News-Record.com

You can't always GET what you want. You don't want things you already have (since you already have them).

I hope Mick Jagger doesn't read your blog.

You had to see this coming, though. As part of its new stadium pitch, the N&R pretty consistently pitched the idea that renovating War Memorial was part of the package--that it wasn't being consigned to history's dustbin. Reasonable observers would have concluded that, for consistency's sake, you'd endorse the bond, especially since you endorse the much more expensive subsidy for rich folks to go hear the symphony in more elegant surroundings. And also the one for the idea of a Civil Rights Museum (not to be confused with an actual museum, which--like a balanced federal budget--only the truly gullible still believe to be a possibility.)

I like baseball more than the symphony, so I'm voting for War Memorial and not the other one. Plus I'm afraid that the Aycock radicals will stage some kind of coup if this doesn't pass. That would ugly for everyone.

Allen, I'm not persuaded.

David, I never expected to persuade you. We've disagreed on the stadium issue for years (I hope respectfully. I learn from, and appreciate your thoughts on neighborhoods and communities.)
I was asked (actually, it was more of a demand) to explain our thinking. I have done that.

Brian:
Sorry about mangling the Stones lyrics. I know better. It was late.
We have generally supported the continued use of War Memorial as a venue for amateur and college sports.
Given the quantity of bond choices on the ballot, it simply didn't make our cut as one of the highest priorities.

Seems to be sort of a "Bay of Pigs" type incident doesnt it. Nice, working in a back handed slap at the pool complex too. You guys are starting to get on my last one!

As to the pool... Again slowly and in small words. The deficit in the operating costs will be more than compensated for in taxes (food/hotel) DIRECTLY to the city. Just like the CVM complex it will/may run on a deficit as a building but will be responsible for mucho tax dollars. These dollars ARE NOT credited to the operation of the site. That is part of the reason these facilities(stadiums, auditoriums, pool complexes) are for the most part municipally owned.

Rememebr this was about the WMS you called out the pool supporters, unnecesarily I might add.

Just to emphasize the point of demand... A December swim meet out of the Triangle area is now desparately trying to find an alternate site after being closed out of facilities there. A long time High Point event has been split and moved due to lack of facilities as well. Not one but two missed opportunities for hundreds of kids and thousands of people to enjoy our hotels, restaurants, malls and the precious downtown.

One other note: Opinions do change as situations change. I imagine some of the downtown stadium foes -- one of whom predicted that the the new park would fail and be bulldozed in 10 years .. another who said the new park absolutely could not sustain itself financially .. and still another who predicted that the park would have no impact on downtown development -- have at least slightly altered their viewpoints.

My contention was, and remains, that new stadiums historically create a buzz of excitement and surge in attendance for the first five years, then the shine goes off the penny and, again, historically, attendance falls back to old stadium levels.

I'd be happy to cite the research on this which is tucked away somewhere in my files.

But I fail to see how that has much pertinence here besides "opinions change".

Facts borne of research don't generally make such a transformation.

I have done MY research and will wait the aforementioned five years before admitting I was wrong, if indeed I was.

How's 'bout you guys?

Supporters of the WMS bond are a highly active, organized and vocal group. The issue involved active initiatives by advocates, city management, and citizens. Leaders David Hoggard and David Wharton are both on record that no one from the N&R editorial department made contact with them during the period between the announcement of the bond package and the publication of the N&R non-endorsement. Putting aside the merits of the endorsement, can you address the validity of an endorsement process that does not include communication with the definitive stakeholders? I just don't understand how an editorial decision could have been reached in that kind of vacuum.

Only time will tell about the new stadium, attendance, long term success, etc. That horse is way out of the barn.

As to "opinions change ..." HOW CONVENIENT (think old Dana Carvey). Anway, I too fail to see the relevance here. At this point the downtown stadium has nothing to do with the WMS issue.

There appears to be no logical excuse for not contacting any committee members in regards to the WMS. NONE! Bad reporting and a severe disservice to the community. I will also assume from this as well as misleading info in the pool anti-endorsement that the entire series is corrupted. Too bad the N&R missed a great opportunity to serve this community.

Man, the tax 'n' spend crowd is out in full force today.

Here's a thought: if these projects were so worthwhile, why can't private investors or non-profit groups raise the money to build them?

