OnlyinElPaso posted a comment to Demolishing trust that made me realize that I have some explaining to do.
I have written a few times that I am not against the ball park per se. I am against the way it was done.
My feeling is that if we had a strong mayor the ball park would have been handled differently. The mayor would have sat down with the businessmen who made the offer to bring a team to El Paso and would have negotiated a public/private relationship that made more sense.
Time was used as an excuse to try to justify the over $85 million dollars that we have commited to spend relocating city hall. If the ball park had to be in downtown then property should have been acquired for a different site. That would have taken time. I believe that I strong mayor would have been able to convince the owners to wait the year or two involved.
The economics of the ball park deal do not look fair to me either. The voters are investing all of the money for the facilities. The city has agreed to pay fully or share in many of the operating expenses. The city is giving away parking fees. I think that the final share of the ticket revenue that the city agreed to is now 10 cents per ticket. I don’t think that the city gets any portion of the concession revenue. Public safety expenses appear to be paid by the city.
Maybe I don’t appreciate the economics and a stronger negotiator on the side of the taxpayers would not have been able to do any better than we have ended up. In that case the ball park does not make sense to me.
I have been opposed to using the city hall site from day one. My personal opinion is the city manager was bound and determined to get out of that building and the ball park gave her an excuse. We have been sold down the river. When the public comes to realize what effect closing 16 rail crossings in town will have, I expect that there will be an outcry, albeit too late. Read Train wreck for more details.
I am not commenting about the team owners. I note that they have been consistent in saying that they needed a downtown location. What I do not remember hearing them say is that they need to be open for next baseball season. I suspect that they would have been willing to buy the team and leave them in Arizona for a year or two.
I don’t know if the owners got a good deal or not. What I do know is that the citizens of El Paso did not.
Maybe the May elections will change the direction of city council.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
What? You want to do things in a fiscally responsible, common sense sort-of-way? Brut, you must not be from around here. You see, down here in the 915, we can easily hypnotize the locals into believing anything as long as we use audio hypnotic coins, such as: “progressive,” “moving foward,” “having a vision” and of course, “investing in ourselves.” BTW- after you pointed out how expensive the ballpark truly is on that other blog (refusetheintelligence…err, something like that) all of those Mensa members piped-down. Good job, bro.
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