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by Jack Baessler, Blade staff writer
The Blade (Toledo, OH)
09-03-98
Higher ticket prices and surcharges on everything from stadium beer sales to Mud Hens T-shirts are among the methods getting scrutiny as ways to build a downtown stadium without a local tax increase.
Lucas County officials intensified efforts this week to firm up a plan for financing a stadium when Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner suggested state funding for a ballpark would be better spent on the Jeep plant site.
"You really have two choices," said Ray Kest, county treasurer. "Either have a tax increase or have people who go to the ballpark pay for it."
County commissioners and the treasurer are unhappy with the mayor's idea because they believe it threatens the stadium project.
"I think this is a premier project for the resurgence of downtown," Mr. Kest said. "If we don't get a stadium, other cities are going to leave us behind."
The mayor has said he favors the site of a proposed park at the Fallen Timbers battlefield be added to a short list of area projects that should get state funding, backing away from earlier attempts to sell the site for private development.
That could put the park on a list prepared by a small panel on what projects should get state support. The stadium has been on that list for months.
Under the mayor's plan, $5.5 million in state funding earmarked for a stadium would go to a group trying to develop the park. In turn, the group would buy the 185-acre battlefield site owned by the city. The city would use the $7.5 million it wants to get for the site to reduce the amount of money it must borrow to pay for incentives on the Jeep project.
In recent weeks, county officials and the treasurer have been analyzing what it would take to generate enough revenue to pay off bonds for a downtown stadium. Voters in May nixed a plan to have a $37 million downtown stadium financed by a quarter-cent sales tax increase for 35 months.
Increasing ticket prices in combination with surcharges on food, Mud Hens merchandise, and fees on the sale of loge seating are all things that could help pay off bonds for a stadium, Mr. Kest said.
His plan, not too different from ideas he espoused when the sales tax plan was defeated, would not involve increases in the local sales tax or the hotel-motel tax, he said.
"Increasing tickets from $5 to $8 -- I don't think that's a big deal," he said. "Just about every type of minor league stadium used bonding and surcharges."
County administrators yesterday met for several hours with David Cardwell, an Orlando, Fla., attorney with Holland & Knight who has consulted with communities on public funding for minor league stadium projects.
Mr. Kest wants to see a significant portion of the $7.5 million the Metropark District has labeled for its capital improvements and land acquisition over the next 10 years go for Fallen Timbers land acquisition. That would keep $5.5 million in state funding in the pipeline for a stadium, he said.
But Art Weber, a Metropark spokesman, objected.
"That money goes for everything from new roofs on shelter houses to new parking," he said.
County commissioner Mark Pietrykowski said Mr. Kest's suggestion has merit. Not long ago Metroparks officials turned down an offer to take over the old Children Services Board property in Maumee, saying it had too many old buildings on it.
"They advised us they didn't have money to operate it even if we could provide the property for them," Mr. Pietrykowski said. "Not much time passed, and the purchased additional land at Wildwood [Preserve Metropark]."
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