Sinning for Football

03/24/03 We are at War.

When you think about young men being executed for taking a wrong turn, it does make our little turf spats seem insignificant. The first few days of the war, it was too surreal to be true. With that Arab news group showing pictures of those military mechanics wounded and dead, the war suddenly became very real.

Yet, we have to stay attuned to local doings because this is where we live. The Robber Barons don't let trivial things like war and terrorism interfere with their continual quest to control us and get their hands on our community funds. They are determined to reduce Dallas Taxpayers to powerless serfs.

The Robber Barons have nearly wiped out our convention business with their arena sales taxes -- just as the "It's a Bad Deal!!" campaign said would happen. The taxes that have been scarped up by the Arena Robber Barons are not as great as the sales taxes lost to non-bookings at the Convention Center -- now that Dallas no longer has cheap hotels and daily car rentals. We were promised extensive building and development and lots of jobs, but we have a big old arena with a great big parking lot around it.

The DPA (Dallas Police Assn.) don't like to hear how their sell out cost their membership salary increases. Had 800 or so votes gone the other way, there would be a lot more money to spend on city employee benefits. Our police and firefighters are underpaid for the risks they take, but we have a great big Police Headquarters with a museum and atrium and an arena must city employees cannot afford to attend.

We were promised a giant new entertainment complex would open in the Cedars area with the stimulous from the new Police HQ. We don't know when or if that nightclub is going to open, but we have a great big Police HQ, plus two more empty municipal buildings Downtown that we still will have to maintain and do something with -- right across the street from the empty Old Library and the former Statler Hilton.

Why weren't we planning a new use for the Old City Hall. It is a wonderful building. In the more modern building attached, the council chambers were really impressive. A lot of Dallas history is in those two buildings. Other cities do not continually walk away from old buildings. They update them. We abandon our history and tear it down.

Now, we have this Jerry Jones stadium looming on the horizon. It is preposterous that Dallas County Taxpayers can afford to give him at least $400 million, when we can't adequately compensate our public safety people. Where are the tourists going to come from to pay this $400 million?

The biggest component of the tax must come from hotel/motel rentals because

DFW CAR RENTALS ARE ALL IN TARRANT COUNTY.

Once again, daily car rentals in Dallas are almost 75% to Dallas residents (insurance, car repair, weekend use). The same ratio probably works county wide. Tack another 5% on daily car rentals in the City of Dallas, and you might as well call a cab.

Here are some recent DMN articles DallasArena.com referenced in Grandpa Jones Grab

From "Grandpa Jones Grab": As Tim Dickey points out, Dallas County does not "have to levy hotel-occupancy and car-rental taxes to repay the debt issued by a sports authority". There are other sources of revenue available to Grandpa Jones than taxes on tourists or local folks. . . . The Brimer Bill allows for locker room taxes, ticket taxes and parking taxes. As Tim Dickey says, "that's a tax I could support -- a user tax". Many of the players are multi-millionaires. The new coach is raking in some millions of his own. Let the people who use the facility, the players and ticket buyers, pay for a new stadium if they want one.

	Cowboys' stadium proposal 'viable' 03/05/2003 By DAVE MICHAELS / The Dallas Morning News
Dallas County commissioners are receptive to the concept of a county sports authority that would issue bonds to help build a stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. . . . "It's logical for Jerry to spend as little of his own money as possible," said Mr. Burton, executive director of the James Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.

Why is it logical for a billionaire to expect taxpayers to pay for his place of business? Particularly when you have something as goofy as what the DMN is reporting!

Cowboys unveil ambitious plan for new stadium; Envisioned: retractable roof, open end zones leading to virtual city
03/23/2003By RICHARD ALM / The Dallas Morning News

. . . a billion-dollar development that will be the most ambitious in professional sports history.
. . . retractable-roof stadium that brings skateboarding and other attractions to open end-zone areas.
. . . a busy place 365 days a year, not just when the Cowboys are playing. By building a major tourist attraction, the Cowboys hope to solve the most perplexing problem with new football stadiums: They are getting too expensive to use just a few times a year.
. . . they hope to bring the issue to Dallas County voters as early as November, much sooner than many people expected.
. . . they would build the stadium and surrounding development concurrently, avoiding the uncertainty and delays of the proposed Victory development around the 2-year-old American Airlines Center near downtown Dallas.
. . . 200 to 300 acres of land ? at least three times the 65 acres required for the arena and Victory. . . . looking at two locations, one in downtown Dallas and the other in Irving's Las Colinas development.
. . . biggest and most expensive undertaken by any sports team.
. . . Cowboys officials are lobbying the state Legislature to raise the limits on hotel and rental-car taxes for sports facilities.
. . . Cowboys will continue negotiating with Dallas County on a financing package. . . . sports authority and levy the hotel and rental-car taxes to provide perhaps $400 million or more in public funding for the stadium.
. . . tax question will proceed to the ballot in Dallas County, where it probably will encounter strong opposition from those who argue that subsidies for sports facilities are a waste of tax dollars.
. . . Stadium with both end zones open, not enclosed by a seating bowl. The facility would seat 70,000 to 80,000 fans, including the suites and club sections. Another 10,000 to 15,000 people could congregate in each end zone, boosting capacity to about 100,000.
. . . Cowboys figure fans will pay $10 or $20 for tickets that don't include seats but provide access to the stadium.
. . . Mr. Jones compared this area as a social center to the Pavilion at Irving's EDS Byron Nelson Championship golf tournament.
. . . retractable roof. . . . A large, all-weather stadium would put Dallas in the running for big-time sports events that it cannot host in the area's present facilities. They include Super Bowls, the NCAA basketball Final Four, college football's championship game and a major rodeo. The new stadium could also host the Cotton Bowl and Texas-Oklahoma games, the Cowboys said.
. . . A new generation of stadiums has added amenities behind the seating bowl. Denver's year-old Invesco Field at Mile High, for example, includes large lobbies behind the club seats, where bars, restaurants and public areas give fans places to eat, drink and socialize. . . . a message, particularly to corporate fans: Arrive early, stay late, spend money.
. . .They've got a good idea of what the project will include, although they emphasize that plans will probably be tweaked and then tweaked some more before ground is broken. . . .