It makes no sense to me spend millions in taxpayer money to build a swimming pool that only a small percentage of the public will ever use. And there's no way a pool will ever draw in enough tourism revenue to justify the cost.

As for War Memorial Stadium, let's call it what it is - an effort by Aycock residents to prop up their property values. Why should the rest of the city subsidize that? We don't need it - Greensboro already has plenty of amateur baseball fields.

The best thing for Greensboro's economy would be for voters to reject all 11 bonds. That would keep more money in the hands of private citizens, which in turn would be spent at local businesses, which in turn would create more jobs, etc. Taxes are too high already - we don't need more.

Mick, I mentioned the pool mainly because David did in his column rebutting our stadium endorsement editorial.

He wrote near the beginning of that column:

"The N&R derides the proposed $9 million dollar swim center as 'clearly a luxury' which, they say, 'will only target a relatively small, if passionate, segment of the population.' "

To Jim's point: I thought the "definitive stakeholders" were city tapxpayers.

We did, however, interview the city manager on all of the bonds for more than two hours.

As for the tax credits issue, it was not a factor in our decision. The main point, for us, was setting reasonable priorities and making tough choices.

Here's another thought... do some research and get the answers to your questions. Your statements plainly show a lack of knowledge on the issues and you are satisfied with your mis or un-informed opinions. Have you been to the bond issue or pool websites? I'm gonna guess... No.

www.greensboroswimmingcenter.com
www.gsobonds.com

A little time at these two sites will give you some FACTS as well as opinions on these issues.

As to the WSM. Yes baseball fields exist and they continue to be built so why not fix this one up as well. Plus, this particular field is a little more than just a baseball field. It is memorial to those who fought and died in WWI. Does this mean nothing to you?

If you believe the pool and WSM to be luxuries so be it but at least educate yourself on the issues and make an informed decision.

The above was in response to "just saying".
But all are more than welcome to see the "positives" involved in the pools as well as other bonds.

Sorry.

Mick, I have visited those Web sites. No offense, but I found them nothing more than propaganda by pro-bonds activists. Of course they are going to say the bonds will benefit the community, but it's easy to say that when the taxpayers are footing the bill. I saw no objective evidence - just unattributed claims.

Again, almost all of these projects could be financed through private fundraising efforts. If the answer is, "The private money just isn't there," well, then these projects obviously aren't that vital. Tax money should be spent on essential services - police & fire protection, water, roads, etc. - not luxuries.

As for the stadium, a memorial to WWI veterans certainly is appropriate, but honoring those soldiers hardly requires a multi-million dollar renovation to an unneeded stadium. Most cities have statues or plaques to honor war dead. That would be a fitting tribute without wasting millions of taxpayer dollars.

Any baseball game big enough to merit a stadium setting can be played at First Horizon Park. War Memorial would end up hosting American Legion & little league games that draw a couple of hundred family members at most. Who needs a fancy stadium with locker rooms, a kitchen, indoor batting cages, etc. for that?

I thought the "definitive stakeholders" were city tapxpayers.

Wow. Alright. I made a mistake using the word definitive. I was thinking there could be more than one group of stakeholders. My bad. I was wrong and I apologize. Strike definitive, and I'll tidy it up. Do you stand by your decision not to reach out to WMS bond advocates even once during the endorsement process? I hope that's a more appropriate word, because what I'm trying to do is actually communicate frustration at what I believe is a flawed editorial review process and trigger a response other than a clever non-answer. I'm trying to ask you something real and get an answer that's real: Do you feel that you heard and published enough of the facts to suppport your conclusion that "The most modest [bond package] could have shaved $1.5 million off the price and still funded a more-than-adequate renovation." Do you feel you heard and published enough of the facts to support your rejection of the proposed bond package in favor of "a more realistic and affordable plan." Do you feel you collected, analyzed, and published sufficient factual data to provide context for your bare assertions of "adequacy," "realism" and "affordability." If you had it to do over again, would you talk to more people about the issue, and published the details of what they had to say? Or, is it the Editorial Editor's judgment that talking with the City Manager for two hours about eleven bonds and caring in the abstract about the citizens represents the appropriate level of review for endorsements of historically complex and hotly contested bond packages? I've reviewed the above three times to make sure there are no insults or cheap shots and is a good faith effort to say that I find the editorial process and subsequent non-endorsement of the WMS bond package to have failed the due diligence test..

