James E Jacobsen wrote:
I have never been in the Guthrie.
They want to build a new Guthrie -with some of my tax dollars-
And with a design and expense I am not enthused about.
But I am glad to see them do it.
snip
I also like the 'membership' in the national sports community,
--having teams.
David Piehl writes:
I think this gets to the heart of the matter - economic arguments are
difficult at best, and social arguments aren't easy either given expensive
tickets and subsidies that (primarily) directly benefit a handfull of
millionaires (don't you have to wonder how much subsidy would be required
if player salaries weren't in the millions?)
What the stadium issue is really about has more to do with our status as a
metro area. Remember the "cold Omaha" statement? Well, there are a lot of
places that are less desirable to live than Omaha, and many of those
undesirable places have professional sports teams. The often unspoken
benefit of having a sports team is the status statement it makes to the
rest of the country - a sort of "we've arrived" statement. The city's
equivalent of a Jaguar or expensive jewelry. The Guthrie falls into the
same category.
Entertainment opportunities are great, regardless of whether or not I will
personally partake in them; it's a question of what we can afford. Given
the combination of several recent massive subsidies within the city, the
current economic slowdown, and a potential break-down of basic services in
the city, we really have to sharpen our pencils to decide whether or not we
can afford another $160 million.
David Piehl
Central
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