Ramblings From Justin Penney

I am getting anxious about the stadium vote results. I hit the polls on my way home (I usually go in the morning so that was really weird) and threw in my giant "NO" vote. I saw one report that showed a narrow lead for the yes on the sales tax for renovations and a narrow lead for no on the rolling roof.

I'm not a big sports fan but I can understand that people are. Heck, I even went to a Royals game last year and had fun and the Stadium seemed just fine! I actually heard that it was picked by ESPN as one of the best in the league. I also think that from an engineering perspective a rolling roof is cool as hell! However... I don't want to pay for this! I'd rather see KC fix it's schools or it's transportation. If we're going to dole out cash lets get at the roots of the issues that drive people and money away. Also... these dudes are RICH. Like beyond seriously rich. The Chiefs just signed a dude for like $30 million dollars. Holy crap! Just the players salaries are in millions per year. I understand that Jackson County owns the buildings but the landlord isn't responsible for improvements in most arrangements, just maintenence and even then it's often exclusionary of certain things.

I just don't see the major economic gain from these franchises. There isn't a lot around the stadiums and I don't really think a lot of out of town people come to the games (maybe I'm wrong here). Sure it's fun and instills some weird disassociated city pride in some people but that's not worth it to me.

# posted by Justin @ 8:30 PM