"I think they can take that to the bank."
That's Mayor Chris Beutler (sort of) assuring Lincolnites that property taxes won't be used to pay for the new arena. The big question is: can we do it?
For now, nobody knows. We do know that Omaha didn't fare so well with their plans to minimize the use of property taxes. Omaha's big mistake was allowing consultants to overhype the Qwest's potential. Unfortunately, those consultants get off without any accountability. Instead, the taxpayers get screwed. That isn't unusual. It only takes a few minutes of research to come up with examples of the same sort of overselling and under-performance at arenas, ballparks, and similar projects all across the country. In Nebraska, our other classic example is the infamous Great Platte River Road Archway.
On the other hand, Haymarket Park has been a pretty decent success. Maybe Lincoln knows what it's doing with these big projects. Or maybe we just got lucky. I don't know.
Regardless of whether property taxes are used to pay for the new arena directly, let's not forget that property taxes could very easily be used to indirectly fund the project. The arena may very well rely on other funding sources on paper. But if those funding sources used to cover services that now have to rely on property taxes instead ...
City officials say they are using "conservative" estimates of the arena's performance. Great. Hopefully they are also being conservative about things like construction costs, construction timelines, and so on. And hopefully those estimates are actually conservative, not simply the least outrageous of the hype-ridden possibilities. Presumably the public will have access to some of the City's estimates prior to next year's vote. Sure, they could just say, "The numbers work out, trust us!". But if they are not honest with voters, then that opens the door for anti-arena types to more easily disseminate their own outrageous claims. The City has put way too many resources into this to not be honest with us. If an arena is a good idea, it should sell itself.
What's your take on Mayor Beutler's (quasi) promise not to use property taxes to fund the arena project?
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I usually don’t read an entire news article, but I kept reading because I was waiting for it to get to how we’re actually going to pay for the arena. Buried towards the end of an article with the headline of ‘Officials say no tax increase for new arena’ is this little, though significant, passage: “To make roughly $15 million in annual bond payments, Lincoln is looking at using a variety of revenue streams, such as arena revenue, the turnback tax, a hotel occupancy tax, car rental tax, lodging tax and tax increment financing.”
I’m not sure what the current rates for those taxes are now, but I’m guessing the arena would have to bring in a couple hundred million dollars of tax revenue every year in order for us to get $15M a year without raising the rates.
What are those taxes paying for now, and how would they be paid if the revenue went to the arena bond payments?
And I thought TIF money was supposed to be used for ... nevermind.
If the pro-arena propaganda campaign wasn’t in full effect already, it certainly is now.
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