While McHenry County College tried to convince local taxpayers that Pete Heitman’s baseball stadium would pay for itself and even subsidize construction of other facilities, no one who looked at the deal was convinced.

The 20-year bonds were to be repaid by taxpayers, if the team went belly up.

That’s not what is happening in McLean County.

True, the city of Normal is ponying up “a $1.5 million, 1,000 space parking lot,” according to Pantagraph reporter Mary Ann Ford.

You will remember that the City of Crystal Lake was not willing to pop for a dime of the cost of the MCC baseball stadium infrastructure improvements, even though Mayor Aaron Shepley led the cheer leading after the stadium proposal’s existence was revealed to the public on McHenry County Blog.

The junior college in the Bloomington-Normal metropolitan area—Heartland Community College—is contributing “a long-term land lease for $1 a year and contribute $3.5 million to the project.“

The college was planning on spending about that much anyway on a new sports complex.

But the rest of the $12 million stadium is going to be

Let me repeat that fact.

by bid winner Mike Veeck’s investment group.

There were two other bidders, including, I’ve been told a Pete Heitman group.

You can pretty much bet that Heitman wanted a bigger subsidy.

Heitman is the baseball promoter that the McHenry County Community Foundation has hooked up with.