Years ago, a popular feature at carnivals and fairs was the weight guesser. For a mere few quarters he would guess your weight within a few pounds. His success didn't matter so much, because the prize cost less than they charged to play the game. The Administration has offered up phenomenal numbers of expected arena attendance. Although Pawlowski once said 2.5 million, for the City Council Eminent Domain vote, he used 1.5 million. To achieve that number, the hockey team would have to play 365 home games a year, to over 4,000 people each night. Yesterday, another shill for the arena boosters wrote another opinion piece. This gentleman used the figure of one million. The hockey team will play forty home games, and even if they achieve 5,000 viewers each game, the arena must still draw 2,500 people each remaining night of the year to reach the one million mark. The Sovereign Center in Reading works very hard to reach their declared yearly total attendance of 500,000. I suppose this arena is like the old weight game; The advocates are not using their own money. How far the guess is off has no consequence to them, they still win.The weight and age booth at Dorney Park in 1948
MM -
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be great if our mighty elected officials would grant us lowly peasants the opportunity to look over the proposal?
It would be even more kind of them if they would permit us enough time to properly review the numbers before committing us to a bond that we humble taxpayers would have to pay for should the plan not reach its projections.
I'm not sure if the opinion writer is an insider who has actually seen the plans, or if he is willing to just blindly follow whatever the City Hall proposes. I suspect the latter. I find it interesting that he points to the Brew Works as a success, even though taxpayers have over $6 million in that one building and are being asked for another $360,000 to keep it going.
I will also note that I've never seen the opinion writer at one of the many public meetings on the arena. Oops, my mistake, the only public action on the arena thus far has been to approve the theft of people's properties by the government. I'm sure he realizes that.
MM-
ReplyDeleteThe writer of the piece you refer to is an anachronism. Frankly a relationship with any Federal Reserve Bank is nothing to broadcast these days. And certainly not to be taken seriously.
Another "expert" outsider who seems to have taken theoretical pablum verbatim from some outdated urban renewal text. Simply a narrow minded party line drone performing his requisite duty for the corps.
When I think of the hockey arena in Allentown my mind is immediately drawn to memories of the Colosseum scenes from the movie The Gladiator.
Maybe the fall of the empire or some other post apocalyptic scenario, like Mad Max, is not far behind for Allentown following the demise of the Palowski administration.
. Although Pawlowski once said 2.5 million, for the City Council Eminent Domain vote, he used 1.5 million. To achieve that number, the hockey team would have to play 365 home games a year, to over 4,000 people each night. Yesterday, another shill for the arena boosters wrote another opinion piece. This gentleman used the figure of one million. The hockey team will play forty home games, and even if they achieve 5,000 viewers each game, the arena must still draw 2,500 people..."
ReplyDeleteIf anyone has some free time today search Call archives for the projected attendance figures promised for the city's annual Lights special event hosted in the Parkway. Heydt attendance proojections were analyzed by math experts that proved it was impossible to have that many folks travel at X no. of miles per hour and see the display during its Holiday run. Didn't matter a Christmas bulb to Heydt. He was mayor and he was king.
Now "new" water meters for residents living in Allentown.
ReplyDeleteMoney we don't have for something we don't need.
Sounds too familiar.
Going to find a million dollars a year worth of lost water to bill for? Residents will just pull that out of their pockets.
How many people a year are going to attend events at king Ed's palace/arena?
Anon 8:18 -
ReplyDeleteI don't know that it's a valid comparison, given the size and scope of both projects.
Let's remember that if the arena project fails, the taxpayers are stuck with the building and related debt. Tax-paying buildings and businesses are permanently lost. If Lights in the Parkway is no longer wanted, the city just doesn't put them up in November.
Assuming that what you say is true, perhaps the bigger story there is that the Call was apparently willing to analyze the attendance figures for a little or no cost event like Lights in the Parkway, yet there has been no critical analysis of (what is known of) the $100 MILLION arena plan.
That might speak to the political slant at the Call, the effect of staff cuts at the Call, or both.
"The prize is usually less than the cost to play the game." This is the error cities make in subsidizing sports teams. I think these decisions, usually made by men, are an unconscious mechanism to compensate for their lack of athletic prowess as teenagers. They do not realize this and truly believe in bribing teams to come and play with them. Most cities lose in this game.
ReplyDelete"compensate for a lack of athletic prowess as a teenagers"
ReplyDeleteSay what?
COMPLETELY AGAINST ARENA, CONVINCED DRUG ABUSE IS OUT OF CONTROL
Can only imagine what the public debate was like in this town when people were forced to install inside toilets.
ReplyDeleteWhen my great grandfather wanted to install in indoor toilet my grandmother cried,"Why would you want to the THAT in the house!"
ReplyDeleteHow is an inside toilet like a sports event?
ReplyDeleteIf you cannot figure out how an inside toilet is like a sports event then..........
ReplyDelete