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Saidel, Katz assail stadium plans
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Testifying at a hearing for a U.S. Senate bill aimed at limiting public financing of new stadiums, Saidel took a shot at Rendell's funding plan for the projects, suggesting it would cost taxpayers more than the mayor had let on.
Katz, too, was critical of the funding plan, as well as the closed nature of ongoing stadium negotiations and the fact that City Council was about to be asked to consider an $800 million deal with the general election just weeks away.
"I think it is unfortunate that in a city that has lost 150,000 people over the past 10 years because neighborhoods aren't safe, taxes are too high, and the schools don't perform, that we are going to spend the last four weeks of the election debating stadium financing and stadium location," Katz said.
Rendell, in his testimony, touted the outlines of his plan as a good deal for the city.
"We are going to be able to construct two stadiums without using funds now used for police or the fire department or schools," he said. "We are basically making the stadiums pay for themselves."
The hearing was called to consider a bill, proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.), to cap the amount of public funds used to build new stadiums for professional teams.
The bill would require the National Football League and Major League Baseball to establish a fund from television revenue to pay for 50 percent of the cost of building new stadiums and renovating existing ones. Under the bill, local governments would be responsible for 25 percent of the costs, and the individual teams would pay the remaining 25 percent.
The bill must be approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee to go to the Senate floor. The committee had yet to schedule a vote.
Rendell used his testimony to defend his deal with the Eagles and the Phillies. He said that it had been originally proposed that the state, the city and the teams equally split the cost of new stadiums. The actual deal will require that the teams be responsible for the largest share, he said.
"The state's share is going to be below a third, the city's will be slightly more than a third, and the teams will put in significantly more than a third," Rendell said.
The city's share would be raised with a surcharge on game tickets, an increase in the rental-car tax, the funds already earmarked for maintenance of Veterans Stadium, and additional tax revenue generated by the new stadiums themselves, he said.
"The money we are using would not exist if it wasn't for the new stadiums," Rendell said.
Saidel challenged the mayor's math.
He suggested that putting the Phillies' new park at Broad and Spring Garden Streets, as proposed, would cost the city as much as $500,000 in lost real estate taxes by taking the property off the tax rolls.
Further, by abandoning Veterans Stadium, the city would lose about $6 million a year in luxury-box revenue that would be due beginning in 2001, Saidel said. The money was part of the deal cut with the Eagles in the 1980s when the city agreed to build luxury suites at the Vet to keep the team from leaving Philadelphia.
After the hearing, Rendell said that his plan took the $6 million in revenue into account. The money would be more than made up by additional tax revenue brought in by the new stadiums, he said.
Neither Saidel nor Katz was convinced.
"There is substantial income that the city was going to realize for the balance of the 10 years of the lease [that] we are now going to give up," Katz said. "I don't know that those figures are in the calculations when the mayor says there won't be a hit on the city's finances. I think there will be a direct hit."
Katz was also concerned that the city's deal with the teams was about to be forced on the public with little time for thorough debate.
The Democratic mayoral candidate, John F. Street, was invited to the hearing and did not attend.
Rendell has said he expects a stadium package to be ready for Council by the first two weeks of October. He said he would like to see it voted on by December.
"If the reason this has taken so long is that the deal is too complicated for the city and teams, rest assured it is probably too complicated for the voters to digest in a couple of weeks," Katz said.
In response, the mayor's spokesman, Kevin Feeley, said that "there will be adequate time for Council and the public to engage in debate and adequate time for the Council to consider the proposal and vote on it."
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