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| Greens Blast D.C. Mayor Williams' Taxpayer-Funded Ballpark Boondoggle. |
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THE D.C. STATEHOOD GREEN PARTY Use that $338 million for D.C.'s social needs -- let billionaires pay for their own ballpark, say Statehood Greens. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The D.C. Statehood Green Party strongly opposes the use of taxpayers' money to pay for a new baseball stadium in Washington, D.C., and is severely criticizing Mayor Anthony Williams' pledge of $338 million in public money to fund its construction. "The ballpark boondoggle is another in a long line of Mayor Williams' schemes to transfer money from taxpayers' pockets and from desperately needed social services into the accounts of millionaire and billionaire cronies," said Ward 2 activist and party member Debby Hanrahan. "That $338 million is sorely needed for public school textbooks, equipment, and repairs, for health care, for the Housing Production Trust Fund and Interim Disability Assistance." Statehood Greens cited documentation that cities get no economic boost and often lose money because of taxpayer-funded stadiums, including the book 'Field of Schemes: How The Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit' by Joanna Cagan and Neil DeMause. A Washington Post article published on May 30, 2003, "Major League Baseball Playing to a Tough Crowd: New Stadiums Aren't the Draw They Used to Be", reports that new ballparks have had difficulty attracting sufficient crowds to justify public investment. "We've already seen massive financial mismanagement and wasted taxpayers' money by Bobby Goldwater, the president and executive director of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, who at $275,000 a year is D.C.'s highest paid employee and isn't even a District resident," said Adam Eidinger, a member of the Statehood Green Party's steering committee. "Under Goldwater's leadership, the Commission ignored complaints from residents in Southeast D.C. about the noise and congestion from the Grand Prix." Besides the Grand Prix and current stadium proposal, Statehood Greens listed other publicly funded boondoggles in the past five years: D.C.'s bid for the 2012 Olympics, which would have drained the public treasury for sports facilities, generated pollution and congestion, and displaced thousands of residents; the MCI Arena, built through a surtax on local D.C. businesses and broken promises of good jobs for D.C. residents; and the new convention center, for which the bill to taxpayers is approaching $1 billion. The Olympic bid, which failed, was promoted at the same time Mayor Williams dismantled D.C. General Hospital, the District's only full-service public health facility. "Goldwater and Mayor Williams are turning the District into a feeding trough," added Debby Hanrahan. "In August 2000, Mayor Williams hosted a reception for Republicans at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. The theme of the luncheon, sponsored by Lockheed Martin Corporation, the nation's largest defense contractor, was his plan for a taxpayer-funded ballpark." At the event, Mayor Williams boasted to Republicans that his administration is "building oversight" and "accountability" and claimed, "We're about bringing back this city and making this city accountable for results for our people." "Accountability would be better served if Mayor Williams let his billionaire buddies pay for their own ballpark," said Michele Tingling-Clemmons of the Emergency Committee to Restore Seniors' Prescription Drug Benefits. MORE INFORMATION |
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