For the sake of debate, let us overlook that time constraints have limited this MLS soccer stadium proposal to less than two hours of diligent consideration by our board with incomplete data and significant details missing. Ignore that the entire process from introduction to final vote will cover a mere 23 days with public input relegated to an inconvenient afternoon policy meeting rather than a well-publicized, dedicated and televised evening timeslot. 

Disregard the arrogance of MLS demanding to their advantage a site location within the most valuable geography in the county. Putting this aside let us ponder the proposal as presented.
For a bargain price of $43.75 million, the county acquire a purpose built stadium worth $200 million and a pro soccer team that returning no revenue from naming rights (we must waive our current naming guidelines), no revenue from ticket sales, concessions, parking, or advertising. We will loan $75 million to one of the wealthiest families in America at rates lower than any small business can acquire and be forced to escrow hundreds of thousands to maintain an asset to the level required by the team.

Unfortunately, our bargain requires we bulldoze yet another historic structure because doing so is easier than creatively repurposing the one we have and regrettably history has shown what will take its place will most likely be obsolete before it is paid for.

Does this project increase economic development? Little, if any.  Does it enhance a fragile neighborhood? Hardly. Does it offer magnificent financial returns? No, we break even at best. Does it conform to a long-term master plan, fill a gap in adult or youth recreation needs, provide long-term jobs, build community, enhance our green space? No, no, no, no and no. Is a $75 million loan to a billionaire more prudent than a fund to encourage small business growth?

Is $50 million for a private use stadium better than completing long delayed parks and promised regional recreation centers? Is fast tracking yet another special interest project fair to those patiently waiting their turn? In the end this project offers incentives to those who do not need them and does so without real and meaningful public involvement. It doesn’t offer opportunity for competing ideas, alternatives or participants and does so at a head-spinning pace. Only speculators or fools invest this much this fast. 

It is my job to protect the taxpayer from each, not transform them into either.

Yet if everything I have listed above were found to be false, I would still not support this project for a simple fact.  With the dust still settling on an election that should have awakened every elected official to the citizens distain for an apparent arrogance of power our even considering a project that reeks of cronyism, backroom deal-making, inequitable distribution of public funds and favoritism is to court misfortune. In short the optics of this deal are so patently bad as to beg mistrust. Trust is the coin of the realm in governance and there is no amount of upside that can justify the potential loss of that which makes all else possible, the people’s faith.  So as for me, I will abide in the advice given by Edmund Burke:“Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.”î

Jim Puckett is a Mecklenburg County commissioner.

Related:

Mayor Roberts: 'We want input' on pro soccer stadium financing

Pros and cons of Major League Soccer stadium debated

Comments