Another Sunday Ramble

Lakeview has, again, gotten the fuzzy end of the lollipop on the Northside Park closing. Now, I understand, there are problems with the site that would make it good policy to relocate from the old caliche pit; my opinion, Council acted in haste and a replacement park should have been built or at least budgeted before closing Northside. There are vacant properties reasonably close to Northside.

It seemed to me Council was "nudged" by the emotional appeal of Gloria Griffin, whose 9 year old son drowned there 23 years ago. I cannot claim to "feel" her pain, my closest would be the death of my Mother this year, but Mother was 83 and in poor health. It was the anticipated order of things, parents precede children in death. The loss of a child is a much harder thing to bear.

Still, in the 23 years since her son's drowning, no one else has died in this allegedly deadly park. Then we find that the City has two churches contesting for a lease on the property to be used as: a park. Now that may turn out to be a good budgetary move by the city, but it kind of undercuts the safety issue don't ya' think?

If we were to apply the same standard to other city owned properties (no deaths in 23 years) we would close half our streets, the thoroughfares might remain as they are TXDOT roads, but streets, sidewalks and fadaluvagod erect a tall fence around Lake Nasworthy, cut off all public access, maybe drain it: it's an absolute deathtrap, especially now that "everybody knows" it has an alligator.

On this I have to agree with Councilman Morrison, it was a "stupid, stupid thing".

Now shifting gears without a segue; I would not usually pick on a particular business, but an exception I am making. Eyemart, should I find myself needing new spectacles and you have exactly what I need for half the price of X, I will go to X.
I have a longstanding exception to my normal practice; Sunday morning, I read the comics first. I have all day to catch up on the news, it is one of life's little luxuries with which I indulge myself. Before I can do that, I have to tear off your half-page perforated ad. Yes, a minor item, yes that is great ad placement in that it guarantees I will see it, but in that it mildly honks me off every time I see it, it is not, in this household, a plus for your business.

I have resisted the urge to comment on the smoking ordinance. Terms such as "carpetbagger" and "nanny" might offend, so I won't use them. I am glad that Council seems willing to amend the ordinance to allow the Colonel's Pipe and Cigar shop. Entirely appropriate, I cannot imagine either an employee or customer who found smoke offensive wanting to walk in the door of a tobacco shop.

Now we see bar owners coming before Council requesting an exemption. Sorry guys, in the face of a 60/40 vote, Council isn't going there, at least not until some businesses have actually closed, by which time it will be too late for them. I've got to ask; owners, where were you when I was asking for support as treasurer of the opposition? We got outspent at least 5/1, over half of that money from the Austin American Cancer Society. I could give better numbers, but Smoke-Free has not filed a campaign finance report covering the 10 days prior to election. Speak Out San Angelo's is posted online at city's website.

I think this is an unfortunate intrusion on the rights of property owners, but it was approved by a large majority of voters in a large turnout election. My "barkeep" handle aside, it has been several years since I was personally involved in the trade. I don't have "a dog in this hunt", I drink at home where the smoking law doesn't reach (yet).

A final note, you make the call if it is connected. On this day in history, Utah, home of the teetotalling Mormons, became the 36th state to approve the XXI amendment to the Constitution, repealing Prohibition. Hmmm.

Monday Night Madness

Just got through sweating out the Cowboy's Monday night debut; by sheer luck they covered a Dallas and under parlay. Newman got lucky or Big D fails to cover the spread. Dallas defense better step up, or it's repeat of last year in a tough division.

I couldn't help but notice: the commentators mentioned several times the wonderful $1.3 Billion facility in Irving which has replaced the old Texas Stadium. They even mentioned the potential $50 million problem of a low scoreboard punters have no problem hitting. I have been a Cowboys' fan since before they started winning, but if I were a metroplex resident, I don't care if the resurrected ghost of Tom Landry were for it, I would have oppossed the use of tax money to build this sports palace.

OK, sports events stimulate spending. Problem is, most of that consumerism would be locally generated and locally spent anyway, just on other things. Perhaps the same family goes to Red Lobster and a movie instead of the game. I did not notice a huge contingent of the 105.000 faithful fans present who had travelled from Carolina. I'm sure there were some, but how far did their money on motel rooms and eats go towards covering a $1.3 Billion tab?

