Readers’ Forum

Unique partnership is in Delaware

To the editor,

My compliments on a timely and informative article, (“Electricity and local governments: Planning for a deregulated future,” Nov., 96) but there is a correction. Dover City Council’s venture with Duke-Louis Dreyfus involved the city of Dover, Delaware, not North Carolina.

Also, I would suggest American City & County take a closer look at Dover’s partnership with Duke-Louis Dreyfus. We think it is unique, with the result being a multi-faceted public/private partnership motivated by profits not wishful thinking. Immense earnings are expected, but we are proud of the fact that we moved more than 45 city power plant employees to the private sectors with no “bloodletting.”

The salient features of our deal are: 1) Dover retains ownership, and Duke-Flor Daniels operates our power plants with joint oversight, 2) We purchase electrons from Duke-Louis Dreyfus for 10-and-a-half years at fixed rates, so we know today what our worst cost for electrons will be during the life of the deal, 3) We retain our customer base and our transmission and distribution system, and 4) The agreement sets benchmarks for profit sharing.

The deal positions Dover to be competitive in the soon-to-be deregulated electric industry, and it is based on the profit motive. This win-win approach was the basis of action for the parties and should prove beneficial to the citizens of Dover and their industry partners.
— Philip Fenimore
Councilor at-large
Dover, Del.

Tax-exempt financing a bad idea

To the editor,

Your story, “Is the sun setting on tax-exempt stadium financing?” ignores a very important point of view, notably that of the overburdened taxpayers and business owners who don’t want tax exemptions, tax dollars — or worse — a new tax used to line the pockets of team owners and overpaid players.

In an era of budget reductions, growing deficits and limited capital spending, public financing for new baseball stadiums to benefit privately owned athletic teams just doesn’t add up. Over the last decade, New York City’s maintenance and capital budgets for infrastructure improvements were regularly diverted to operational funds. City buildings, courthouses, schools, roads and bridges still need major repair or replacement. Public health agencies and facilities are moving toward privatization because government funding levels have decreased significantly.

This is hardly the time for New York to be in the business of subsidizing professional baseball teams, especially when lucrative profits generated from broadcasting rights, retail sales, food service, luxury boxes and other entrepreneurial activities revert entirely to the team. Your article further neglected to mention that economic development data and cost-benefit studies for Baltimore’s Camden Yards and Cleveland’s Jacobs Field indicate that the new jobs were limited in number, low-paying and costly to create on a per-job basis, based on total public investment.

Baseball stadiums will not provide the kinds of year-round technical, skilled or high growth jobs that New York has lost over the last few years and still needs to compete with the rest of the country.

As a colleague in Seattle remarked after that city sponsored a vote on a new stadium, “The government isn’t helping me build my office. Why should I pay for some sports team owner to build his?”

Elected officials who insist on offering hefty government handouts and tax breaks to team owners should make their cases to the tax-paying public with a referendum, supported by economic development data. The voters, not the team owners, the bond markets, special interests or politicians, should determine how to spend over a billion dollars of public funds. With so many other pressing priorities in need of funding — including infrastructure, health care, education, crime prevention and law enforcement — the lucrative business of pro sports should stay out of the public till.
— Barbara Nadel
Barbara Nadel Architect
Forest Hills, N.Y.

Family values matter a great deal

To the editor,

I have worked for municipal and state governmental agencies for over 20 years. I care very much about issues that affect local governments. That is one reason I read American City & County magazine.

I usually read any pertinent articles, but the clever headline, “Family Values, Schmamily Values,” caught my eye. It was a well-written and clever piece that managed to misrepresent and trivialize the most important issues facing our country.

You see, I’m not defined by where I work or what may be in my best economic interest. My family and the morals I live by are much more important. The huge increase in pornography pollutes our culture and threatens my daughters. The domination of public education by a liberal union continues to weaken education and damages my children’s future. The politics of death — abortion and euthanasia — reduce all of our value to what we can produce.

“Traditional family values” is a short label that refers to morals and morality. It matters to me if a candidate demonstrates honesty and keeps his promises. It matters a great deal how the great moral issues of our time are addressed.
— Steven Stewart
Springfield, Ill.