News of the Arroyo
Title: | NFL should pay to play |
Subtitle: | |
Date: | 2006-08-25 |
Summary: | August 25, 2006 - The Star News editorially asks why the NFL shouldn't pay for the upcoming November election since it's for them. |
Author: | Editorial |
Publication: | Pasadena Star News |
Content: | AFTER the Pasadena City Council declined the opportunity to spend a lot of money to woo a professional football team to its city\'s Rose Bowl, the National Football League chipped in to pay lawyers to help get the issue on a citywide ballot instead. That\'s fine. It\'s a free country, as they say, and it\'s especially cheap when you\'re a billionaire sports-franchise owner. OK, pigskin honchos - now that you\'ve helped get it on the ballot, how about chipping in for the November special consolidated election, which will run around $205,000? That\'s the kind of chump change your owners leave as a bar tip at the annual holiday bash. But for the Pasadena taxpayers who will foot the bill, it\'s real money. First they elected their council members and mayor, who through the representative process, made the complicated decision to seek other, less problematic ways to ensure the financial and structural health of the classic but aging stadium. Now the citizens get to pay for the privilege of doing an end run around their City Council\'s decision. Pardon us for being cynical about the so-called pure democracy that is a poll of all the people, but isn\'t that what the voters of the small and medium-sized cities that make up the San Gabriel Valley and beyond hire their council members for? The Pasadena politicians listened to hundreds of hours of testimony about whether or not it was wise to jump with Anaheim and Los Angeles into the bidding war between cities seeking to be the venue for the return of the NFL to Southern California. After due consideration, the council bought the compelling duel arguments of the anti-NFL side. First, it\'s pretty clear that the football league has no Advertisement Click Here! actual intention of abandoning for the first time metropolitan Los Angeles or Orange County as the home for its area team. But its efforts to negotiate down the price of re-entry to the market here are helped enormously if there is a third party in the negotiations. Pasadena appears to be a pawn in that game. Second, thousands of citizens and tens of thousands of West San Gabriel Valley residents use the Arroyo Seco, where the Rose Bowl so gloriously sits, as the prime recreational area in the region. Runners, walkers, bicyclists, park-goers, swimmers, soccer players and golfers flock to the area every day. On the many Sundays on which an NFL team would play (and apparently that now will include Thursdays, Saturdays and Mondays), recreation would be lost there for the multitudes. Just as on statewide issues, where the court of last resort that is the ballot initiative has become the laughingstock of California politics, we would prefer to see our electeds handle these matters. It can also be beneficial - and certainly fun - to witness democracy running its full course. But since the NFL is rich and taxpayers are overburdened, how about the gridiron guys burning a check for the cost of the vote? Two hundred large should do it. Pasadena City Hall can easily take care of the remaining five grand. We await an affirmative reply with the confidence of a kickoff receiver who has signaled for a fair catch. |
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