...to our compatriot at Had Enough Indy? who has come up with information which seems to confirm the need for answers to questions raised in our last post. Although we’ve never seen it mentioned in the media, apparently the Super Bowl Host Committee is now also known as "Our 2012SB, Inc.," a 501 (c) (6) not for profit corporation.
Our feeble attempt to find more information on the Internet brought us to a site where no incorporators, officers or board members of the corporation are listed. We opted not to pay $125 for a "premium" report including some of these items.
But a very interesting segment of the Had Enough Indy? blog was this partial quote of the purpose of Our 2012SB. The activities of that organization will be carried out "Under the supervision of the National Football League...."
That paragraph is further expanded to include this wording. "Our 2012SB will serve as an extension to the National Football League in the local community...and as a manager of local resources such as City services, event venues, accommodations, and thousands of volunteers." (Our emphasis in both paragraphs.)
So we now add questions to those in our post of Aug. 14.
Who are the incorporators, board of directors and officers of Our 2012SB?
Is there a contractual relationship between the City and Our 2012SB authorizing the questionable financial giveaways to the NFL?
Do we really have a local organization doing the negotiating with (approving demands by) the NFL while at the same time "under the supervision of" and acting as "an extension of" the NFL?
Has anybody downtown ever heard the words "collusion" or "conflict of interest" or for that matter, "highway robbery?"
Has Indianapolis really become Alice’s "Wonderland?"
Addendum:
The following statement is just one example of our bowing to the NFL: "Some prime space is off the market. As part of the bid package, the NFL will use the Indiana Convention Center at no charge, covering only labor and set-up." (Again, our emphasis in both paragraphs.)
But we thought the article included some information supporting our proposal for Revenue Increment Financing (RIF) as opposed to Tax Increment Financing (TIF).
One downtown restaurant is said to have had revenues of $300,000 at the time of the last men’s Final Four, and is hopeful of nearing $1,000,000 from the Super Bowl. We aren’t given the base from which to compare, but we’ll make a reasonably conservative guess and say the ordinary revenue for an average comparable time period might have been $250,000
$300,000 would have been a revenue increment of $50,000. If the operation reaches $1,000,000 as hoped for, that is an increment of $750,000. This quadrupling of revenue would be a direct result of the construction of the football field known as Lucas Oil Stadium. Under our RIF plan, a set percentage (one third?) of the increment would come right off the top and be dedicated to payment of the debt incurred in the construction of that football field.
This would still leave the restaurant with revenue for the event three times its average. And if we wanted to get semantically creative, as our politicians seem so often to do, we wouldn’t even have to call the action a tax. It would be a "user fee" on those attending, collected by the business as it collects the sales and use tax. The difference is computation on the end result instead of transaction by transaction.
Promoters of the Super Bowl are projecting hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenue for the city. The application of the RIF approach to this and to all future events at the stadium might mean that the debt could be eliminated in a very few years.
Should local taxpayers be given a vote on that?
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