I am a day behind, but Saturday’s Chronicle ran a letter from Jack Rains:
Time’s up for Sports Authority
In response to the April 7 Chronicle editorial “Lease on life,” the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority has outlived its purpose.
It was authorized by the Legislature and narrowly empowered by local voters to complete two venues — baseball and football.
A third venue was added after two referendums, narrowly passing on the second attempt.
The authority’s purposes were limited to authorized venues approved by the voters, all of which have now been completed.
Without voter approval, the Sports Authority should not take on any new projects, and certainly not on a politician’s whim!
The city efficiently operated the Summit, and Harris County operated the Astrodome, for years without the Sports Authority.
The leases for the three new venues give all the promotion rights to the lessees — the team owners who are the lead tenants. These are who should take the promotion risks, as they are the ones who will reap the rewards if successful.
Further, we have in place tax-supported city and county convention and visitors bureaus charged with promotion.
We have tax-supported city and county auditors and legal staffers who handle other public properties. We clearly do not need to squander another $3 million in overhead for the superfluous Sports Authority; it is just a bureaucracy looking for a new purpose.
Finally, the authority exceeded its original budgets on the Reliant and Toyota venues, and was forced to issue additional bonds to prevent a downgrade to junk bonds. Today, it is out of money.
The $3 million now being wasted could better be applied to shoring up the financial base on the existing debt.
The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority’s time has come and gone.
JACK RAINS
founding chair, Harris County-Houston Sports Authority
And after Friday’s scary display of entrenched, arrogant bureaucrat-itis courtesy of Billy Burge, I think it’s clear why the Sports Authority needs to be shut down.
RELATED: Shut down the Sports Authority and save $40 million (blogHOUSTON)
UPDATE: David Benzion from Lone Star Times says the Jack Rains/Billy Burge/Dan Patrick interview should rerun Monday morning between 7 and 8 on KSEV-700 (you can listen online). Also, the interview will repeat Monday afternoon during Patrick’s show beginning at 4. And Benzion says the MP3 should be posted on Lone Star Times some time tomorrow.
(Old) Forum Comments (22)
