S/HPNA

Educating voters about the ballpark Ballot Measure

A group of residents and taxpayers from across San Jose have formed a grass roots organization, named “Better Sense San Jose”, to oppose the proposed baseball stadium next to Diridon Station. Better Sense San Jose is against the giveaway of public money, land, or other resources to finance the stadium. The group says that an honest analysis of the costs and benefits of the stadium show that it is a bad financial deal for San Jose and a significant lost opportunity to use the unique Diridon Station location to maximize city tax revenues over the long term.

“We’re proud residents of San Jose and are deeply interested in the long-term future and economic well being of San Jose. Giving away this unique site next to the emerging major transportation center at Diridon Station and surrendering the property tax on this land for the next 30 to 50 years is a bad idea in the short term and a terrible deal in the long term. We look forward to participating in a full, honest debate of this issue” said Marc Morris, a spokesperson for Better Sense San Jose.

The group says that the benefits claimed for the stadium have been highly exaggerated and the costs ignored or hidden. For example, stadium supporters claim that ‘nearly 1,000 jobs’ will be created by the stadium. But the city’s economic report shows that only 135 new part-time, lowpaying jobs would be created in the stadium, while an alternate commercial development at the Diridon Station site would provide 4,000 full-time, well paying jobs.

The group calls on the city to fully disclose the public costs of the stadium before the stadium question is put before voters. “Stadium supporters have been eager to talk about the purported benefits, but no one talks about the costs of the borrowed money used to purchase land, the cost of the street infrastructure changes needed for a stadium, and the lost property tax revenue” said Mr. Morris.

When the city and the Redevelopment Agency are making extremely painful cuts in essential services such as fire, police, libraries, and parks, it is even more important that the city account for how it is spending our money. I hope we learned from the Grand Prix that ‘feel good’ projects shouldn’t be done in the back room and then justified with fuzzy accounting” continued Mr. Morris. “We need every penny of our tax money to be spent for the benefit of the residents, not on handouts to wealthy team owners”.