Even if a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, some consistency still doesn't seem like a bad thing. Even in the context of the 11-bond package (six of which, as I correctly predicted on this blog, the N&R endorsed), there seems to be some inconsistency in the criteria used. "Luxury" is the keyword, but I don't see where a nice place to hear music--or heck, even firehouses out in the country, where people ought to have better sense than to catch their houses on fire--aren't luxuries and War Memorial is. Arguably, they're all luxuries, in that they aren't essential enough to warrant regular tax funds.

Another point: although the N&R's endorsements are intrinsically worth arguing about, I'm not especially persuaded that they matter that much. If memory serves, bonds are rarely 48-52 votes where an endorsement might actually matter. The decision will be made by voters, not by editorialists.

Jim, in response to your question about due dilgence:
Yes. In addition to the meeting with the city manager we also met with
1. Chip Hagan, who is heading the efforts to push all of the bonds;
2. a contingent of swim center supporters, led by Ted Oliver;
3. a contingent from the Greensboro Partnership;
4. Skip Moore, who spoke to us on behalf of the Civil Rights Museum;
5. approximately 16 people who endorsed the War Memorial Auditorium project;
6. Coliseum Director Matt Brown;
In addition, we assigned an editorial writer specifically to take on the bonds as a beat.
And we studied the bonds Web site and our archives. We attended campaign forums.
Finally, we gladly offered any of those groups the opportunity to make their own cases in op-eds, before and after our endorsements ran.
We did all this while also interviewing every local candidate for office who would accept our invitation (one didn't). And every statewide Appeals Court candidate

To Brian's point, our main goal is to prod people to think about the issues and to make their own informed decisions at the ballot box.
As for that reference to fire stations possibly being a luxury in the suburbs, you lost me on that one.

Heck, I think the suburbs are a luxury. Everyone should live, like I do, within a two mile radius of downtown and in close proximity to existing fire stations. If you choose to sprawl outward in some bourgeois snout-housed subdivision, don't come crying to me if you catch your house on fire and it takes the trucks five extra minutes to get there.

As for your other point, the N&R has certainly given adequate space to the opposition for arguments contrary to those forwarded by the editorial board. The lurking--and I think weak--premise of this discussion is that the paper's endorsements determine more than they actually do.

I'd like to respond to Just Sayin's comment that the the interest that many of us in Aycock have in renovating the stadium is to "prop up property values."

If we wanted to do that, there are much more effective ways to go about it. A better strategy would be to pressure the city to rezone the land, with restrictions, raze the stadium, and sell the land to a developer for the kind of housing that's popular in the center city these days. THAT would probably increase property values on Park Ave. significantly.

But an amateur baseball facility just doesn't carry much economic oomph.

Besides, our property values have been doing just fine -- rising quite a bit faster than the city as a whole, without any stadium renovation. I don't expect renovation / non-renovation to have any effect at all on my property values since I live several blocks away.

People like us who buy, renovate, and live in historic houses do it mostly because history means something to us; it's part of our identity. WWMS is a defining historical feature of Greensboro, and its loss would be painful to us.

JS,

Fair enough. At least you are informed. However, it is difficult to offer definitive evidence on something that doesnt exist yet. Info on the successes of similar facilities and communities is available in abundance. That info is hard evidence and data not propaganda or unattributed claims.

The CVM and other amenities here in town generate millions of tax dollars to the city coffers even as the indivdual "buildings" lose money. It is and can be part of what Greensboro has to offer. If municipalities did only what you profess then there would be no parks, museums, libraries, pools, etc. Is that what you want? We will just agree to draw "the line" in differant places.

I want our kids and residents to have a full compliment of extra curricular activities and opportunities. We are severely lacking in aquatics.

BTW, First Horizon Park is privately owned and has a tenant that just might object to use of the facilities. So that part of your argument is just out. Furthermore, THE WWMS IS THE MEMORIAL and the city owns that memorial. I am glad you dont live in DC! Yikes. Certain assurances and perhaps promises were made by the City to the taxpayers... it is simply time to pay up.

And who has to "pay up"? The taxpayers, of course!

Just because the stadium has been a memorial in the past doesn't mean it should remain one eternally. It could be replaced with a more cost-effective tribute that honors our fallen soldiers without taking the taxpayers to the cleaners.

