From AZCentral.com:

Another study destroying public funding of sports stadiums.

Here’s a taste that McHenry’s Steve Stanek excerpted:

“Professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey estimate that the total public subsidy for stadiums opened from 1990-2006 is around $12 billion, Harvard University professor Judith Grant Long said.

“But when she added costs for public subsidies for land, infrastructure, capital improvements, municipal taxes and forgone property taxes, Long came up with a figure of $18.5 billion.

“‘There is absolutely no evidence that $18.5 billion in public benefits have been generated since 1990 to compensate,’ she said.”

So, if you think the McHenry County College’s baseball stadium is a bad idea (or a horrible idea), this source provides more evidence.

The McHenry County College trustees have yet to subject baseball promoter Pete Heitman’s financial figures to outside scrutiny by someone like Lake Forest College’s economics professor Dr. Robert A. Baade, an expert in stadium financing. Of course, he might be more inclined to give a dispassionate opinion of the costs and benefits of the baseball stadium idea than the baseball promoter, who stands to make money off this deal.

If you live in Crystal Lake and have not yet called all of your city council members, including the mayor, their phone numbers are here.

If you don’t live in Crystal Lake, you still have a stake. It could be your taxes that the college asks to raise or it could be your child’s tuition that is forced up or your class that is cut because resources have to be diverted to pay back the $10 million in baseball stadium bonds, if the baseball team financing idea doesn’t work out.

So, if you have friends or relatives in Crystal Lake, you could encourage them to call city council members and point them to their phone numbers.

And, of course, the 5:30 PM Tuesday meeting is a public meeting. Even if you don’t live in Crystal Lake, you can attend. You might even decide to bring a sign and sit or stand around the edge of the room to deliver whatever message you wish.

After all, this could end up costing folks outside of Crystal Lake a piece of change, if the minor league baseball team only last as long as the average Frontier League team—about 4-5 years someone wrote in a commenter on the Northwest Herald message board.