Quote:
Originally Posted by Tinordi
But it's very important to understand that a dollar spent on arenas means a dollar not spent somewhere else. For the City of Edmonton $100 million is alot of scratch. How many swimming pools, after school programs, etc. is that? How much road maintenance is that? Or provided that you keep the same level of service how much additional property tax revenue per household is that? And is it equitable to be charging higher property tax on people who aren't even hockey fans?
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The recently deceased Art Modell, owner of the Baltimore Ravens, answered your question this way when asked about cuts to the library budget when Baltimore was in a bidding war for tax payer subsidies with Cleveland for the Browns in 1996:
"
The pride of having a professional football team is worth more than 30 libraries."