In response to inquiries about my opinion on the Texas Ranger Stadium initiative on the November Ballot in Arlington this year, I’m enumerating the reasons for my “opinion”. The existing Ranger’s Stadium and the site for their proposed new dome stadium and the Cowboy’s stadium are all in my voting precinct. I am the Democratic Precinct Chair so this is “my neighborhood.”
The current Rangers’s stadium is only 22 years. old. It was opened in April 1994, financed while George W. Bush was the owner, as a public private partnership funded by Arlington sales tax revenue. It is really one of the best baseball venues in the USA — a modern updated Wrigley Field — encompassing modern comfort and technology with the tradition of America’s most famous baseball stadium. Arlington is a sprawling 99 square mile landlocked city between Dallas and Fort Worth. Growth didn’t accelerate significantly until after the 1960s so there are few landmarks of significance. In honesty, anything that might have historical significance has difficulty escaping the bulldozers and wrecking balls in Arlington. We have more sites where something once stood than where they “still do”. The majority of Arlington’s “older buildings” were constructed in the 1960s or later.
Even with Arlington City Leaders’ mindset to fund sports over other public infrastructure, and using recessive sale tax revenue to line the pockets of private partners, this proposal to demolish the 22 year old stadium surprised me. When examining it in context with the political players and their history and their ties to contractors and team management, it is less surprising. Many decisions by Arlington leaders on infrastructure seem to be based less on what is needed in the community than on who will benefit from the contracts.
I have examined the revenue stream coming from the existing stadium and have seen projections of future income from the proposed domed replacement. Honestly, the cost does not justify the investment. Plans for the new stadium are unimpressive. Granted it has a dome and Texas does have hot weather in the summer. However, most baseball games are played at night and Texas nights are o.k. for outdoor events when there is a breeze. Granted a dome lets you play when it rains but baseball has a tradition that when a game is rained out you merely schedule a double-hitter the next day. It is unlikely that more fans will show up in the proposed new stadium than currently fill the existing venue.
I find it absurd to demolish an attractive, welcoming stadium which qualifies as a architectural landmark through traditional design and construct a much smaller, much more expensive and definitely many times more ugly newer domed stadium.
Why is this coming up now? Partially because the current top management of the Texas Rangers is a greedy, self-absorbed far from wise “businessman” who chooses to use attempts by other cities to lure the team elsewhere as blackmail to prompt taxpayers to fund a new stadium even though there are many other needs which the city should prioritized far ahead of replacing a 22 year old sports venue. That is my take on it in a nutshell. I have never met the current owner. I do , however, have my opinion of him based on his business moves. His sense of “entitlement” and lack of community spirit is apparent in his handling of the team in regard to stadium negotiations. I suspect he thinks that “{if they did it for George Bush, they ought to do it for me.” I’m not sure we should have done it for George Bush but I am definitely sure that we shouldn’t do it for him!
Do I object to the team having a new, expensive domed stadium. No. Not if they pay for it. Not if they acquire other private funding. Not if they invest their profits into it. Not if they leave the existing stadium to the CITY and not saddle the city with a no-compete contract for utilization of the existing stadium. I don’t even mind if they do a land swap and locate the new ugly thing on existing stadium property in our neighborhood.
Should Arlington voters approve the November initiative for fear that the team will leave when its contract expires in six years. No. We should not. No. We definitely should not approve their funding scheme. Arlington voters should VOTE NO!
Here are my reasons:
1. Arlington Tax Payers have already funded two stadiums for private sports teams in the past 22 years leaving other priorities unfunded.
2. I am acutely aware that there are many UNMET FUNDING PRIORITIES that the residents in my precinct and neighboring precincts need more than replacing one of the best baseball sports stadiums in the USA with a smaller domed stadium at taxpayers' expense.
3. The new stadium is smaller.Fewer seats in the new stadium will result in higher ticket cost, reducing the number of fans who will be able to afford to enjoy the new venue. That benefits the owners, not the fans who fund it!
4. The new stadium is UGLY. It is designed to be another silver eyesore. It reminds me of those old airstream trailer houses they had in the 1950s. The existing stadium is a LANDMARK which we should be proud of for decades. Truthfully, many Arlington residents, even non-baseball fans, were (are) proud of the existing stadium. Proposing to demolish it has tainted it with the label of “old” stadium. Geez. Twenty two years is not OLD for a sports arena!
5. Our Existing Ranger Stadium is vastly superior to most sports venues in other cities. I have spent considerable time this year at events held in sports arenas in other Texas cities and in other states. None of those stadiums were as nice, comfortable, or functionable as the Rangers Stadium in Arlington.
6. It is a matter of loyalty. Fans are expected to be loyal. However, management should realize that loyalty should go both ways. Here is how I see it: The Rangers were a very weak team when they came to Arlington. They have thrived here, and they have contributed to the life of our community and the entire DFW Metroplex. If they have so little loyalty that they will leave because they are refused taxpayer funding for a domed stadium, then let them go. If they choose to leave, I think that this city can easily attract another team that can climb to the top with the lure of our existing stadium. I have seen no evidence of the city attempting to explore other team possibilities should they decide to leave. Instead of selling this deal to the voters, the mayor should be exploring who we can bring here to replace the Rangers if they break their contract six years from now. Instead, I fear that he is more interested in enriching his builder/contractor friends than truly prioritizing the welfare of the residents of this city.
7. I do not object to the Rangers building another stadium on the proposed location using their own and other private financing. Arlington Sales Tax should not be committed to it. We need many other things with the existing tax revenue.
8.. We must stop this disposable infrastructure mentality! Tearing down good infrastructure to construct worse at higher prices is insanity. If another stadium is constructed in Arlington for the Rangers, then the existing stadium should revert 100% to the Arlington Taxpayers and be repurposed for other major events. There should be no non-compete contract with the Rangers preventing other teams from competing in the current stadium.
