Colin McNickle At Large

Reject this hustle, too

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Sheer arrogance. That’s the only phrase that can be used to describe the latest effort to pick taxpayers’ pockets and transfer even more of their money to Pittsburgh’s barons of sport.

The Pittsburgh-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority (SEA) owns Heinz Field, PNC Park, PPG Paints Arena and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on behalf of the public, supposedly.

It has asked the county Regional Asset District (RAD) for a new and continuing $1.16 million annual stream of piggyback sales tax money to bolster a reserve fund used for the facilities’ capital repairs and improvements.

But that in itself is a ruse.  Just as 1997’s failed Regional Renaissance Initiative was nothing more than a stadiums tax, the SEA’s request for more RAD money is nothing more than a sop to the owners of the Steelers and Pirates to pay for upgrades only they should pay for via ticket sales revenue.

No amount a feet stamping by these very, very wealthy franchises should make it acceptable to rob the public purse further. What, the $13.4 million that taxpayers fork over annually to pay off the debt of these facilities is not enough?

The SEA rationalizes that RAD money was used to pay for improvements to the long-gone Civic Arena (just paid off, by the way, in July, six years after the Igloo’s demolition). And now that those dollars have been freed up, it’s only appropriate that they be used in the same fashion for Heinz Field and PNC Park, it is claimed.

How about re-directing those dollars to bona fide “regional assets” or, better yet, back to the public, whence those precious dollars first were extracted?

The Steelers, of course, have lined up behind this latest dinner bell for extra gravy.  And Mark Hart, the team’s planning and development chieftain, rationalized that the franchise deserves more public dollars because its joint-development with the Pirates’ ownership of 25 acres between the stadiums has led to more jobs and tax receipts.

The Steelers and the Pirates, you’ll recall, were handed those development rights gratis.

RAD money never was intended to be used to build new sports stadiums. You’ll recall that the RAD board was packed to achieve that goal after voters in 11 Southwestern Pennsylvania counties resoundingly rejected the Stadiums Tax.

It was a public policy perversion at its worst – a bad old-fashioned hustle.

The RAD board is expected to announce its preliminary budget at the end of September. It is expected to vote on that budget Nov. 28. The Steelers and the Pirates have tapped the public purse deep enough. If it has any sense of propriety and any fealty to sound public policy, this RAD board must reject this hustle.

But don’t hold your breath.

All that said, this is what happens when government officials bow to the special interests of professional sport. They are shaken, then shaken down, when owners and/or leagues threaten to leave if their palaces of play are not underwritten by the same public that then pays a premium to attend sporting events (or can’t afford to attend them at all).

And such scurrilous behavior has not been limited to sports teams.

Think of the multiple millions of dollars extracted from the public’s pockets to help build a new skyscraper for PNC Financial Services a few years back. It’s a banking institution; it hardly needed a taxpayer grant.

Think of the bolus of taxpayer dollars used to relocate American Eagle Outfitters from one part of Allegheny County to another. Taxpayers should not be treated like they’re a moving company.

Then, think, too, of the public dollars that went into the SouthSide Works retail and entertainment complex. Never mind that retail is a lousy use of the tax-increment financing (TIF) that made the lower South Side complex possible. Oh, yes, the TIF was retired. But look at that development now: It is struggling mightily for its very survival.

What’s the standard argument for a TIF? Something along the lines that “but for the TIF,” this, that and the other thing could never be built. But there is a very good possibility that this TIF led to something being built that, as history now shows, has not been economically sustainable.

Indeed, what a waste of the most precious public policy resource there is – taxpayer dollars. But the greater waste is a public that stands for such “public purpose” mountebankery.

Over and over and over again.

Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

 

 

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Weekly insights on the markets and financial planning.

Recent Posts