Dear Mayor Bozeman and Town Council Members:

 

Please reject the proposed plan for building a stadium in the Town of Leland.  This plan should be rejected by the Town Council for several reasons.

 

1.     Taxpayer dollars should NOT be used to finance private profit.  If REV Entertainment wants to build a stadium, they should obtain investors and build it themselves.  As proposed, TOL taxpayers take on all the debt and all the risk while REV Entertainment and a few other wealthy individuals/entities receive all the profit.  The taxpayers should not be saddled with this debt that could take generations to repay.  Our residents should not be impoverished to further enrich the wealthy.

 

2.     Our town is in desperate need of schools and a hospital.  Instead of financing a frivolous item like a stadium, our tax dollars would be better spent for schools, hospital, fire and police, and expanded infrastructure.  Every tax dollar spent on a stadium is a tax dollar taken away from those pressing needs.

 

3.     Brunswick County has already declined to take on the proposed $110 million of debt to build this stadium.  Does Town of Leland—with a far smaller tax base—truly believe it can take on this huge debt?

 

4.     What happens a few years down the road when REV Entertainment decides it wants improvements at the stadium to the tune of several million tax dollars?  Will REV Entertainment threaten to move its team (if indeed a team ever comes to Leland) as it did in Kinston?  Will Leland residents be forever on the hook for anything that REV Entertainment wants?

 

5.     The proposed location for this stadium is completely inappropriate.  A stadium does not belong in the middle of a residential area.  The noise pollution, light pollution, increased traffic, and crime that would accompany a stadium is out of place in a residential area.  The neighborhoods of Mallory Creek, Westport, Brunswick Forest, and Westgate would suffer severe negative impacts from a stadium in their midst.  Magnolia Greens and Waterford would likely experience negative impacts as well.  Quality of life will decline dramatically in these neighborhoods, and property values may decline as well.  If REV Entertainment wants to build a stadium, a better location needs to be found.

 

6.     Stadiums have been proven over and over and over to be BAD investments for the public.  Experts have documented the terrible results of these public investments for private profit.  Does Town of Leland really believe it is so special that this time will be different?

 

Before the Town Council impoverishes the residents of Leland to further enrich millionaires, it should read Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit by Neil deMause.  DeMause describes in detail how these stadium deals rip off the public and enrich the wealthy. 

 

The Town Council should also see the following:

 

https://reason.com/2019/04/01/70-million-minor-league-stadium-fail/​

https://jacobin.com/2020/11/arenas-sports-stadiums-covid-public-funds-cities​

https://reason.com/2015/03/21/sports-stadiums-are-bad-public-investmen/

 

 

This proposed stadium deal is a BAD DEAL for the residents of Leland.  Our elected Town Council should represent our interests, not those of developers and REV Entertainment, and RUN away from this proposal.

 

Sincerely,

 

Rhonda Florian