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‘No evidence that stadiums create good long-term jobs’

alvaro | Miami, Florida | Thursday, January 29th, 2009

Sooner or later we will get it done. I am sure. While we close schools, jobs are being lost and social programs are being cut — for lack of government dollars — the Miami-Dade County Commission, on February 13, will vote to see if they can magically make $489 million, of the $609 million needed, appear to help subsidize a baseball stadium for the Florida Marlins. A smile on his face and a promise of “thousands of jobs,” County Mayor Carlos Alvarez is out there touting the project.

When all this started (a few years back — can’t remember the exact date) the price tag was around $250 million. At the time, a quarter billion dollars of mostly taxpayer dollars, in my opinion, was a crazy idea. And for what? To build the Marlins — a team with an owner worth around the billion dollars — a stadium. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s happening, you’d probably think it was a joke — on us!

But it gets worse. Listen to this. The team gets all the revenue from the stadium, including naming rights (probably worth about $2 million a year). In other words, we put up 80% of the money to build a ballpark. All we get in return is $2.3 million a year in rent (which increases by a whopping 2% a year). And the team must commit to playing at the stadium for 35 years. That’s a return over the life of this thing of a little over $80 million. Are they kidding!

Which brings us back to jobs. “Thousand of jobs” as Mayor Alvarez will tell you. In a column published by The Miami Herald today, written by Fred Grimm, he writes about Brad Humphreys, author of the book The Business of Sports. Humphreys has been busy looking at 30 years worth of independent studies of stadium economics. His conclusion:

“There is absolutely no evidence that stadiums create good long-term jobs,” he says. Grimm adds that Humphreys speaks of “how team owners ramp up low-paying part-time stadium jobs as full time work and then multiply the exaggerated effect to claim an overblown impact on the local economy.”

We’re about to get screwed folks. Because as I said at the beginning, I am convinced that the millionaire’s palace built with taxpayer dollars will come to fruition sooner or later…

Interesting, the commission meeting to vote on this falls on Friday the 13th…

Alvaro F. Fernandez
01-29-2009

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When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

alvaro | U.S. | Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

I find it interesting when some media types ask themselves and others if the race issue has been put behind us now that we’ve elected a black president. Oh really? I would reply to them. When was the last time you traveled in a car through the back roads (and in some cases even the main roads) of Alabama, Georgia or Mississippi? I would ask them. And it’s not even the deep south… Take any big city in the country and you’re bound to find some cracker talking smack about Barack Obama and the shape the country’s in. Or maybe not about the black but certainly the many brown Latinos that make up a large percentage of the U.S. population. Yes, Latinos (especially the undocumented who care for your children, pick your tomatoes, do your garden, clean your floors and are helping to build a more modern America) are to blame for much of the country’s maladies. Don’t believe it? Ask some xenophobe in California, New York and/or Florida…

But it’s about President Obama I wanted to talk about. I just read an interesting and telling column from the Macon Telegraph in Georgia. It is written by Andrew M. Manis, an associate professor of history at Macon State College. And he is, rightfully so, worried about our new president.

Alvaro F. Fernandez
Here is his column:

For much of the last forty years, ever since America “fixed” its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, “When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: “When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?

Recent reports that “Election Spurs Hundreds’ of Race Threats, Crimes” should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in “Bombingham,” Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than “talk the talk.”

Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.

We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.

But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we’re back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we’ve proven what conservatives are always saying — that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to “assassinate Obama.”

Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, “How long?” How long before we white people realize we can’t make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?

How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?

I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?

How long before we starting “living out the true meaning” of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that “red and yellow, black and white” all are precious in God’s sight?

Until this past November 4, I didn’t believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don’t believe I’ll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here’s my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I’m going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.

Second, I’m going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I’m going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can “in spirit and in truth” sing of our damnable color prejudice, “We HAVE overcome.”

It takes a Village to protect our President!!!

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Obama wastes little time

alvaro | U.S. | Friday, January 23rd, 2009

From Walt Handelsman, liberal cartoonist for Newsday

As he showed after winning the election, President Barack Obama is not used to wasting much time. He was sworn in on Tuesday at noon and by the end of the day Wednesday he was already undoing some of the wrongs left behind by the Bush administration. Guantanamo will be closed within the year. Plans are in order for ending the war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton was quickly approved by the Senate who then quickly dispatched experienced advisors and surrogates to the Middle East and beyond. And there are rumors running around Washington that have reached Miami that he will act quickly on family travel restrictions to Cuba. We will see and let’s keep “hope” alive.

Whatever the case, the country seems happier and people are breathing freely again. Well most people… Here in Miami I heard the story of an old Cuban woman who ended up in the hospital after a hysteria attack when she witness the “black” president being sworn in. I guess some people never learn.

Alvaro F. Fernandez

1-22-09

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Obama brings hope on Cuba-U.S. issue(s)

alvaro | Cuba, U.S. | Monday, January 19th, 2009

If your political focus is Cuba, tomorrow’s Barack Obama inauguration will not only be a moment to celebrate a truly historical moment, it may be the first day of a new turn in what has been a lousy relationship between the U.S. and the island nation. At least here’s hoping.

Obama, while campaigning for the presidency, showed up in Miami and spoke before 2,000 people in a Little Havana auditorium. He promised to lift travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban Americans wanting to help and visit family members in Cuba. He has never taken a step back from that pronouncement. In fact, Hillary Clinton, tabbed to be Secretary of State under Obama, has stated similar comments — a reversal of statements made by her during the campaign.

