The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 6)

br> -- TH br> Albuquerque, New Mexico /p> p> THEY WILL COME br> Re: RiShawn Biddle's Giuliani's Lesson and Fred McCarthy's letter (under "Peyton Place") in Reader Mail's Tick, Tick, Tick : /p>

As a long-time Republican here in Indianapolis, it has always been interesting what people get mad at instead of what they should get their blood to boil. In all fairness to Mayor Peterson, there is a distinct benefit to building a new football stadium. The city has wanted to expand the convention center to capture more convention business as well as not lose much of the business it already has to larger venues in other cities. Both the present RCA Dome and the convention center are the two parts of the same complex with no adjacent land to build extensions. The only way the convention center can expand is by demolishing the RCA Dome -- building another football facility elsewhere. In this sense, building the new football stadium is a "win-win" for both the city and the Colts.

Since the first hint that a new stadium was under consideration, a steady stream of letters-to-the-editor have made their appearance in the local paper (Indianapolis is a "one-paper" town) all stating more or less the same thing: "how can we give millions away to professional athletes who already make millions when our "X" (usually some other liberal boondoggle or sacred cow) is badly in need of funds? Where are our Hoosier values?" This slow drip eventually did have its toll on Mayor Peterson's 3rd term bid.

I didn't vote for Peterson in any of his previous elections and I certainly didn't vote for him this time. (If he ran for President of our local elementary school's P.T.A., I still wouldn't vote for him.) Yet the stadium deal was at least defensible in terms of what more convention business would mean to the whole community. What was indefensible was the tax.

topics:
Taxes, Harry Reid, Business, Sports, Religion, Law, Iraq, Oil