Heavy Lifting

Friday, September 17, 2004

Friday's Star-Telegram had an amazing article about how the city of Arlington became the prime candidate to build Jerry Jones and the Cowboys a new stadium. The article is worth the free registration (or try bugmenot.com for a faux username and password) for the absolute horror of watching how the sausage is actually made - how the city of Arlington is asked to vote on a $325 million contribution to a football stadium.

A tremendous thank you to David Wethe.

Here are some of the more disturbing portions of the article.

Describing the "first" meeting between Mayor Cluck and the Cowboys:

It had been two years since he had been to the team's Irving headquarters. Back then, he was a councilman and co-founder of Touchdown Arlington, a grassroots organization that tried to foster talks between the team and Arlington.

Cluck said Arlington was struggling financially. It was facing its third consecutive severe budget shortfall. Cluck and other officials were scrambling to bring new businesses to town to shore up the tax base.

We want to bring the Cowboys to Arlington, they told him.

Cluck remembered that the earlier conversations had felt like nothing more than a cursory look.

This time, the Joneses and Bayoud seemed to know Arlington.

This time, it felt real, Cluck thought.

I'm not even going to comment on this.

But there is more:

As the meeting continued, there was talk of a two-thirds, one-third split of the construction cost, with the team picking up the smaller portion. This was the split that was pitched to Dallas County officials.

But Arlington had something the city of Dallas lacked -- wiggle room under the sales tax cap. The team also wanted Arlington to raise its sales tax by more than half a percentage point.

So, the original proposal was a heck of a lot worse than the one that we ended up with and we are supposed to feel "lucky?" What a travesty. I thought that if Arlington's city government had taken it upon themselves to tax us the limit the state allows Arlington wouldn't even be in the running for the stadium. That now seems to be confirmed. No good deed goes unpunished.

The worst part: the Cowboys "wanted" to dictate tax policy in the city of Arlington!!

The city fights back in the bitter negotiations:

Cluck quickly balked at the proposed division of costs. He also set the bar for a sales tax increase at half a percentage point.

"One of the most important things to me is that we have a cap on our expenses," Cluck told the group.

Both sides also talked about increasing the hotel-occupancy tax and the car-rental tax for a stadium.

The Joneses and Bayoud huddled together, then told Cluck that half a percentage point increase in the sales tax would do.

I am glad that a one half cent sales tax increase "would do" for Jerry Jones. I see red everytime I read that sentence.

Unfortunately it gets worse. When the city approaches the big guns in Tarrant County, the city is sold out:

Two days later, Cluck returned to Valley Ranch with Tarrant County Judge Tom Vandergriff, Commissioner Marti VanRavenswaay and County Administrator G.K. Maenius for a 9:30 meeting that morning.

The team wasn't looking to partner with Tarrant County like it had with Dallas County. With Arlington under the sales-tax cap, all the Cowboys needed from the county was $25 million to build and improve some of the roads around the stadium.

"Judge, how does this sound?" Bayoud asked after they had laid out the deal. "Does this sound good?"

Vandergriff, the man who brought General Motors and the Rangers to Arlington, replied: "Not 'good,' George. This sounds great."

That's right, it sounds great for Tarrant County. Since the team didn't even think about asking Tarrant County for any help, Tarrant County sees a lot of benefits for a paltry contribution. Even the city's own ERA study (not to be belived, but it's the best spin you could put on the project) suggests that more than half the stadium's impact will be felt in the part of Tarrant County THAT IS NOT ARLINGTON!!!

Finally, the coup de gras:

Around 9 a.m. the next day, Kiefer phoned Cluck at his house.

"It didn't work out," Kiefer told the mayor.

Cluck said he'd call the Joneses, who were at the team's training camp in Oxnard, Calif.

He dialed Jerry Jones' number but got his voice mail.

When Jones called back, Cluck told him, "We're at a stage now where we're ready to end it, and this is what we absolutely have to have. If you can't do it, then we've enjoyed working with you."

At first, Jones talked more about the stadium in general and how much it would mean to Arlington.

But at the end of the 15-minute call, Jones agreed to the terms.

"OK, I can do that," he said.

"I'm going to make this successful," Jones added, "and therefore I'm going to do it."

Jerry Jones is no dummy. When pushed to the limit, he was never going to walk away from the master plan as he had negotiated it. No other city in north Texas could or would offer as much money ($325m) nor give the Cowboys the right to ask the city's sports authority to float public debt to help pay for the Cowboys portion of the stadium. Come to think of it, Jerry Jones is a genius.

posted at 9/17/2004 10:48:00 PM (5) comments

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