Here’s your chance to let the powers-that-be know what you really think about all the foofaraw around the White Sox and Jerry Reinsdorf
Not that they’ll pay any attention, but let’s do it anyway
’Tis the season to be polling, so let’s proceed with the first-ever South Side Sox survey on recent developments surrounding Jerry Reinsdorf, possible sale of the team, The 78 and all that good stuff. There are numerous questions, so settle in.
Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has entered the conversation by saying Chicago will always be a two-team town, without saying how that will come to pass.
The promoters of the plan for a new stadium in The 78 — Sox chairman Reinsdorf (Forbes wealth estimate more than $2 billion), developer Related Companies chairman Stephen M. Ross (recently zoomed up past $17 billion) and primary 78 landowner and convicted fraudster (in France) Nadhmi Shakir Auchi (more than $2 billion) — claim the monument to themselves in the South Loop area would mean $9 billion in investment, $4 billion a year in economic impact, and $200 million a year in tax revenues (even though they want to have it all a Tax Increment Financing district — so no new property taxes — and also keep all its sales taxes). Many, many economic studies have shown public funding of stadiums never pays off.
Reinsdorf, et al., are seeking as much as $2 billion in taxpayer participation in their pet project. Governor J.B. Pritzker has told them to forget it, as have key legislators. But Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson, striving to overtake extremely stiff competition and become known as the worst mayor ever, has remained open to public funding if Reinsdorf “has some skin in the game.”
It’s no doubt best to think of the greedsters’ desires coming in at the top level of roughly $2 billion. This would have to come from an already desperate Chicago budget.
To be fair, the $2 billion could be produced by floating bonds. Stadiums don’t qualify for tax-free bonds, so the best case would probably be the current prime rate of 8% over, say, 25 years, for an annual payments of around $183 million.
That raises a question of what people would feel about politicians who spend public money on a monument to Reinsdorf and friends.
If selling the White Sox turns out to be for real, and not just a repeat of Reinsdorf’s shakedown of politicians for giant handouts, there’s always the question of who the new owners might be.
Reinsdorf lives in Highland Park, which isn’t even in Cook County — but is in Illinois, which has a 16% estate tax, one of the few states with such a levy. Given his hatred of taxes, that’s no doubt changeable.
Many proposals for public funding of pro sports stadiums are determined by a referendum of impacted citizens.
Thanks for participating. A lot better than being picked for a political poll, isn’t it? And the results may be more interesting.