McHenry County Blog reader Jerry Fleming (of McHenry) attended McHenry County College’s explanation meeting a week ago at the Shah Training Center.
He has graciously allowed McHenry County Blog to reprint it below:
I attended the meeting tonight at the Shah Center and like you I am very confused and disturbed that a community college is planning on subsidizing a private minor league baseball team.
They were very accommodating on allowing me to ask my questions, but didn’t seem to have any concrete answers to back up their own numbers.
One of my questions was for them to clarify why in a June article in the Northwest Herald Walt Packard was quoted in saying the following:
“College officials expect that revenue from the team will cover two-thirds of the debt to build the complex. The remaining debt will be paid through renting out the fitness center, which includes indoor basketball and volleyball courts, to traveling sports teams, Packard said.”
Yet the projected revenue numbers seem to contradict this statement. The MCC website reports the revenue stream to be.
“Complex revenue is broken down as follows– 64% indoor facilities, 36% outdoor stadium.”
It seems strange to me you will pay back 2/3 of the debt from revenue that is only expected to be 1/3 of the total complex. Walt explained in his answer back to me that the Northwest Herald article was out dated and those numbers were no longer accurate, but I don’t remember any new numbers being reported or that two-thirds of the debt will be paid back now by the indoor facilities. At least there have been some numbers reported on how they expected to generate revenue from the baseball stadium, but I have heard nothing concrete on how they plan on generating revenue from the indoor facilities.
Another question which was asked by someone else was if college had considered building the HWAC, without the baseball stadium, and on some remote location off the main campus. Walt answer to this question was that without the baseball stadium the HWAC could not be built.
Walt had stated earlier in the meeting that the stadium constituted 1/3 of the cost of the project. Therefore, when he gave the above answer about not being able to build the HWAC without the stadium, I question why if you expected the HWAC facilities to generate roughly 2/3 of the revenue, and you reduce roughly 1/3 of the cost by not building the stadium. Then how could it be that the HWAC could not stand on its own. At this time they question my numbers. They seemed to be very disappointed when I pointed out I got them from their website.
See First Phase Funding on this page on the MCC website.
I also question if they understood the criticisms that they have received by not making their plans more public, however Walt gave me a similar answer that you received from your FOIA request. To my disappointment they had no business plan for public scrutiny nor did they seem they owed one to anyone. When I tried to point out this wasn’t true since they were actually a public entity. He said we needed to agree to disagree.
Anybody financing a project would naturally need to share their plans with the prospective institution that would be willing to finance them. How is not understand a debt certificate is underwritten by the public, especially since Walt pointed out tonight that public property taxes can be diverted to pay back this debt. They seemed to be very reluctant to put this to a referendum, which seemed to be the fairest and equitable way to understand public opinion.
Hopefully, laws can be changed to stop this practice of financing private endeavors.
Thanks
Jerry Fleming
If you would like me to pass on any message to Mr. Fleming, just email me.