Set the stadium aside

(Deseret News Editorial desnews.com 3-1-06)

This is the last day of the 2006 Legislature. Consequently, it is the last day during which lawmakers and officials from the Real Salt Lake soccer team can reach an agreement to provide public money to help build a new stadium in Sandy.

Given the confusion that still surrounds exactly how this is to happen, the public ought to be deeply concerned about what takes place in the halls of the Capitol before midnight.

Most importantly, no one has yet offered a valid reason why a professional soccer stadium ought to be the concern of Utah taxpayers. Soccer has a precarious history in the United States. Leagues have folded. Teams have gone out of business. Just recently, the San Jose team decided to move to Houston.

If a Utahn wants to secure a mortgage on a home, the lending institution will require thorough knowledge of that person's income, savings and debts. Often, this can seem like intrusive prying, but the lender is merely protecting itself from default. Why, then, should Utah lawmakers be so willing to give away what amounts to about $45 million of taxpayers' money without knowing much at all about the finances, or the long-term business plan, of the professional soccer team in question?

And why should they want to invest in something that economists at several universities have found provides virtually no positive returns to the communities in which they are built? If anything, lawmakers should be more protective of taxpayers' money than a bank is with its assets.

Throughout this legislative session, the main proposal has been to extend a county hotel room tax to allow for public funding, which would make up less than one-third of the $145 million project that includes much more than a stadium. But earlier this week there was still plenty of confusion over just how such a deal would proceed.

Salt Lake County officials expressed worries that the plan could harm the county's triple-A bond rating, which it has carefully guarded for many years. The triple-A rating allows the county to borrow money at the most favorable interest rate available, and it is a signal to investors that the county is financially prudent and responsible. But the soccer team is asking the county to bond for a longer term than normal, and to do so under a plan that allows it to pay only interest, not any of the principle, until 2018.

The hotel tax scheme is the least offensive of all public funding mechanisms because it would tax only visitors, not Utahns themselves. But no plan is worth jeopardizing a county's bond rating. And no public funding plan ever is truly free.

Lawmakers would be doing themselves a favor to put the soccer stadium on hold as they finish more pressing matters today. They should take it up again only when the soccer team can demonstrate convincingly that a stadium is a good public investment.