By: Diane Benjamin
http://www.wjbc.com/2018/04/14/consultant-community-has-room-for-new-sports-venues/
According to the WJBC story. the decision has already been made by the consultants who were just hired: we need a sports complex.
The Pony League fields began in 1988 with no tax dollars. Hundreds if not thousands of kids and adults play there every summer. Have you noticed all the hotels and restaurants that sprang up around it?
Actually no hotels, even though they do have tournaments. Subway finally opened a location on Ireland Grove and at least one other restaurant a few years ago.
But a sports complex will lead to TONS of economic growth. According to the WJBC story those businesses (hotels and restaurants) already exist. The Pony complex pays many of their bills through concessions but the sports complex must not plan to if they think restaurants are going to thrive.
The Federal Aviation Administration documents I received by FOIA don’t say the soccer complex needs to move because it’s too dangerous. ( https://blnnews.com/2018/04/05/faa-cira-and-soccer/ ) The FAA was upset they weren’t paying market rates for the property. The FAA prefers aviation type businesses on the property but there doesn’t appear to be any ready to move in. CIRA would convert the property back to farm land if soccer moves.
Will all the existing trees be killed? The soccer people planted many that are finally getting big enough to matter.
Get ready for more “Quality of Life” that will make your life worse because you will get the bill.
Games are played at the Pony fields from mid April to mid October – 7 months. Does the Florida consultant realize the fields can’t be used all year? (They are working for government, so the obvious needs to be asked!)
How long before, “Lets Get The County Involved too”, is heard.
When they need the money.
The County was asked to contribute to the cost of the feasibility study. The County said no due to current financial struggles.
Whoa! The Town and City are struggling. Where is their fiscal prudence?
They need a class in that.
Suck
Our
Community
Completely &
Evaporate
Revenue!
That’s ALL folks!
here we go again .. more bs dajavu .. another project that free enterprise can’t do and sees a city dire to fund with tax dollars it doesn’t have irregardless of cost ,consequences , true need or accountable facts .
How sad, the tax paying citizens of both cities will continue to pay for the poor business decisions made by the councils and mayors. Having attended many council meetings in Bloomington I have not observed anyone that demonstrates any business intelligence. Managing a multi million dollar budget requires more than feel good attitude. Tough business decisions need to be made in order to reign in taxes. Until the entire council and Mayor are gone there will be no tax relief only tax increases. Open your eyes citizens of Bloomington Normal when only 20 % of you vote what you see is what you get and I for one don’t like what I got!
So of the 70% of the time they recommend a project, I wonder what the success rate of those facilities is. How many are profitable? Of the 70% they recommend, how many do they manage? Of the 70% they recommend, how many times are tax dollars used to subsidize their poor recommendations? We don’t need this! I am a huge fan of youth sports, but I don’t want our council to continue down the path of bankrupting our future. Like these groups do, they’ll blame poor studies or changing times to make excuses for failure. They’ll point to 1-2 successful projects over and over and ignore the ones that are not.
http://qctimes.com/news/local/bettendorf-unveils-plans-for-sports-complex/article_dce57cbf-3f48-5000-be24-efcf05093f6a.html
Most but not all was private investment.
http://www.kwqc.com/content/news/New-hotel-to-be-built-at-TBK-Bank-Sport-Complex-in-Bettendorf-474636973.html
Trying to give them ideas? lol
City would pitch in $10 million plus a loan of $5 million. There plan doesn’t have near as many soccer fields as the airport property.
https://twitter.com/tbkbanksports?lang=en
If the need is truly there then there should be plenty of private money available for investing in this project. If someone actually has skin in the game instead of relying on tax dollars there is a better chance for success in my opinion.
Of course it does.
I have an update – it’s up to $45,000,000 now – but it will be great! http://qctimes.com/business/new-bettendorf-sports-complex-is-game-changer/article_99ee6ea3-4ca3-527e-9b37-8ba596a84448.html