9. While on the subject, these stadiums paid for with our tax dollars should wear the brand of our CITY. If they sell branding rights.The word ARLINGTON should appear in the stadium name. (.i.e. Arlington's Globe Life Park etc.) Truly it has become confusing to understand where some venues are located because so many in various cities are now known by corporate brands instead of city names. I refuse to refer to the two sports stadiums in my neighborhood by their official brand names. Selling branding rights to a municipal financed stadium disgusts me. The team management and city cut the branding deal and those of us in the neighborhood and fans had no say. In the neighborhood everyone understands exactly WHICH stadium we are referring to when we say “Rangers Stadium” instead of “Globe Life Park” or Cowboy’s Stadium instead of the name of that irritating telephone company. There is not a taxi or limo driver or media person who will go to the wrong place if told to go to the Rangers’ or Cowboy Stadium. However, it would be easy to get to the wrong city if you mentioned “AT&T Center”, etc.
10. There is a long list of priorities which do not get funded in Arlington because we have dedicated too much of our sales tax revenue for the past 22 years to funding private owned sports teams new stadiums. If you are interested, I’ll gladly discuss some of them at greater length with you. In a nutshell, here are a few.
- We are one of the most seriously traffic gridlocked cities in the metroplex and are the largest city in the USA without mass transit.
- Our Handitran service is underfunded and stretched to accommodate many more riders each year without additional funds to expand capacity. It is stretched so thin that kidney dialysis patients frequently cannot schedule rides to treatment!
- Replacing a partially outdoor baseball venue for an air conditioned domed stadium is less important to me than having adequate transportation for kidney dialysis patients to get rides to treatment or for low to moderate income workers to have affordable dependable transportation options other than very expensive private automobiles to get to work and school.
- Access to jobs, housing, education. public safety and critical medical care should top replacing one of the best baseball sports venues in the nation with a smaller, less attractive air conditioned domed stadium versus service to life dependent medical appointment places this into better perspective for me.
- A city with over 3 gas wells per square mile probably should invest in infrared cameras to monitor the emissions from pad sites and wells before replacing good sports venues at tax payer expense.
- Currrently, other than public school buses and handitran service for the disabled and senior citizens, there is no public transit available in Arlington. UTA has limited shuttle bus on their campus and the MAX Bus transports people from Arlington to the Trinity Rail Station in Fort Worth several times a day five days a week. There is a trolley bus that circulates through the entertainment district funded by hotel tax for hotel guest. Residents cannot use it.
- As cars escalate in price, dedicating the majority of our sales tax revenue to stadium construction prevents Arlington from being as attractive to new residents and businesses as neighboring cities which have rail and bus service.
- Passage of the Ranger Stadium Tax Funding Initiative will lock Arlington into remaining the largest city in the nation to lack a public transit system. It will keep us unable to adequately plan future transit solutions. It will keep us uncompetitive with our neighbors and our residents cut-off from being able to go from home and school and workplace without dedicating more and more real estate to road expansion to accommodate more and more automobiles.
- These are is only a few of a long shopping list of unmet needs which our sales tax dollars have not meet because we prioritize stadiums over city services. Commuter rail and bus services are traditionally financed by sales tax revenue and other sources. Arlington has been excluded from serious consideration of solving some of its transportation needs because too much of our sales tax revenue was committed to stadium financing. Now that some of those commitments are nearing retirement the Mayor has written voted urging them to extend the sales tax commitment from the Cowboys loans and use it on another Ranger Stadium.
11. But what about the tax and tourist revenue that will be lost of you don’t build the new stadium? know that the stadium bring in revenue. However, we will not LOSE revenue if we do not replace the existing stadium. We’d only lose revenue if we did not utilize the current stadium. It would be great if the Rangers renewed their lease in 2022. However, if they don’t, we can still use the venue to generate sale tax and tourism revenue.
12. Will it really be constructed with NO NEW TAXES? I challenge the Mayor's on his statement in his letter which recently was mailed to Arlington voters where he says voting Yes is voting for NO NEW TAXES. Come on! Extending the current sales taxes which are being retired on the Cowboy Stadium financing to finance a very expensive Ranger Stadium IS NEW TAXES. Mr. Mayor, voting yes on this deal is VOTING FOR NEW TAXES. The only way not to vote for new taxes on this initiative is to VOTE NO.
13. What about the comfort of the fans? Let’s be real here: This deal is not about the comfort of the baseball fans. It is about the anticipated additional revenue to the owners of the Texas Rangers Baseball Team. An Air Conditioned domed baseball stadium is not necessary to pull in Texas Baseball fans. Baseball does not require a domed stadium. Unlike football, the baseball season is not usually interrupted by prolonged bad weather. The baseball season is not during the winter. Most baseball games are played in the evening when it is cooler, If a game is rained out, they have a double hitter then next day.
A domed baseball stadium is for WHIMPS. Let's not whip out with American's Traditional Sports. Besides, I don’t think the Team’s Management is pushing a domed stadium for the comfort of the fans nearly as much as he is licking his chops in anticipation of an excuse to escalate the ticket price. Those fans who think the comfort of an a/c domed stadium is in their interest should weigh the additional hit their pocket books will take if they approve this deal!
14. These are only my opinions and observations. Arlington voters should examine all sides of the issues, not trusting what they read or the political players who tell them “how it is”. Look into it yourself. If you truly think that the most important priority is an ugly smaller silver domed stadium which looks like a 1950s Air Stream Trailer House and will cost you more to attend the games, then make the Mayor and Team owner happy and vote for it. I’m VOTING NO in November.