As a baseball fan, Opening Day is a kind of re-birth, as hope stirs – even for my Cincinnati Reds.
But baseball sometimes comes with a price tag that is simply far too high. No, I’m not talking about ticket prices (which in many places, such as New York, can be quite pricey). Instead, I point to an excellent column by Wallace Matthews in the March 18 Newsday.
Matthews notes that the New York Mets will be moving into a new ballpark in 2009. Unfortunately, New York City has plans linked to the stadium that rest on abusing eminent domain powers. The idea apparently is to take property from small business owners, and turn it over to a private developer in order to spruce up the area around the new stadium.
Consider a few key points made by Matthews:
• “As the Mets' new home moves closer and closer to completion, the Feinstein Iron Works, along with 100 or so other businesses in Queens' Iron Triangle, moves closer to extinction…”
• “Opening Day at Citi Field is little more than a year away, and still, [Howard] Feinstein, who along with his brother Dan is the third-generation owner of a business that has called Willets Point home for 36 years, has no idea if they will be around to see it. Same goes for Daniel Sambucci Sr., owner of Sambucci Auto Salvage, a tenant since 1950, and T. Mina Supply, which manufactures most of the city's sewer pipes but, like every business and resident of Willets Point, must depend on a cesspool because the city refuses to build a sewer beneath its streets. That is soon to change, of course, once the city, as is its plan, grabs the land with a declaration of eminent domain, throws them all out and sells this suddenly priceless sliver of real estate to a developer.”
• “Creating a multimillion-dollar tourism and entertainment center across from Citi Field, built over the graves of businesses that have survived there since the Great Depression, seems to be [New York City Mayor Michael] Bloomberg's last shot to leave something behind.”
• “Still, Feinstein and the other businesses pay upward of $54,000 a year in real estate taxes for the right to inhabit a rutted chunk of land that is the physical equivalent of downtown Baghdad. Across the street, the Mets, beneficiaries of nearly a quarter-billion dollars in city and state tax subsidies, a sweetheart deal on parking revenues and a legislative end-run around a 1986 law prohibiting the use of tax-exempt bonds for the construction of sports facilities, amounting to an additional $105 million in savings, pay not a nickel in taxes on Shea and will pay not a nickel on Citi Field.”
And that is the sordid story that too often occurs when pro sports teams get new facilities. Are they nice places to watch games? Yes. Should they be paid for with taxpayer subsidies and government abusing eminent domain? Absolutely not.
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