But there are many, especially in Washington, D.C. hoping for more from Obama on Cuba. Included in the wish list are: regular travel by American citizens, easing on restriction on trade, and down the line, a lifting of the embargo (which would mean work in Congress). Today’s Miami Herald makes reference to Obama and Cuba policy. I’ve included a link below for those who want to read the full story. It has also been translated to Spanish (rare on this issue) by El Nuevo Herald.

Alvaro F. Fernandez
1-19-09

***********

Cuba policy under Obama predicted to be more open

Once in office, President-elect Barack Obama is likely to do more on Cuba policy than lifting the travel ban on Cubans visiting the island, experts say.

BY LIZA GROSS

President-elect Barack Obama plans to score a few ‘’easy wins'’ on Cuba after he takes office, moving further on Cuba issues than he promised during the campaign, say Cuba observers.

Obama committed during the campaign to allow Cuban Americans to send remittances without restrictions and to travel to the island as often as they like to visit relatives.

http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/860399.html

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Port of Miami Tunnel not dead

alvaro | Miami, Florida | Thursday, January 8th, 2009

Last month we read that the billion-plus dollar Port of Miami tunnel idea concocted by many of our enlightened politicians to “sidetrack” truck traffic from downtown Miami to the Port was dead. Reason for the sudden death was “financial problems encountered by the private consortium that was supposed to design, build, finance, operate and maintain the tunnel over a 35-year period.”

Many of our local politicians whined stating that the tunnel was critical to the port’s long term future. Leading this charge were Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez and City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. Today The Miami Herald is reporting that “the Crist administration on Wednesday said it was reconsidering the embattled project.”

Fighting to keep the project alive are Alvarez and Diaz, State Sen. Alex Diaz de la Portilla, and State Representatives David Rivera and Juan Carlos Zapata — all South Florida legislators.

“We made it very clear [the tunnel is] important to us,'’ said Senate Majority Leader Alex Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. “It’s not dead. It’s limping along. But it was not dead. It was dead this morning,” according a report in The Miami Herald, also saying that “State Transportation Secretary Stephanie Kopelousos told Alvarez and local lawmakers that the state’s share of the tunnel funds — $452 million for construction and $850 million for long-term operations and maintenance — would not be reprogrammed for pet projects in other parts of the state.

“They asked us to take a step back and take another look at it, and we’re going to do that,” Kopelousos told The Herald.

Apparently Kopelousos and Gov. Charlie Crist were facing rising criticism from South Florida leaders — and lobbyists — who believe the tunnel is critical to the port’s long-term future.

Mind you, this is the same tunnel which polls and surveys demonstrate is NOT wanted by a great majority of Miami-Dade residents. At a time of cuts to education, health care, social services and transportation, for example, most Miamians believe the public money that would be used for such a project would be better applied elsewhere.

Apparently some of our local leaders, along with lobbyist friends, don’t care what the people want or don’t want. They keep chasing that billion dollar tunnel along with all the juicy contracts that would go with it.

Alvaro F. Fernandez
1-8-2009

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Dennis Kucinich speaks out against atrocities in Gaza

alvaro | U.S. | Thursday, January 8th, 2009

January 7, 2009

“We cannot truly celebrate a New Year, a new Congress and a new administration if all we see is the same old destruction in the Middle East with US weapons being illegally used to kill children.

“I oppose Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel. The rocket attacks, even to try to end the blockade, have no moral justification, are illegal and must stop.

“But how can Israel claim self defense when it bombs Gaza which has no army, no air force, no navy and has been under a constant blockade?

“How can Israel claim self defense when its bombs destroy UN schools, killing children?

“The children of Palestinians and the children of Israel both deserve life. But the lives of the children of Gaza are cynically discounted as “human shields”. Massacres are being rationalized. Israel’s “moral high ground” in Gaza, a growing pile of small bones in a graveyard.

“The Administration knows Israel is using US weapons, paid for by US taxpayers, with disproportionate force creating a collective punishment of Gazans, assuring an escalation of conflict, clear violations of the Arms Export Control Act.

“Israel was given U.S. weapons on condition they would not be used for aggression or escalation. The outgoing Administration must finally stand for the rule of law, not the rule of force.”

Here it is on video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Faf_nV8nE8U
Dennis Kucinich’s official web site has the whole text, at
http://kucinich.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=108184

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Mariela Castro: ‘A whole new era’

alvaro | Cuba, U.S. | Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Here’s an interesting note I received from John McAuliff of the Fund for Reconciliation and Development. It deals with Mariela Castro Espin. At least it’s fodder for conversation.

Alvaro F. Fernandez
“Mariela Castro gave an interesting interview with Russian TV. Should we assume this is completely her own initiative or a message from her father Raul? If the latter, an interesting balance with his official warning in the anniversary speech that Cuba must remain on guard re US intentions.”

Mariela Castro: I expect wonderful changes for the world and for the people of the United States. The people of the United States deserve a President like Obama and a first lady like his spouse. They and all of us need civilization and not barbarity. We need intelligent and honest world leaders. I think with Obama’s Presidency, a whole new era will begin. It will be a totally different story in the US and all over the world.

Longer excerpt and link to full interview: http://thehavananote.com/2009/01/mariela_castro_on_cuba_and_oba.html

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‘No evidence that stadiums create good long-term jobs’

When Are WE Going to Get Over It?

Obama wastes little time

Obama brings hope on Cuba-U.S. issue(s)

Port of Miami Tunnel not dead

Dennis Kucinich speaks out against atrocities in Gaza

Mariela Castro: ‘A whole new era’