Tomorrow (Tuesday, October 2, 2018) city council will consider changing the ball park lease.
The sports group already has control over the ball park every day of the year because of their current lease.
The group wants to bring a USL soccer team to El Paso and play at the ball park. They plan to spend $3.5 million to make the facility appropriate for both baseball and soccer.
This makes sense if for no other reason than they already control what can happen at the park.
From the proposed changes to the lease:
“… all revenues generated
from the Soccer Team and/or the Ballpark on the date of a Soccer Team home game or
USL events including, without limitation, all revenues from Soccer Team or USL ticket
sales (except Ticket Fees), parking (except for City’s share of parking revenue, discussed
in Article V of this Agreement), Soccer Team or USL Concessions, Soccer Team or USL
Merchandise, Soccer Team or USL suite, and club seat sales, interior and exterior Soccer
Team or USL-related Ballpark advertising and signage, sponsorships, any and all Soccer
Team or USL naming rights and other advertising, sales of broadcast and telecast rights,
internet rights, league expansion fees and team fundraising, and any other sources of
Soccer Team or USL related revenue, shall be retained by MountainStar Soccer or the
USL, as appropriate.”
The city does not get much.
However the city does get to provide free police services:
City, in its reasonable discretion, shall provide at
its sole cost and expense (using City employees or contract services, as determined by
City) all customary police, traffic control, fire prevention, emergency medical, street
cleaning, trash removal and other similar City-provided services, outside and in the
general vicinity of the Ballpark, at a level of service consistent with the Ballpark
Standard;
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Smart officials would use this as an opportunity to improve our ballpark deal which is significantly more generous to Mountain Star then other partnerships of this nature. But our politicians will continue to line Mountain Star’s pockets at our expense.
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Ah, but your very first word eliminates El Paso from this equation! You said “smart” officials, and we know better. I say, “Go on ahead with your bad selves!” I also predict that this latest toy/idea falls flat on its face and we lose lots more money!
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I guess I should be honored my tax dollars subsidize others profits.
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While I don’t agree with the City covering the peripheral security services, etc. I am glad to see that MSSG isn’t trying to get taxpayers to fund their mods to the ballpark for soccer games.
They are testing the waters on their own dime as they should. If El Paso shows even a decent modicum of interest in soccer (which I believe is highly possible) then will come the time when MSSG will come knocking at the City’s door to ask for taxpayer dollars.
The El Paso Community Foundation did just this with the Children’s Museum. They went into backdoor conversations with City leaders and walked out ballooning the cost of the museum from the original $19.5 million allocated to $60,000,000. $20,000,000 of those dollars are taxes we will pay via issuance of COs that we never had ANY SAY in.
This is how the City of El Paso gives us the Quality of Life “that what we deserve”. WITHOUT OUR PARTICIPATION OR APPROVAL.
Any they are in an unprecedented PR push to convince people that all those additional taxes rapidly moving us to #1 in America for highest property tax rates are worth it because we DESERVE a guaranteed to lose millions, history and heritage eating, concrete cluster bomb of a sports arena FUSTERCLUCK.
They’ve got us in spin cycle. What are we going to do about it???
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Actually remember the extra money we spent on safety modifications right before the soccer team was announced and the Mayor’s comment about we’ve done all we can for you? I suspect we taxpayers have paid for the changes to accommodate soccer.
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This is a perfect opportunity for the city to renegotiate the lease and ask for more equitable sharing of ballpark revenue, but that will never happen. Whatever Hunt and Foster want, they get.
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I thought El Paso City Council (not us taxpayers) wanted their OWN Soccer – Sports Stadium . . therefore the eminent domain and destruction of all that property downtown.
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BILLIONS$$$ in PUBIC debt and still digging. “Smart officials”?? Really, not here in El Taxo. Just when we think OUR situation, TAXES can’t get any worse, THEY have another “idea”. THEY, Mountain Star Sports CONNED the taxpayers with their ball field and it just continues. NOTHING ever gets better for the PEOPLE of El Taxo. In OTHER cities, sports, schools, businesses, events OFF duty Police, Deputies are hired and PAID by the event to work security. POLITICIANS are the reason WE pay huge pay outs for Officer overtime. THEY are the reason there are few to NO Police working the streets. THEY have turned the Police into a REACTIVE force, not PROACTIVE. They show up when something has already happened. No speeder, wreckless driving, DUI, radar traffic enforcement. And now another 4 MILLION$$$ to put chalk, numbers on the field?
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Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a plan that we all knew about versus these things just “happening”? The lack of transparency in our city government is appalling as it was under the previous CM when the stadium done deal, i.e, “it’s going to happen no matter how you vote,” was announced with just two weeks notice.
Honestly, if the Mayor or anyone on CC said the sun will rise tomorrow, I’d check to see if there was an eclipse coming. They have no credibility at all.
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That’s the way that local elections come out here. “Who voted for that, how did that pass, what happened, but, but they said……really, we voted for a tax INCREASE…………but if WE voted NO, how is it possible that……………You mean THEY LIED and we actually bought……….” I never trust the politicians in El Taxo. It seems that elections, votes always get “Adjusted” to whatever it is that THEY want. What they said is not what they meant. 🙂
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