They clearly are the ‘gifts’ that keep on taking.
We refer with no reverence to PNC Park, Heinz Field, PPG Paints Arena and, of course, that grand white elephant of all grand white elephants, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
All four facilities were built with some form of public money, money obtained with some form of wool-pulling over public eyes. And all have, from time to time, gone back to their government (taxpayer) benefactors to intone that great one-word exhortation of cartoon character Garfield the Cat – “Gimme!”
The latest iteration of the game that tells a fast-food diner to “Hey, look over there!” as the slickster steals a few French fries comes to John and Jane Q. Taxpayer courtesy of the Pittsburgh-Allegheny County Sports & Exhibition Authority (SEA).
It voted last week to form a “sports commission” which, as the Post-Gazette’s Mark Belko reported it, is “designed to help attract everything from Super Bowls to high school volleyball tournaments to the Pittsburgh area” and “ is ready to take the field.”
The new commission will administer up to $1.7 million a year for not just “support incidentals” (our term, not theirs) but also for defraying even more costs that the barons of sport should be covering.
That money was previously set aside in expanded gambling legislation several years ago by state Sen. Jay Costa, a Forest Hills Democrat, who, quite conveniently, will serve on the new sports commission board.
Conflict? What conflict? Ha! (And it matters no one whit that these board members are not paid.)
As the Belko dispatch further notes, the up to nearly $2 million annual kitty could be used for “revenue guarantees” for “big-time sporting events” or could be used for “logistics like shuttles in support of events.”
Taxpayers have no business “guaranteeing” revenues for sports team owners paying athletes millions upon million upon millions of dollars to run or skate around in predominantly taxpayer-funded playgrounds.
Of course, Costa offers the real rub of the nub when he revealed that some of that newly extracted public money will be used to, in the P-G’s words, “shore up and preserve “ the SEA-owned sports facilities and convention center.
You’ll remember that in the sweetheart deals given to the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins, it’s the SEA that’s obligated to maintain the facilities. At least for the former two, ticket surcharges contribute to that maintenance kitty.
And Costa says the money also can be used to help cover years of deferred maintenance at the convention center, including a new roof estimated to cost $8 million.
OK. Enough. Let’s stop this “public purpose” charade. All four facilities were sold to the public as they greatest thing since soft butter and sliced bread. In today’s parlance, that would be the greatest thing since “one-click” ordering on Amazon.
But the simple fact of the matter is that taxpayers were sold a very expensive cluster cluck.
“So, we need to subsidize the facilities that were promised to revitalize the area?” asks Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “And, of course, the team owners would be the big winners as they would reap any rewards from using the facilities that (the SEA) owns.
“I don’t see them pitching in money for this commission.”
That’s known as socializing the risk and privatizing the profit. And that, you may recall, is not limited to sports franchises; one of the region’s largest banks is quite adroit at doing that.
As galling as is the latest public subsidy to end all public subsidies to these sports facilities, even more galling is the convention center situation.
“I thought the convention center was supposed to draw events and be self-sustaining,” notes Gamrat, a Ph.D. economist. “That promise was quickly buried and forgotten once the thing opened and the stream of events never materialized—as we predicted.”
And that was happening long before the coronavirus pandemic hit. In many cases, center officials were giving away the space for free.
But wait, dear taxpayers, there’s more and it’s just as bad: The SEA now is applying for more than $20 million in taxpayer aid to retrofit all four facilities to make them safer in today’s pandemic world.
Yet again, the public is asked/forced to pay for the Pirates, Steelers and Penguins to profit – and for convention center officials to continue to keep whitewashing the David L. elephant.
In normal times, the aforementioned molestation of the public dollar is sickening. In these continuing pandemic times, such despoliation, plundering and pillaging is unconscionable.
Serious times require serious leadership. The actions and behavior of the Sports & Exhibition Authority trolls certainly are not serious or responsible governance. Neither is it worthy leadership in such unprecedented economic times.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
