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Originally Posted by Enoch Root
Obtuse argument. A civic or provincial guarantee gets a much more favorable interest rate. Individual companies that don't have established credit lines can't just go into public debt markets and pitch a tent. It's a little more complex than that. By having the guarantee, the bond gets substantially better terms. Also, in the extremely unlikely event that it did go south, it would be a massive ####show to have a civic arena being controlled by private creditors. And the city would likely get sued in that scenario anyway.
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It shouldn't be a civic arena in the first place, so who cares if it is controlled by private creditors? That's the norm in Canada, and why U.S. cities have been continuously screwed over in their deals.
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pretty easy to establish provisions for that in the agreement
Umm, because the city would demand that in order to agree to the loan provision? They're called negotiations.
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Who do you think has more leverage in a negotiation. The product that has other options, or the suckers holding onto the debt for construction of a facility that needs a product to pay off that debt?
There's a reason cities continuously get screwed in these deals, they have the leverage with what actually makes the investment a success, and because of people like you.
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If you think those situations are relevant here, I don't know what to say to you. Just because a couple of deals were poorly negotiated and/or contested on silly items, does not mean that all rental agreements are crap. Believe it or not, there are actually a few sports facilities in NA where the tenants are paying their bills.
Your argument is essentially: here is an example of a bad deal, therefore all these types of deals are bad.
Hating for hating's sake.
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Oh okay. Ask me to show some bad deals then dismiss them because not all deals are bad?
I get that you want an arena so bad you're just drinking the kool-aid that every sports team begging for public money has done in North America, but here's some more bad deals:
Florida:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/br...020-story.html
Pittsburgh:
http://triblive.com/home/2950649-74/...xpansion-taxes
The Steelers have offered a solution for the SEA — place a $1 surcharge on tickets and $2 to $3 on parking to pay for these bonds. And if those sources are inadequate, the SEA would have to find other sources.
Columbus:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stor...oor-arena.html
San Francisco:
http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-...ce=infinite-up
The ticket tax is definitely the least egregious thing the team is asking for, mostly because it is the fans getting hit the most, and while the risk is low, it is easy to spot a snake oil salesman when they try to dismiss $250M of public guaranteed debt as anything other than public help.
Add the disingenuous approach to the ticket tax portion of the funding to the flat-out terrible and indefensible CRL approach and you have a deal I don't want my city to go near, so there better be a Plan B coming somewhere.