Jaws mentioned the stadium was employing about 7,000 people as ticket-takers and concessionaires. Let's see; 7,000x $7.50/hr/x 5hrs, throw in tips and slop, be generous and call it half a mil a game, the economic impact of the new stadium will pay for itself in roughly 2,000 years.

Folks, I am a big sports fan, but I also believe people should pay for their habits. Tennis fans should pay for tennis courts and lights. Hockey fans should pay for ice to play on. Verging on the heretical here, high school football fans should pay for the suits of armor our local players battle less than successfully in, not to mention their less than successful coaches salaries.

Old saying, slightly twisted, "Money's tight and times are hard, pay for your own kickoff card". Another old saying; "You want to play, you gotta pay".

Karnak on Sports

I had to go to archives for this one, but Jan. 27, 2007 I wrote "Karnak at the Council". I include from that, the following quote:

"In other action, Council approved, as expected, the tennis courts deal. I seem to have gotten their attention by appealing, tongue in cheek, for funds to provide the San Angelo Billiards Association, of which I am a member, a central pool hall with say, 24 regulation size tables. Discussing this later with individual members, I was surprised that almost none seemed to have considered the possibility of creating a Facilities Corp. to deal with the now inevitable requests from every sports group in town. “If tennis gets money, why can't (curling, archery, paintball, pick your pet)”, will be the litany. Tennis got a rather substantial sum, by the way, $750,000 total. "With that precedent, I can promise you other sports enthusiasts will be appearing before Council, hat in hand, asking that said hat be filled with public money."

Well, whodathunkit, Council is now wrestling with funding for a Little League request, they want money. I think it's time we got serious about the Sports Facilities Corp. option. This is provided for, dare I say, encouraged by Local Gov't Code Chap. 303 of Texas Statutes.

If Council approves such a Corporation it would provide future sports related supplicants an opportunity and give Council a buffer between them and direct tax expenditures. The Facilities Corp. would be empowered to take a proposal, issue bonds, sell them and repay them, all without a link to the City budget. It would say to future applicants "bring us a good business plan, we can issue bonds and see if anybody bites".


Yes, we have a troubled economy, but part of that, people with money are looking for some place more productive than "under the bed" to put investments. Every time a sports proposal is brought forth we hear all sorts of optimistic numbers thrown about as to the "economic impact" of (pick your pet sport). Having applicants first come before a Sports Facilities Corp. board would put a little market discipline into this numerology.


There would always remain the option of after review, coming before Council, hat abjectly in hand, and making a case for one's pet project being worthy of taxpayer subsidy. Council would, one hopes, have better numbers to play with. Going back to tennis, I own one tennis ball. I use it to fluff up the goosedown in my coat when I tumble-dry it. Why is my tax money paying for lights on tennis courts I will never use? Otra vez, I love badmiton, an impossible game to play in West Texas wind. Where are my badmition courts?


This Council has made great strides toward future fiscal responsibility in capital improvements, including a Charter Amendment to make some of that improvement binding on future Councils. We should start subjecting sports related items to a similar budget discipline. The day of simply stating "it's for the kids and it will bring in a kazillion dollars in economic impact" needs to be put on the far back burner.


I'm not trying to be the Grinch here. I'd love to see more kids active in sports of all kinds. Try HEB on a weekend, we have too many kids whose girth equals or exceeds their height. When I was a kid, I did Little League, swimming, wrestling in school, martial arts on my own. Best I recall, once the facility was built, it was up to the league to support itself. Sell ads, wash cars, cajole sponsors, that was up to us.


There is not a lot of down-side to a responsibly managed Sports Facilities Corp. Best case, a good plan is presented, bonded, bond-holders get paid, we have a new sport ongoing, and might actually see some favorable "economic impact". Worst case, the business plan falls short and we have a vacant field of dreams. Key word is "responsible". While Chap. 303 protects the authorizing entity (City of San Angelo) from direct liability, IF we put a bunch of over-enthusiastic cowboys in charge and a few bonds go south, that could indirectly affect the city by tainting us with potential City bond investors. Upside of that scenario the "sponsoring entity" can rein in the corporation as needed. Should the corporation issue an ill-advised bond, well, we can't unscramble that egg, but we could fire the chef so to speak and keep him from scrambling any more.

As Karnak predicted in 2007, the tennis precedent has encouraged others to come before Council, empty hat in hand. We should take a good look at the Chap 303 option for future funding and screening of proposals.

