Indianapolis City-County Council Democrats Propose CIB Plan and Fully Embrace Taxpayer Money Going to Subsidize Colts and Pacers

Any thought that the Democrats would stand up for Joe and Jill Taxpayer and against giving more tax money to billionaire professional sports team owners was quashed yesterday when the Democratic members of the Indianapolis City-County Council announced their plan to bail out the Capital Improvement Board.

At the outset, it should be noted that the Democrats' plan starts with the bailout pegged at $47 million dollars. That means the the Democratic caucus, like the Republican Mayor Ballard, is conceding that they will agree to pick up the Pacers' $15 million cost of operating Conseco Fieldhouse. As a result of that concession, taxpayers would pay for the operation of Conseco Fieldhouse while giving 100% of the revenue from the building to the Pacers. It should be mentioned that the Pacers are owned by the Simons, the major contributor to Democrats in the State of Indiana.

Then the Democrats disingenuously propose the bailout involve a new Indianapolis casino, which I am sure they know has zero chance of passing the General Assembly. They also propose expanding the downtown sports district to include the to-be-built Marriott. Like the casino proposal, you're talking about revenue years down the road. The expansion of the taxing district also amounts to diverting tax revenue that would otherwise go into general revenue that could be used for other purposes like filling potholes, fixing bridges, etc.

Finally, the Democrats finish where they should have started - asking the Pacers and Colts to contribute more money to help out the CIB. Their request matches those of the other proposals: $5 million each, which demonstrates a lack of originality, if nothing else. Of course, the $5 million from the Pacers would be after giving them $15 million more per year by picking up their operating costs at Conseco Fieldhouse. Nonetheless, as with the Mayor's proposal, as with Senator Luke Kenley's proposal and now the Democrats' proposal, the $5 million from each team amounts to nothing more than a request. No party yet has demanded that the Colts and Pacers make the contribution a contractual obligation they would have to meet every year. We lawyers call it a red flag when a party does not want to put in writing part of a deal.

While I can begrudgingly understand my political party, the Republican Party, for favoring wealthy business owners like the Simons and Irsay, for the Democrats to do so, while pretending to care about working men and women, is particularly distasteful and smacks of the worst sort of hypocrisy. Democrats, in particular, should be demanding concessions from these sports teams so that taxes don't have to be raised, taxes that will fall heavily on the low paid hospitality workers who will lose jobs when the City jacks up hospitality taxes. If the Pacers and Colts are not willing to negotiate voluntarily, the CIB should ask a bankruptcy judge to rewrite the deals.

The problem of a lack of revenue for the CIB is precisely because of bad deals it made with the Pacers and the Colts that gave away nearly all the revenue from Conseco Fieldhouse and Lucas Oil Stadium. Tweaking those deals, voluntarily if possible, or, if necessary, under the direction of a bankruptcy judge, would result in the infusion of millions more into the CIB's coffers. If the Pacers and Colts decide to exercise their out in the contract for bankruptcy, so be it. Contrary to the spin of Mayor Ballard, losing the professional sports teams would not effect the convention business one bit. Event planners don't book their conventions in Indianapolis so their members have a chance to go to a Colts or Pacers game. With regard to the Colts, there is little chance they would leave anyway given the facility we built for them and the sweetheart deal they have that couldn't be duplicated anyplace else, especially not in today's economy.

As I've noted previously, the academic studies overwhelming demonstrate that professional sports is a bad investment for local government. Yet Mayor Ballard, the Indiana Senate and the Democrats on the Indianapolis City-County Council ignore all the studies, insisting that average taxpayers shell out yet more of their money to dig the CIB out of a financial hole that is due almost completely to the CIB giving away the store during negotiations with the Pacers and Colts. We'll soon hear if the Republicans on the Council ignore public opinion and follow the same course.