"Taking one for the team"

That’s how the author of this morning’s story - headed "Game will drop CIB for a loss" - describes the current theory of the city's net loss of nearly $1 million by putting on "The Football Game."

It’s a neat turn of a phrase.  Brings to mind thoughts of morale or espirit de corps.  But we usually associate that kind of thinking with some voluntary action by a member of a group.  Kind of like a league leading slugger laying down a sacrifice bunt to win the game when he knows he can put it into the parking lot!

In the current situation, we’re not quite sure who "the team" is.  Based on other numbers in the same story, it might be presumed that it is the CIB.  According to all estimates, downtown businesses are going to make out like the only child of a millionaire on Christmas morning.

But the members of the CIB have no "skin in the game."  They don’t have to come up with the money personally, and they’ve certainly never bothered to ask the thoughts of those who do have to produce the dough.

What we’re getting around to here, is a point we’ve raised several times.  We’d like to see more specific use of the language when defining who certain bodies are.  If the CIB is "dropped for a loss," who pays the penalty?  Just who constitutes "the team?"

And let us once more point out how beautifully our idea of Revenue Increment Financing (RIF) would have worked here.  Using the very latest figure available (from this same news story), the guesstimates are for a revenue increase of $150 million to $300 million "...in direct spending by visitors."

Using the $300 million figure, it is safe to say that something less than the full amount would be a net gain.  So our guess will bump that amount back down to a $250 million Revenue Increment.  (Our guess is as good as theirs!)  Our proposal was to have taxed that amount at 25% for a municipal gain of $62,500,000, leaving $187,500,000 additional money in the hands of local business and their employees.

Seems like a reasonable outcome for citizens having had to cope with downtown gridlock for a month.  And who knows?  With the city gaining $60 million plus, we might have been able to buy a couple of busses for IndyGo, or expanded library hours - or some other such trivial project!

Comments

[Nick]

You need to read Had Enough Indy's blog post on this subject.

Super Bowl Costs FINALLY Beginning To Be Revealed

http://hadenoughindy.blogspot.com/2012/01/super-bowl-costs-finally-beginning-to.html

[Leslie Baker]

Thanks for the link, Nick. Very interesting additions (no pun intended) to the monetary figures noted above.