Fieldhouse Followup

After my last post on the Fieldhouse, I received two responses from Board members calling me down for my characterization of the executive session of Nov. 10 as a "snout-counting". Upon review, as they say in the NFL, they are quite right, and I owe the Board an apology.

For one thing, I was venturing an unsubstantiated opinion as to "appearances". I had not then, nor do I have now, any actual knowledge of what transpired in that meeting. By putting my unsubstantiated opinion out there, I unfairly put the members in a position of being unable to defend themselves without breaking oath as to keeping executive sessions private.

Aside from my unprofessional and unfair characterization of the executive session, I would take back that whole section of last week's article if I could because it was really irrelevant to my primary point. What's done is done, all I can do at this point is offer my sincere apology, and I do. SAISD trustees serve without pay, they mostly show up prepared, to be sure, we have seen worse Boards than we have today.

That out of the way, back to the fieldhouse funding. To the extent the two responses addressed that point, they pointed out that the existing fieldhouse is in terrible shape, no disagreement there, it is in sad shape. Then both put forth the idea it was a valid investment in "economic development".

Here is the first point we diverge on. We have a few entities dedicated to economic development, Chamber of Commerce, COSADC half cent sales tax Corp., the hotel occupancy tax, as well as private groups representing restaurants and retail stores. ASU has a vested interest in both the fieldhouse and economic development in general, a healthy economy adds to the luster Rallo needs to attract a 10,000 student body. The interest of these bodies in contributing to the fieldhouse fund has been somewhere between zip and diddly.

Sports-related "economic development" schemes are finally coming under close scrutiny nationwide, and it ought to here. Grant the best assumptions, and I don't in this economy, who gets these travelers' dollars? Hotels, restaurants, retail stores, maybe the hawkers selling Cokes and snacks in the stands. We really want to build our economic future on the strength of jobs as retail clerks, waiters and hotel housekeepers? Nothing wrong with those jobs, I've done two of them, but solid investment in a strong local economy? It is to laugh. To be fair, neither correspondent made economic devlopment the primary reason to support this expenditure.

As one of my Board respondents reminded me, this private fundraising effort actually goes back four years rather than two. Timing was bad, it butted heads with the Library effort, and a lot of philanthropic money went to books instead. Unfortunate, but perhaps people with money rank books above athletics. Whodathunkit in West Texas, but there it is.

As far as I can determine, this $6.5 million fieldhouse is the largest single infrastructure project SAISD has funded outside a bond subject to voter approval in, at least recent history. I think it would be the largest such ever. Compared to the items on the bond we approved, only two elementary schools received more money, Goliad and Crockett, and they were near total renovations/new construction.

The members talking to me expressed a) the need for repairs; and b) had this fieldhouse been on the ballot, the bond as a whole would have failed. I agree with both points. Prop Two failed by less than 600 votes, and it is taken as given that the "competition gym" component sank it. It is possible that everything, collapsed into one bond might have squeaked by, but had we further burdened it with a fieldhouse, I don't believe voters would have gone that stretch.

I know, because I hear from them, voters feel this fieldhouse appropriation is "inappropriate", if not a betrayal of their "yes" vote on the bond.

I sympathize with the urge to do this project before costs escalate further, cost has already doubled in 4 years. That does not mean there is not something on the spectrum between total, first-class rebuild and flat make-the-plumbing-work short-term repair.

I know Jeff Bright scrambled to come up with the funding SAISD is proposing. I might even be talked into the notion that long-term, purely economically, this expenditure now is the better route. It would take some tall talking, but possible. I also know that as a political reality, the voters will see it as breaking faith with them this soon after a close bond election, and that breach of faith, long-term, will come back to bite us next time we go to the bond issue well.

The proposed fundraising efforts are laudable, borrowing some from the Library effort. I promise to support that with a personal check and my support. As I said last week, this fieldhouse funding got lost in the noise of the bond items. SAISD needs to make a better effort at persuasion of donors before they undercut the expressed will of the voters.

Fieldhouse Follies

Last Monday the SAISD Board had another "workshop" session. Everyone, myself included, took a deep breath of relief that the major portion of the bond passed, and the sentiment seemed clear to move forward with it so as to use the money while it was still worth something. On that topic, thank you voters. I did not support the bond and the tax levy it required lightly. This was money the district needs.

Now that we have had a week to bask in success, I have one word to discomfit all: Fieldhouse!

