Well, well, well.
The Top Secret, Hush, Hush feasibility study on how a minor league baseball stadium can pay for 36% of the cost of the proposed McHenry County College
The original construction cost of the stadium was to be $10 of the total $26 million cost.
When I do the division it shows the baseball stadium would be 38.5% of the total construction cost.
So, let me put on my cost-benefit comparison glasses, obtained at the United States Bureau of the Budget at my first grown-up job in 1965 and tell you what I see.
Revenue 36%.
Cost 38.5%.
Conclusion: baseball stadium does not pay for itself, let alone subsidize the classrooms, offices and gyms.
And the 38.5% figure is by no means guaranteed revenue, because Pete Heitman’s limited liability corporation can walk away from the deal and leave the taxpayers study with paying off the bonds anytime it wants to.
Can’t wait to see if the extra bond interest on the stadium (because they cannot be tax exempt bonds—private enterprise doesn’t qualify for that privilege) is included in the cost of the stadium.
I’m starting to read it now.
So, amazingly enough, can you.
MCC actually posted it on its web site here.
Email McHenry County Blog your observations.
Let’s do some collective analysis. All our minds together certainly have to be better than mine alone.
See if you can find the “trade secrets” used to deny access to four of my Freedom of Information requests.
Village of Gurnee was sold a bill of goods a number of years ago with a ‘cant’ lose’ golf course on public property.
The hitch was in requiring the Village to stand behind the original loan.
To make a long story short, 400K of public money went into the black hole of the project and the course does not appear to be near any profitable years in the near future.
My advice to the taxpayers of McHenry County is to run away as fast as they can from this kind of proposal.