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Voters in Hamilton County aren’t likely to be assuaged by accounts of stadium cost overruns in other communities. Typically, Cincinnatians aren’t moved by the lessons of other cities, nor should they assume that overruns on other stadiums excuse the same occurrence in their own community.
Between land costs, development costs, construction costs and up to $45 million in overruns with more sure to come, the people of Cincinnati and Hamilton County will invest at least $450 million to keep the Bengals in town. About $330 million will go toward the stadium, a high figure even by today’s outrageous standards.
For $450 million, it’s once again proved that you can count on news from the Bengals front to kill a good time. One day, in comes Ken Griffey Jr. The next day, in comes up to $45 million in overruns to subsidize a hopeless football team.
Corey Dillon wants to leave, Carl Pickens wants to leave, everyone knows the Bengals won’t sign good free agents unless they pay through the nose and, even if there were light at the end of the tunnel, no one would believe it. At a time when Hamilton County voters were already questioning the wisdom of funding a stadium for such a futile operation, wishing they could somehow cut their losses, it turns out their losses are ever increasing. This is a bitter pill.
Hamilton County consumers were already on the hook for $544 million for two stadiums, allegedly to be funded by a half-cent sales tax for 20 years.
The sales tax is an imposition on low-income citizens who will realize little benefit from a stadium they’ll never be able to enter, unless they’re cleaning it after the game. Now the stadium tax stands to be extended indefinitely.
None of this is Mike Brown’s fault, though it would be nice if he could have allowed another year or two to build the stadium. Neither is it his problem. If the stadium isn’t ready to open this fall, Brown is guaranteed $2 million per preseason game and $4 million per regular season game. If the stadium is ready, the county has guaranteed him sellouts.
County Commissioner Bob Bedinghaus can’t be entirely blamed for giving Brown such a sweet deal, because Brown held all the cards and, as the 1996 sales tax referendum proved, voters were willing to support it. Bedinghaus and the commissioners can be blamed for not following through to be sure the voters received the package they approved.
But even that seems to miscast the problem. Evidently, given what we’re learning about the contingencies of this stadium building operation, Bedinghaus and company sold the voters a package he couldn’t have possibly delivered. Bids were awarded based on incomplete specifications, and the announcement of a “guaranteed maximum price” didn’t mention that this guarantee was subject to inevitable change orders.
No governmental authority was in place to guard the integrity of the budget. Evidently, elected officials believed their commitment to voters was satisfied once 61 percent of them approved the stadium tax.
Perhaps the sell was way too easy. In his opposition to the stadium tax, Tim Mara correctly estimated the prices of the structures escalating toward $1 billion in the absence of cost controls.
Cost controls? The county didn’t even form a stadium authority to oversee the project. This is evidence of a clear lack of responsibility by elected officials who ought to be a lot more interested in protecting the public’s interest.
Then again, what is an elected official’s interest in the public’s interest if the electorate isn’t going to hold them accountable? Hamilton County is, essentially, a one-party oligarchy in which the party elites shuttle from position to position in the service of business interests. As long as the voters don’t hold the Republican Party’s feet to the fire, the continuing result will be government that doesn’t care how much ordinary consumers pay to subsidize its true constituency.
If, indeed, this episode ruins Bedinghaus’ political career, as he has indicated, then it will accomplish nothing. Bedinghaus would simply take the fall and be consoled with a nice job somewhere in town. The power structure would plug another player into his position, and county government would continue to serve a few big hitters.
If, in fact, the majority of Hamilton County voters believe the Republican Party best matches their views, that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean the party has to answer to the voters. Elected officials have to answer to voters only when voters challenge them. Otherwise, officials will naturally do the bidding of their allies and biggest contributors.
As long as Hamilton County voters are so spooked by “liberals” that they refuse to take Democratic candidates seriously, then the party that’s in control will stay in control, regardless of how casually it squanders the citizen’s money. It should be evident by now that conservatives can steal from the middle class and give to the rich just as well as liberals can steal from the middle class and give to the poor.
Some years ago, Lani Guinier gave a talk at the University of Cincinnati after her writings opposed to winner-take-all democracy doomed her nomination to the Clinton Administration. Guinier advocates a proportional democracy toward creating equality of results, rather than just equality of opportunity.
To change the system, it could be necessary for the winners under the present system to agree that the game should be changed. But when asked how to persuade the winners to change the game, Guinier said that’s not the problem. The problem, she said, is persuading the losers that they can change the game.
On a less radical scale, the same kind of necessity is present in Cincinnati. If you held your nose when you voted for the stadium tax only to discover that you’re going to be taxed more heavily than you consented, then you are a loser in this game. And it’s up to you to change the game.
Paul Brown Stadium could be ready to open on time in August but probably 20 percent or more over budget. Whatever the difficulties, this is a considerable blunder by the elected county administration. But whether voters will still be outraged by the November election is impossible to predict.
Perhaps voters will digest this latest bad news and will be mollified by an exciting summer. The Bengals might even win a game or two before the election. Perhaps all will seem well, or at least good enough, and the voters will forget about this situation.
The voters, and non-voters, always get the kind of government they deserve. If they don’t vote out bad government, they will surely get more bad government. Of course, voting out bad government isn’t the same thing as voting in good government, but at least it’s progress because it forces the political class to take voters seriously.
In a real sense, a bad football team is a luxury Cincinnati can’t afford. It’s better than no football, but only if everything else is equal, which it isn’t, because real tradeoffs have to be made to fund the stadium. The voters, who hate taxes, agreed to swallow them so they could keep the Bengals. Now the voters are faced with cost overruns.
What are the voters going to do about it? Are they just going to sit there and take it, consoled that the present administration is the lesser of evils?
Is the devil you know really better than the devil you don’t know? If so, then he’s going to be around for a while.
This article appears in Feb 23-29, 2000.