We've all watched as the new library progressed from a vague idea to a reality at little cost to taxpayers. Grants, bequests, donations, this is going to become a reality with the only significant public "expense" being the gift of the building itself. In that the city had discovered it had no real use for it, that cost us nothing.

Now compare this to the Bobcat Stadium Fieldhouse. Granted, the existing facility is in need of repair, BUT...

We were told this could be accomplished with a relatively minor contribution from SAISD, matching grants, donations, etc. Then the donations fell short, SAISD ponied up some more money to get the matching grant. Then the cost inflated, but keeping the eye on the ball, SAISD decided to pick up a little more of the tab, all for a good cause, of course.

Now I confess, I was concentrating on the bond, some of this slipped by me. Cut to the chase, SAISD is on the verge of deciding to spend something on the order of $5-6 million on a fieldhouse.

We are being told this has huge potential for "economic development", a shiny new fieldhouse will bring in so many sports events we will be hard put to count the money. Folks, I am a football fan from hell, I love the game, but I learned long ago to cast a gimlet eye on public finance of sports stadiums. Much as I am a Cowboys fan, had I lived in the Metroplex, I'd have fought public finance of their new facility tooth and nail.

If this project is really going to bring in all this money, where are the people who will directly benefit? Assuming all this fever dream comes to pass, the direct beneficiaries would be hotels, restaurants and retail stores. The contribution from the hotel occupancy tax? ZERO! The contribution from local retailers? ZERO! The voluntary donations from local sports fans? Not quite, but close enough to zero as to make no difference. The interest shown by our local half cent sales tax development corporation, decidedly ZERO!

ASU, which also uses our high school stadium, is in way better shape financially than SAISD. They currently get use of the facility for $25k a year. By any standard, this is a sweetheart deal for ASU. Their contribution to the fieldhouse fund? Not to overuse a trite term, but, ZERO!

Folks, I was happy to spend my time and effort in support of the bond. Virtually all of that money will be spent on projects necessary to good education. Much as I love the game, in times when people are sweating the next paycheck, I don't really care if high school football is played by the lights of the fans' car headlights on a cow pasture. If the fans want better, send Stormy Kimry a check. That's what library "fans" did.

This whole sloppy exercise brings to light some glaring deficiencies in SAISD process. First we have this idea of every other meeting being a "pre-agenda" workshop. One result is that we only have one meeting a month that actually "counts". Seems SAISD believes only the "real" meetings have to be recorded for the public access channel. They are wrong, but Conchoinfo will attempt to correct that, and offer our record online.

Had last Monday's "workshop" been available, the early call for an "executive session" would be available to the public. Early on the agenda was the purchase of a property on Cottonwood adjacent to Central. Now mind you, I support the decision to buy it, this is a good property at a reasonable price. After a motion had been made to approve it {Wait a minute; I thought this was a "pre-agenda workshop", why is real business being effectively moved?} Trustee Archer requested an executive session. President Layman was reluctant, the owners were in attendance, we don't want to keep them waiting. Archer insisted; he agreed, the purchase was a done deal, but he wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page. A brief executive session was called.

The intent of the legislation allowing executive sessions for carefully defined puposes was to allow a gov't body private negotiation room before bringing a final deal up to a public vote. The executive session exception to open meetings rules was NOT to have a private snout-counting session and avoid the possible embarrassment of a rogue member actually dissenting.

I have seen this pursuit of unanimity more often than I am comfortable with. Something close to this, a requirement for a second before a Trustee could put an item on the agenda, led to Terry Bader's resignation. Where is it written that an overriding concern of a governing body should be unanimity? City Council manages to rock along with 5/2, even 4/3 decisions, they are still decisions. It is almost as if SAISD has adopted a circle-the-wagons, us against them attitude. Why I don't know. The voters may have turned down the last bond issue, but the last Board election was cancelled due to lack of opposition.

I hold that a governing body's motivation should be transparency of process. It is easier to get the voter's consent when they are convinced everything is open and above board. Editing recordings and casual resort to closed sessions is not the best path to voter trust.

This digression into process aside, we deserve a better rationale for an athletic expenditure of this amount than has been provided. This is a larger sum than most individual campuses will receive from the bond. "Bobcat Pride" can take a back seat to economic reality in my never-to-be-humble opinion. If our economic development prospects from this are all that rosy, go sell stock in it to those who will benefit from it, don't dump another load on the taxpayers.

