Not that we should have expected anything different, I was wondering about the water wall at our new baseball stadium.
The slide above is one of many that were presented to us.
If anyone has seen the water wall I would appreciate being corrected.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Never paid any attention to this…but why would anyone want a water wall in a ballpark located in the desert?
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It was replaced by the Centerfield Wall of Taxpayer Dispair, and the Left Field Wall of The Ghost of Insights
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And lets not forget the Right Center Field Wall of Lost Emails
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Isn’t just some kind of water-based play area for the kids?
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By the way, I love my purple icon! Thanks!
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We needed the dollars for the City Hall Grill.
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I think it references the design element that the blue wall was supposed to represent the “water” in the river the unites our region.
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Total city revenue from the ballpark this year is 4.3 million (includes sales tax, ticket sales, 3.8 million HOT); city expenses from ballpark for the year are 4.8 million (4.1 debt service, 700,000 for police). That’s a loss of a half million. So the loss will come from the general fund, i.e. we the taxpayers will pay for the loss.
http://www.kvia.com/news/first-downtown-ballpark-season-showing-losses-for-city/27800840
Did I miss this in the EP Times?
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What they said: “The city is still gathering information on business permits and taxes gathered from areas near the ballpark as well.”
What it means: The city is going to fabricate indirect revenue numbers to help justify the actual losses.
It’s interesting that the $3.8 mil in HOT tax now being used to pay for the ballpark is just slightly more than the overall city budget shortfall for the new budget cycle.
Oh, did they conveniently leave out the costs for running special shuttles and the costs related to staffing the parking facilities?
These numbers are probably about as honest and reliable as the original projections, which proved to be false.
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Looks like we’ve got an ongoing debate between the Times and KVIA and between some downtown business owners and other downtown business owners. I’m thinking it will be a long time before anything is settled. In looking at the reported “ballpark revenues” of 4.3 mil, I see a very biased reporting in that 3.8 mil was HOT tax….that’s hotel income, not ballpark income, folks. So we’re left with an estimated half mil that could realistically be called “ballpark revenue.” for the city. If we say it cost us, say a conservative 70 mil to build the thing, then at that rate it will take us 140 years just to recover the 70 mil. In looking at the 4.8 mil so called “expenses” most of it (4.1 mil) is debt service and all the rest (700 K) is police. Are all the expenses really included in this 4.8 mil figure? Does “debt service” include city hall demolition, 3 or 4 revamped city hall replacement buildings, ballpark planning, designing, and construction costs, etc.? I guess so, if all of that was simply “financed.” I would call the city’s reporting on this a very poorly thought out exercise in public obfuscation.
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