Tax-exempt bonds for Yankee Stadium

Testimony last updated January 15, 2009

Statement in Opposition to Additional Proposed Tax-Exempt Bonds for Yankee Stadium
Testimony to the New York City Industrial Development Agency

Joan Byron
Pratt Center for Community Development
January 15, 2009
The Pratt Center joins Good Jobs New York, and the South Bronx-based organizations testifying here today, in opposing the issuance of $371 million in new tax-exempt bonds to cover additional construction costs for Yankee Stadium.

This project was an appalling use of public money as originally put forward in 2006. Its proponents have consistently understated its public costs, exaggerated its benefits, and overstated the extent to which it is supported by private investment. For the benefit of the richest sports organization in the world, and to the great detriment of one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, New Yorkers have already directly spent or committed over a billion dollars in direct expenditure and foregone revenue on infrastructure, on the construction of new parking garages, on the demolition of the historic stadium, and on the construction of a patchwork of "replacement" parks scattered around the South Bronx.
Residents of the neighborhoods around the stadium have suffered the destruction of Macombs Dam and Mullaly Parks, the erection of a 75-foot high stadium wall facing blocks of densely-occupied and stable apartment buildings, and the noise, dust, and truck traffic of construction that has gone on day and night to meet the Yankees’ deadlines. When the project is complete, they will endure the incursion of thousands of cars on game days, and thousands of additional Vehicle Miles Traveled, subsidized by the construction of city-funded parking garages.
All of these harms were justified by the Yankees, and by the Bloomberg administration, by the promise that the project would create jobs for Bronx residents. But no effort was made to ensure that local workers would be recruited or trained for the project’s 6000 construction jobs, and the Yankees’ most recent estimates project that when completed, the stadium will yield a total of 57 new permanent full-time jobs, and 253 non-permanent part-time jobs. No information is available on the approximately 1100 jobs associated with contractors or concessions, so no assurance can be given that these jobs will pay a living wage or offer any benefits. At the very least, this request by the Yankees for additional tax-exempt financing should be used by New York City to exact binding commitments for more and better jobs for local residents.
At a time when New Yorkers are being asked by their elected leaders to share in the sacrifice that balancing our City and State budgets will require; the Yankees are asking for additional money to pay for scoreboards and video screens. When many of us are working side-by-side with the Bloomberg administration to bring the maximum level of federal stimulus money to New York, and to assure the incoming Obama administration that local governments should be given the maximum flexibility in spending those dollars, and can be counted on to spend them prudently, it is embarrassing that some of these new bonds will help to pay for upgrades to luxury boxes, and for the construction of a Hard Rock Café, and a New York Yankees Steakhouse in the stadium. Did somebody say: let 'em eat steak?
For additional information contact: Joan Byron -- 718-636-3468 (direct) -- jbyron [at] pratt [dot] edu
NOTE: This testimony was prepared by the Pratt Center for Community Development. It does not necessarily reflect the official position of Pratt Institute.