School Board Trustee Responds

Note: This post was originally an e-mail received from Trustee Max Parker in response to last weeks article "To the Board on the Bond". With his permission, I publish it as a stand-alone article, rather than burying it as a "comment" to a week-old article. I struck the opening salutation and some personal communication from Mr. Parker to me, otherwise the body of the text is published without editorial revision. With that cleared up, I give you Mr. Parker's comments.

At no time were we expecting the new Central to have a new stadium. That was what the survey was supposed to convey--no money for a new stadium. I agree that was not clear in the survey, but the athletic facilities to be built at the proposed new campus were made clear in our presentations and literature.

Here's the deal with the field house. Most 4A and 5A high schools have athletic practice facilities on campus. Lakeview does as do the high schools in Abilene, MIdland, Lubbock, and Amarillo. So does ASU which uses our stadium on game days. All these teams can dress and shower and work out without ever leaving their campuses and only use the stadium on game days. But that is not true at Central. Football, track ( mens and womens), soccer (mens and womens), powerlifting, softball and baseball must leave campus to dress, shower, and workout daily. The students and coaches drive to the stadium area or ride a bus to do this. This is a disadvantage time wise and safety wise for our coaches and students. I know for a fact that this split between campus and workout facilities has dissuaded coaches from other cities from considering Central as a prospective coaching job.

When Stormy Kimrey approached the board about raising money for field house renovations a few years ago, his thought was primarily economic --if we had a more modern field house with four full dressing rooms, San Angelo could host more play off games, even two per day with two teams playing in the afternoon and two more waiting in the wings for a night game. But the board had to consider a field house that could be used daily by student athletes also. The board approved an architect to prepare some preliminary plans for a new field house. ( I was not on the board at this time) Since Central did not have facilities on campus for athletics, as mentioned above, the proposed new field house included dressing rooms for football, and for men's and women's track, and mens and womens soccer. It included a weight room for men and women, I think. And it included storage space for equipment, laundry rooms, training room, and offices and meeting rooms for coaches.

Two things slowed things down on the field house: 1.) Stormy's fund raising was not as fruitful as he expected as a fund raiser began for a new library and "large" contributors donated to the library before Stormy could commit them to the stadium. 2.) We proposed a bond issue for a new high school for Central. Had the new high school been built, it would have been constructed like most high schools and had practice facilities on campus and students would have been able to dress and shower and work out on campus. And the field house, then would have become like the field houses at Abilene, Lubbok, Amarillo, Midland, and Odessa ( and like other field houses in most major cities in Texas) and only been used by teams on game days. No weight rooms, offices, laundry rooms, or storage facilities would have been needed at the stadium. Now Central has to store all its football uniforms and equipment at the stadium. The athletes leave their uniforms and equipment in permanent lockers at the field house and all laundry is done at the stadium. Coaches meet, and plan, and watch film in offices at the stadium. If the bond had passed, we would have only needed four dressing rooms and showers for games days to be used by Lakeview, ASU, and Central. We would not have needed separate dressing rooms for men and women for track and soccer as there would have been places for both to dress on game days-- Just a place for the athletes to change clothes, if necessary, on game days. So the new field house would have needed less space if the bond has passed.

So, we waited to see what happened with the bond proposal. If failed, as everyone knows. This fall, the infrastructure began deteriorating more at the field house and we determined that we needed to go forward with renovations now and not wait to see what a new bond proposal might be. I hope this makes this issue more clear to you.

Buy the Book

One thing you will discover if you do much research on issues is that there is a tremendous amount of paper involved. The introduction of the computer into government and business has had an unintended result: We are creating more documents today then ever, and they are getting bigger. Lets take a look at some of the paper involved in the Capital Improvement Plan being developed.

The CIP will a number of sections detailing needs and justifications. These, in turn, will reflect what is in the city's Comprehensive Plan. This is a very large document that coordinates all other planning. It is both the starting point and the executive summary of a number of other plans.

One of these other plans is the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan. This is a 250+ page study plus a large update on what recreation and parks should look like here in the future. This report plus updates cost the city a lot of money, and is only available on paper. There is so much there I doubt many people outside of the parks and recreation department know more about it than the power point slide show that was presented by the consultant who developed the plan. As far as this type of plan goes, it seems to be pretty good, but there are some concerns.

