Cal, you ask:
“Where was the Northwest Herald? Isn’t the financial end of this deal worthy of coverage?”
The answer they have given me is “‘No!”
They don’t care what Nobel Prize-winning economists think. I am not exaggerating.
[I have posted a letter Stanek previously sent to McHenry County College Board members on the baseball stadium here. Shortly after the college replied to one of my Freedom of Information requests about academic studies that show they could make a profit on the baseball stadium with this:
“The college asserts that there are no documents responsive to your request.”]
Policy advisers at The Heartland Institute, where I am research fellow and managing editor of Budget & Tax News, include Gary Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago. Another policy adviser is James Buchanan, also a Nobel Prize-winning economist at George Mason University.
Yet another Heartland adviser is Allen Sanderson, a University of Chicago professor who specializes in sports economics. Still another is Robert Baade, a Lake Forest College professor who also specializes in sports economics.
Still another Heartland adviser is Richard Vedder, distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University who has written the book — literally — on why college tuition costs are exploding. He is the author of “Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much.”
One of the reasons he cites is colleges straying from their core mission to educate, as McHenry County College is doing with its baseball stadium.
Some of these economists could have broadly addressed the issue of a taxpayer-funded college building a stadium for a private professional baseball team, and the others could have specifically addressed the issue.
I have given the newspaper their names, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses, and I have invited the newspaper to contact them.
Not once has the newspaper done so.
I have even sent people at the Northwest Herald articles from major newspapers including The Boston Globe and Des Moines Register to show them how these other newspapers have approached stories about these kinds of government subsidies. And still the Northwest Herald writes nothing.
After one of my attempts to get the newspaper to write about the financial aspects of the MCC baseball stadium subsidy,
I received an email saying the newspaper would not do it because people have not been attending meetings to complain about the finances.
Yet Mr. Glasgow, who apparently has a strong financial background, showed up to complain about the finances, and the Northwest Herald had no one there to report it.
I am astounded that the financial aspect of this unprecedented move by McHenry County College has received no coverage from the Northwest Herald. On the other hand, it may be a good thing.
They would probably load the story with favorable comments from people with an interest in seeing the baseball stadium built (direct financial interest, job-related interest such as being paid to promote the college or Crystal Lake, reputational interest in being a public official who backed the plan ignorant of research showing the many drawbacks, etc.).
They would probably play down the plain fact that independent and objective researchers overwhelmingly agree this kind of spending is bad public policy.
A subsequent email added this information. I include the contact information in the hope that someone on the MCC Board might be interested enough in what those who have researched the subject of tax subsidized baseball stadiums have to say on the subject.
Mr. Allen Sanderson
Professor of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street #412
Chicago, IL 60637
e-mail: arsx@uchicago.edu
Phone (773) 834-6672 (This is his Sanderson’s secretary Shayna’s phone number.)
Another good choice could be Robert Baade.
Dr. Robert A. Baade
Department of Economics
Lake Forest College
555 North Sheridan Road
Lake Forest, IL 60045
Phone 847/234-3100×5136
Email baade@lfc.edu
Sanderson and Baade have both spent many years studying sports economics and public subsidies of private entities. I doubt they would take the time to pore over a lengthy document, but they probably could give their views on how outfits like PMA exaggerate benefits and play down drawbacks. They could also clearly state why they are skeptical of this kind of spending.
Also, here is a devastating study of the issue by Adam Zaretsky, an economist at the Federal Reserve in St. Louis.
This is a must-read. It is short, clearly written, and includes references if a person wants to do more research.
Here’s a highlight from the Zaretsky article: The use of public funds to lure or keep teams begs several questions, the foremost of which is,
“Are these good investments for cities?” The short answer to this question is “No.”
When studying this issue, almost all economists and development specialists (at least those who work independently and not for a chamber of commerce or similar organization) conclude that the rate of return a city or metropolitan area receives for its investment is generally below that of alternative projects. In addition, evidence suggests that cities and metro areas that have invested heavily in sports stadiums and arenas have, on average, experienced slower income growth than those that have not.
And here is a link to a good Boston Globe article on public funding of sports stadiums.
Incidentally, the Zaretsky Federal Reserve article and the Boston Globe article are among the materials I sent the NW Herald.