Editorial: No baseball team before its time

Thursday, May 13, 2004 | 8:41 a.m.

A Major League Baseball team for Las Vegas would be just the ticket, particularly now that our combined city and county population has surpassed 1.6 million. With no end in sight to our nation-leading growth, we are on our way toward becoming a major metropolitan area. A big-league ball team would be a wonderful asset for Las Vegas as our economy diversifies and our cultural and entertainment venues expand. We are, without reservation, in support of the ongoing, privately initiated effort to bring the Montreal Expos to a new stadium that would be built on the Strip. We have reservations, however, about infusing the effort with public financing.

In an exclusive front-page story Wednesday, the Sun revealed that the investors behind the effort are now asking for the public to finance a "significant portion" of the stadium. Major League Baseball, in deciding which cities will be finalists in the quest to land the Expos, will look most favorably upon those applications that include public financing.

The investors say they are not seeking the type of public financing that would require tax increases. Certainly, raising taxes to help finance the half-billion-dollar stadium is completely out of the question, not only in our view, but in the view of the governor and Legislature as well. During the 2003 session of the Legislature, we supported the hard fight for new and increased taxes, but only because nearly all of our necessary public services are severely underfunded. A baseball stadium, even one that would put us on the map in the sports world, is not a necessary public service.

What the investors seek are funds that involve no direct taxpayer liability. Governments can issue revenue bonds, for example. In this case, buyers of the bonds would receive their return on investment through surcharges placed on game and parking tickets and on concession sales. Another method is known as tax increment financing. Under a TIF, the stadium developers could pay no increases in property taxes for a set period of time, even though their project has vastly increased the land's value. We are not completely opposed to these forms of public financing. Our concern, however, is that the state will be pressured to commit to some form of public financing in time to meet Major League Baseball's deadline for considering the finalists. A commitment made under such pressure would be a mistake.

Because no form of public financing is risk free, the state would need time to study exhaustive analyses of the Expos' prospects here, and a precise accounting of all costs associated with the stadium, before it could commit to public financing. It would be our version of an RBI -- responsible business instinct.