been going on a while.....
Reading this, it sounds almost exactly like a story that I heard yesterday. Voters reject a new stadium, which is then 'approved' via hotel tax.
I live in Seattle area. We voted NO several times to the 2 stadiums we currently have. WE VOTED NO. The county overrode the votes and built the damn things anyway. HUGE COST OVERRUNS we will pay for, forever. The city couldn't afford then from the getgo, and WE THE PEOPLE didn't want them. Now we have stadiums we didn't want, and ticket prices that are done if the highest in the nation for events and sports. Which means the vast majority of tax payers paying for the stadiums, CAN'T AFFORD TO USE THEM. ABSOLUTE BS. So kudos to K.C. for voting theirs down for now.
Now, now, I'm sure you didn't understand what a mistake you were making. Luckily, the county knows better than you and was able to correct your error. ;)
SimulationCountyCommissioner, that you?
Building stadiums for billionaires is an almost insignificant problem compared to the use of public money to encourage homelessness and destroy beautiful places. The beautiful red rock City of Sedona has plans to create a homeless problem here where none currently exits by using public funds. My recent editorial in the Red Rock News summarizes the problem. https://sedonavotes.com/guest-essay-by-william-noonan/ The story has been reported from New York to New Delhi and my objections to it reported in USA Today, WaPo and the London Daily Mail. I would be glad to give you more information if you wanted to write about it.
I've lived through the entire cycle in Portland (assuming the 'leaders' are actually serious about cleaning up the problem now). I don't see how anybody in the country would think this was a good idea -- but it doesn't HAVE to be a good idea if you can just steal from the taxpayers!
It is interesting to me that Baltimore is used as an example vis a vis Camden Yards. I actually have always ascribed to that notion of the success of urban renewal via publicly funded stadiums and commercial projects such as the now defunct Harborplace. On second thought however Baltimore is in such a state that many people fear going into the city and the news reports that citizens adjust their activities to avoid rampant crime. So it seems urban renewal is not helping the people who are being asked to pay for it. Rather it serves to further separate the haves and have nots.
"The old abandoned warehouse is now full of office space!"
I love that movie!
Oh Oh Oh .
"You just need more flair. "
" Have you seen my stapler. "
"Bob I see here you've been missing a lot of work lately."
"I wouldn't say I've been missing it Bob."
Somehow I don't think Boston will approve a replacement of Fenway. Public funding or not.
And Kauffman stadium is still one of the parks in MLB. And you’re right about public funding. The Ballpark at Arlington was a great stadium and still is but the billionaire owners just had to build a new enclosed park because it gets hot in Texas. BFD baseball shouldn’t be played in an air conditioned stadium.
Baseball should be played anywhere. If you gotta stick a roof over it, do it! If you gotta blast AC into the place, do it! :)
To each his own. In June 2010 went to the last Rangers game with my dad. It was 98 at game time. But it was last game my Dad went to. Baseball is greatest game ever and timeless. Even when Manford tries to screw it up.
I thought they grew men in Texas?
98 isn't AC weather.
78 is way past where AC should be turned on!