In a two-part series, Pennsylvania Independent reports that under Republican Governor Tom Ridge and Democratic Governor Ed Rendell, taxpayers have invested over $1 billion in sportscenters like hockey arenas and baseball stadiums, including Coca Cola Park, home to the IronPigs. Without question, this public investment creates a lot of pride and spurs other kinds of economic development, but it's still corporate welfare. They make rich owners like Craig Stein and Joe Finley even richer. But who could possibly oppose publicly funding a baseball stadium for kids? Look no farther than Emmaus.Yesterday, someone forwarded me this email from Otto Slozer, enshrined in Bill White's notorious Hall of Fame for reasons lost in the mysts of time:
"We are trying to put together a 'Strike Out the Stadium' rally Monday before the Council Meeting. We are going to meet outside Boro Hall at 6:10 until 6:30 then proceed to the Council Meeting Room to be seated. We believe events are about to move forward and the Council needs to see that we ARE STILL ON TOP OF THIS ISSUE!
"In case of rain, skip the rally BUT PLEASE GO TO THE MEETING!"
According to WFMZ, Emmaus' baseball fields are in such bad repair that high school teams have been playing in Lower Macungie over the past dozen years. East Penn School District wants to bring baseball back home, but it costs too much. And that's when somebody, somewhere, decided that the school and borough could work together and rehab one of the diamonds used by the Legion at Community Park.
Built in 1967, the current field has seen no significant improvements, other than the installation of lights, in 43 years. Dugouts are falling apart, the field is uneven and the diamond is starting to
deteriorate. So the idea was to combine resources and kill two birds with one stone. East Penn School District ($300k), Emmaus ($100k) and private sector donors ($50k) would build a stadium for the kids.
Borough Council has been besieged with a petition signed by 900 people, who mostly have no objection to fixing the field, but hate the notion of a stadium. One Emmaus resident even suggests that the Borough forget about baseball and instead build a skate park for the grunges and goths, where they all can do kickflips and nosegrinds.
Sounds good to me.
School Board member Julian Stolz, who voted against the stadium, complains there is no money and no real need. He likens it to "keeping up with the Parklands."
Over the past few years, my grandson has competed against those nasty Emmaus Hornets in baseball, football and basketball. No matter what the sport, those little thugs (most of them are juvenile delinquents) come ready to play. Just a few weeks ago, they clobbered the Bethlehem Steelers in youth football.
Enough already!
So I'm all for depriving these little monsters and screwing with any attempt to improve their high school programs. If they want a stadium so bad, let them do it the old-fashioned way. Become millionaires. Then Rendell will bring over a few cardboard checks faster than you can say Comcast.
I'm all for improvements to the diamond/outfield itself, but I'm not in love with the idea of building the sort of big stadium "amenities" proposed by council. The community park is used for many other purposes than baseball, and with the installation of stadium features, the baseball field essentially becomes unuseable by non baseball players. It takes away from the community feel of what is supposed to be a community park.
ReplyDeleteBernie, there are several issues at play here:
ReplyDeleteBorough Manager Craig Neely began discussions with the School District without Council knowledge or approval. Council didn't find out about it until the 2010 budget process where $175,000 was budgeted.
I believe the County has reneged on its $300,000 piece of this project. If that remains the case, I think this project dies a natural death.
WFMZ is wrong about the School District wanting to 'bring the team home.' The District's plan was to build a new field in Wescosville, right next to Wescosville Elementary. This was budgeted at $2 million and there were parking/neighborhood issues. The District then approached Neely about doing something jointly.
At its core, this is a great collaboration between School District and Borough, but was very poorly handled.
Finally, Slozer and his minions are the prototypical "get off my lawn" senior citizens. They all really need to retire and move to Florida. Emmaus has one of the best youth programs in the state. To listen to Otto, John Donchez, The Sadrovitz's, Policano, Stolz and others, you'd think the people running it are criminals. Money spent on kids is OK by me.
a school district and its communities collaborating to save taxpayers money. Now that's a novel idea. Here in Easton we have places like Palmer and Forks building multi-million dollar community centers with gyms when we have ten schools or more -- why not open the schools at night and make them community schools??????
ReplyDelete