Are you ready for this? County Commissioners refuse to provide for the County's indigent, as they are mandated to do by state law, but they may force Dallas County taxpayers to subsidize Grandpa Jones and his gang of millionaire hoodlums. Strong opposition probably cannot derail this train.

This business of the masses standing in the end zone while their betters sit above in the box seats really sounds like fun. Occasional glimpses at the game? What happens if you are 5'3"? What happens for the handicapped? Do we have reserved sections for short people and the physically challenged? Our Downtown Betters probably like this feature best of all. This way, the ODB can come out of their ivory towers and get to see the masses for real -- from the protection of their seats and luxury boxes. What's worse, those folks standing around in the end zone are the very people who will be paying for the stadium. They are the most likely to be renting cars in Dallas County.

Rad Field

Tom & Jerry's "Hooterville", "Neverland" Stadium....It takes a village....

We need to start a "Name That Stadium" contest. My first thought is "Tom & Jerry's".

We'll have football by the river with a moon roof for continuous views of Southwest Airlines arrivals and departures, bringing in those millions of tourists needed to pay for the "Village By The Lake".

Then we'll have "Name That Lake" contest. Fans will be able sip their favorite beverage and watch the yachts and sailing vessels as they traverse by the parking garages.

After combined events at T & J Stadium and AA Arena, TV camera activity will photograph traffic jams and vehicle emissions, along with wrecker and emergency vehicle activity on the Trinity Toll Way. Prior to leaving the stadium, patrons can go down to the Trinity Lake and board T & J's River Boat Gambling Casino & Cabaret. Those having so much fun after the River Boat ride may wish to stay in town at the Tom & Jerry Hotel & Casino.

So much to look forward to, and so little time to pay for the fun.

I have a problem trying to estimate the price one would pay to attend an event at the T & J hole in the roof attraction. How will American Airlines like having football fans look up and see Southwest Airlines all night long flying over the dome?

Rad almost has the answer. I hadn't thought about gambling casinos. It could work, but DallasArena.com thinks a new football stadium should be financed by levying a user tax on all Dallas and Dallas County sex clubs. Think of it. Perverts could be making a civic contribution while getting serviced at the sex clubs. We don't want to limit this tax to the "big hair clubs". We want all their brother and sister clubs that do the "body rubs" and "photography studios" and "saunas". To be exempt from this tax, you must be a certified physical therapist who stays completely clothed throughout the massage, and the massage cannot include anything other than your hands which may not stray to the patient's private parts.

Now, we are talking job creation. It will take an army to police all the sex clubs. We will need hundreds of clerks/accountants to assure the low-lifes are paying their sales taxes. We will need code enforcement folks to be sure the massage-givers are fully clothed and not getting too intimate with their patients. We might just want to install cameras in every sex club with a central monitor manned by hundreds of people paying $50 an hour for random peep shows. We are talking about billions of untapped revenue here. Jobs and Football for Sex. What a deal!

SINNING FOR FOOTBALL!

Besides, look how many of Grandpa Jones' hoodlums party hearty in the sex clubs! So what if we have to contend with a bunch of coked up or inebriated football millionaires taking to the streets and causing murder and mayhem? It will be worth it to have a new football stadium.

We could do like Mary Poss's buddies at Palladium did. Buy off dissenters with a promise to spend some of the sales tax revenue on special projects in their districts.

Since the sex clubs would become such a vital part of our municipal revenue (as they claim to currently be), we should have an equal representation of the clubs in every district of the city. There would have to be a moratorium on new clubs in District 6 because we already have a corner on the market.

I'm beginning to warm up to the idea of a new football stadium for Grandpa Jones and his hoodlums. Replace the Cowboy cheerleaders with dancers and girls from the sex clubs. They can go right from the field to their jobs in the bars Jones is proposing for his complex.