Our paid consultants started with guidelines from the National Recreation and Parks Association. They then did local surveys, polls, and focus groups to fine tune and prioritize the results. A bit of fine tuning, include lists, charts maps of parks and and proposed sites, eight by ten color glossies with circles and arrows and they had a completed plan. So where is the problem.

First off, I find the NRPA guidelines a bit too generic. They start with a plan developed by Kansas City, and then expand it to fit San Angelo and New York City. I will grant you that the hope is that a consultant will really treat each study as unique, but reality, time and money have a way of interfering with that. What most of these reports end up being is a list of about 2 dozen one size fits all sports and recreation activities in the order of their popularity on the last poll and a list of possible sites. They include cost estimates for each.

The problem I have is that we end up with a list with some odd resources on it (do we really need a city owned Ice Rink?) We also see no mention of many locally popular recreations (No, I am not going to mention Mr. Ryans professional Billiard Hall.)

The other problem is that we see project appear on various plans just because some consultant said you should have one so you can keep with New York City, even though the money could be better spent on water, roads, sewer, or even recreations that might stimulate the city.

The unintended consequence of the ease with which computers allow reports and plans to be generated is there are now so many of them, and they are so thick that it is almost impossible to know what is in them. You do have to be careful that some project doesn't sneak onto the budget just because is was one page in a large plan that nobody had time to read.

Karnak at the Council

Back in the day when this author was one of the more vocal opponents of the 4B half-cent tax, one of the arguments I used through five campaigns was to point out an inevitable downside, namely the predictable howls of outrage when the Development Corp. gave a (grant, subsidy, bribe, pick your term) to a new business which would be directly competing with an established firm.

Well, just that played out in Council meeting today, in four part harmony. Diversified Collection Services got a package of incentives in 2002, has created 400 some jobs, and has since come under new ownership. COSADC had negotiated a similar, but larger package for Account Control Technologies, which also specializes in student loan collections. Jon Shaver, owner of DCS cut no slack in letting Council know his company felt betrayed and that this move would kill a 200 job expansion DCS had planned. If he was peeved that ACT was to get a more generous package than had DCS, that beef was soft-pedaled in an hour long protest by Shaver and several DCS employees.

As I predicted over 10 years ago, it was far from pretty. DCS won this scrimmage, ACT threatened to pick up their marbles and go home. Meanwhile Council accused COSADC of leaving Council in the dark during the process, and COSADC's feeling were hurt, after all, you told us to go bribe companies boss, Whassamata now? Matt Lewis told a reporter we need a new mayor, but declined to run himself. A kiss-and-make-up joint meeting of Council and COSADC is scheduled, but at Council meeting Tuesday Jon Shaver and employees owned the only happy faces in the house. Chalk one up for my Karnak the Magnificent file.

Interestingly, ACT relented and announced, with a slight backhand to Mayor and Council, that they would be coming to Angelo anyway. Seems debt collector is a hard job to fill and our pool of workers, including former DCS employees is hard to find. Allow me to don the Karnak turban: ACT will be here longer and will create more jobs at higher pay than say, Taylor Publishing. Not unlike a romantic relationship. If you court and woo a lady, convince her your interests coincide, you might end up with a wife. If you short circuit the process with cash, you get what you pay for and they don't respect you in the morning.

In other action, Council approved, as expected, the tennis courts deal. I seem to have gotten their attention by appealing, tongue in cheek, for funds to provide the San Angelo Billiards Association, of which I am a member, a central pool hall with say, 24 regulation size tables. Discussing this later with individual members, I was surprised that almost none seemed to have considered the possibility of creating a Facilities Corp. to deal with the now inevitable requests from every sports group in town. “If tennis gets money, why can't (curling, archery, paintball, pick your pet)”, will be the litany. Tennis got a rather substantial sum, by the way, $750,000 total. With that precedent, I can promise you other sports enthusiasts will be appearing before Council, hat in hand, asking that said hat be filled with public money.

I was surprised at the lack of consideration of a facilities Corp. as it played so large a part in the Faith-based Prison issue. Actually, the only reason it would not have worked for the prison was that other laws would reasonably not allow us abandon a few hundred human inmates post-default. If a group of sports enthusiasts raises money for their idea under the facilities umbrella, the money is entirely between them and the bondholders, worst the city gets is a padlocked playground.
There will be more detail on the Facilities Corp. idea here, especially as other groups come forward . I can tell you, that of the members I was able to personally speak to on this, the initial reaction to the rough sketch of the concept was favorable.