First Horizon is privately owned, but I'm sure the owners would be glad to rent it out for amateur games large enough to merit a stadium.

And David Wharton, I appreciate your desire to live in a historic neighborhood. But I shouldn't have to subsidize that desire, any more than you should pay to build a tool shed in my backyard.

And if, as you say, "an amateur baseball stadium doesn't carry much economic oomph," why should the taxpayers pay to refurbish it?

Understand - I'm not opposed to renovating War Memorial Stadium. I've attended many games there over the years and appreciate its history. I just oppose tax dollars being used to renovate it.

I bet a coalition of Aycock residents, history buffs and baseball fans could raise the money to refurbish the stadium. Likewise, I'm sure proponents of the swimming facility could raise the money to build it privately, and that would be great. But tax money shouldn't be used to finance ever pet project to come along.

Just Saying, I'm not asking you to subsidize my desire to live in a historic neighborhood, and your analogy regarding a shed on your private property is entirely off the mark.

I'm asking you to maintain a publicly-owned facility that's outside of my neighborhood, which currently serves 200+ baseball games a year.

WWMS is no more historically significant for my neighborhood than it is for the city as a whole.

If you wish to live in a city, state, or country, where such monuments are not maintained by government, I understand your reasoning.

But your world would be a culturally desolate place, because in the history of mankind, the private sector simply has never built or maintained such things for public use.

But your world would be a culturally desolate place, because in the history of mankind, the private sector simply has never built or maintained such things for public use.

***********

Well, the Biltmore House seems to be doing just fine and it's a privately-owned historical site open to the public. Plenty of other historical sites and monuments are owned and maintained by private citizens and non-profit groups, too. No reason why that couldn't happen here. Heck, if War Memorial really hosts 200+ games a year, user fees could easily pay for any renovations.

But rather than go through the hard work of raising money for historic renovations and community projects, it's easier to just let Santa Claus bring it. Heck, David wants a stadium and Mick wants a pool. There's two of them and one of me - who cares what I think? You guys need anything else while I'm buying?

Just Saying... Identify for me any significant war memorials that are owned and maintained by the private sector.

There may be some, I just don't know of them.

That is why it is a bond issue next Tuesday. Its not just about you or me. Its about WWI vets, baseball, promises, responsabilities, quality of life, history and much much more. See you at the polls. Good luck and thanks for voting.

This has been a good discussion. I see valid arguments on both sides. And I respect and appreciate the pro-stadium folks' commitment.
(Also, it's really good to see Wharton back in the fray.) See you all at the polls.

Here's a great example of a privately-financed war memorial, David H. Just go to www.reamstown.org/park.

It's a community World War II memorial and park in Reamstown, PA and I quote, "It is a privately owned park that receives no funds from any government. All of the Park's funding comes from donations from individuals, businesses and charitable foundations. All of the Park's facilities are available for use by the public."

And I hate to repeat myself, but there's no reason that Greensboro can't honor its World War I veterans without that monument being an expensive white elephant. Not when a statue, plaque or similar monument would serve the same purpose at a greatly reduced cost.

The Biltmore House is a big private house that is now a tourist attraction; it's hardly comparable to a war memorial.

It's nice what they've done in Reamstown, and I applaud them.

Would you suggest that we also sell off Guilford Courthouse battlefield? How about taking the Gettysburg battlefield away from the Natl. Park Service? And all those expensive memorials on the Mall in Washington -- it's a whole herd of white elephants! They're not bringing in enough revenue anyway.

If people really care about all that stuff, let the private sector -- history buffs, people like that -- take care of it.

Right?

Allen,

Before this fades to never-never land. Are you, personally, satisfied that the editorial board's decision to steer voters away from the WMS bond was based on all of the available, pertinent, facts?

Would you consider publishing something authored by you presenting what has been discussed here and at other blogs?

And as a final appeal, I would appreciate it if you will vote for the WMS bond.

Thanks but no thanks, David. We've had our say about the stadium issue in print.
We'll let the rebuttals you and others have written in the paper be the last word.
As for changing our minds, no, we haven't. We still believe these 11 bonds presented tough choices. This was one of them.
But we see your points. And if the voters wind up agreeing with you instead of us, that's fine by us.

I would still love to see the scorecards for your "collective opinions". I just can't believe their was a consensus on any much less all of these issues. Furthermore, if there was ... you have a problem.