San Antonio Express-News  - September 1, 2007

Business

Roddy Stinson: 'Surprise! The Spurs need more money to pay for their dream list'

 

n article on Page One of Thursday's Express-News generated a lot of community heat.

The headline explained the source of the ire:

"Tax Dollars Helped Build the AT&T Center ... Now, Who Will Pay for the Upgrades? ... Key debate is how much the Spurs should contribute toward the 'wow stuff.'"

Staff writer Tracy Idell Hamilton explained:

"The Spurs have a $164 million wish list of projects for the arena — built five years ago for $193.5 million — but team management is working with the Commissioners Court to whittle that amount to between $75 million and $100 million."

Reactions to the news from this column's readers ranged from cynical:

"The rich get richer ..."

To caustic:

"Surprise, surprise, surprise! The Spurs need more money to pay for their dream list!"

The source of "more money" would be — with Commissioners Court and voter approval — an extension of the taxes on hotel/motel rooms and rental cars, originally levied to pay for construction of an arena for the Spurs.

Those taxes will expire sometime after 2009 — a point that was alluded to by a caller who groused:

"Have you noticed that no one is talking about letting the taxes DIE?

"Once a tax is approved, it has about as much chance of expiring as Freddie Krueger."

A less colorful critic of the proposed extension of the "Spurs taxes" pointed me to an opinion piece — titled "Road Work" — in the Aug. 28 Wall Street Journal.

In the commentary, author Joel Kotkin, a nationally recognized authority on urban trends, bashed "today's all-circuses-all-the-time urban leaders," and he pleaded for politicians to pour more resources into "back to basics infrastructure."

My favorite excerpt:

"America's urban powers focus on the ephemeral and the glitzy. They emphasize ... sports stadia, convention centers, arts palaces, dubiously effective new light-rail lines, hotels and condo projects."

If the biography on Kotkin's Web site didn't identify him as a resident of Orange County, [sic] Calif., I'd swear he came up with that list while sipping margaritas at a bar somewhere near the Alamodome and the soon-to-be-finished Grand Hyatt Convention Center Hotel.

The amount of cash that this community has thrown at "ephemeral and glitzy" in the last 20 years is staggering.

Did the ephemera make the town feel good? Sure.

Did the glitz produce some positive results? Of course.

And Kotkin acknowledges those benefits.

But "the ultimate question," he says, "is that of priorities."

To Kotkin, high-priority infrastructure includes roads, bridges, drainage systems, bus systems, energy production and distribution systems, water and sewer systems, etc.

Incidentally, I am well aware that state law dictates that revenue from hotel/motel taxes must be used to benefit the tourist/convention industry. So don't bother to call to remind me that roads, bridges, drainage systems, etc. can't be funded with the money.

The revenue shell game is very familiar to me, and I have never bought into it.

If you do buy into it, let me simply point out that the tens of millions of local tax dollars that city and county officials are spending to extend the River Walk north and south of downtown will benefit virtually all tourists who come to town and virtually none of the city/county taxpayers from whose pockets the money is coming.

Clearly that money could (and should) come from hotel/motel tax revenue, leaving tens of millions of local dollars to be spent on roads, bridges, drainage systems and other desperately needed improvements to the city's "back to the basics" infrastructure.

If you would like to argue that point ... pick a time, a place and a crowd of your choice, and I will debate (and wipe the floor with) you.

 

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