It's impossible to counteract this level of public finance ignorance. When you elect public officials that very obviously don't comprehend inconsistencies or contradictions in their fiscal logic, you should expect them to make expensive and wasteful decisions. www.ksat.com/news/local/2...

Multnomah comms proposing a diff rev stream for its Moda share shows public finance folk psychology at work and that politics rules econ in policy making. It doesnt matter which pot of taxpayer money you take from. It matters that you take from taxpayers. www.oregonlive.com/politics/202...

Looking for Blazers’ Moda Center solution, county commissioners eye new funding path

The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners is set to consider at least one new amendment at its Aug. 6 meeting.

oregonlive.com

The Rays plan (inc ancillary) is "too big to fail"? Take the team's econ imp figure at face value (you shouldn't ofc), it's only 1.7% of county gdp. The better estimate is 0.17%. Either way, some city council members need to take a drug test. floridapolitics.com/archives/808...

‘Too big to fail:’ Rays negotiators weigh alternatives if Tampa Council votes fall short

Negotiators are closing in on final Rays stadium agreements as officials weigh options that could exclude the Tampa CRA.

floridapolitics.com

Cleveland media keeps framing gateway repairs as a long term funding problem. It’s not. There already is a dedicated revenue stream. The problem is that the city agreed to overfund overimproved facilities. The city overspent relative to its revenue capacity. www.cleveland.com/opinion/2026...

After state politicians whiff on sin-tax vote, what's the solution for sports venue repairs?

For everyone involved in the dilemma of how to right-size funding for publicly owned stadium and arena repairs in Cuyahoga County, it’s important to remember that doing nothing would not be leadership...

cleveland.com

Yes, Bears moving to Hammond could cause at least one other biz to relocate there. I'm sure at least one kid will set up a lemonade stand. This is vacuous, equivalent to me saying I could win the lotto. You know there's nothing useful when the story is all about "could" nwitimes.com/news/local/a...

Bears Hammond stadium search could attract more Illinois companies to Northwest Indiana

The Chicago Bears' high-profile, headline-grabbing stadium search in Hammond has put Northwest Indiana in the spotlight and could help draw more Illinois companies across the state line, economic deve...

nwitimes.com

Stop asking for clawbacks if a team moves. It’s a wasted negotiation parameter. Instead, ask for clawbacks if the team doesn’t win, doesn’t sellout, doesn’t deliver ancillary on time, and if owners/team do something that hurt city/co public image. www.kptv.com/2026/07/18/c...

But the economic impact! www.crainscleveland.com/sports-recre...

Gateway nearly out of stadium repair money as $45M in new requests arrive

The funding issue comes as Cuyahoga County weighs a sales tax hike for stadium repairs.

crainscleveland.com

Voting on leg that you don’t have all the facts on is common for lawmakers, which obvi doesn’t make it right or smart. Elect better. But the insane part in Portland is that the city owns the f’ing arena. Why let yourself be bullied? Come up with your own reno design! www.opb.org/article/2026...

Portland City Council won’t have all answers before voting on Moda Center funding package

As a deadline to commit public dollars to Moda Center renovations rapidly approaches, it appears that Portland city councilors will be asked to approve spending $120 million on arena renovations next ...

opb.org

Can [juris name] afford the debt on [proposed facility]? Yes, bc govts have the power to tax. With enough time and some principal payment, any debt can be repaid. It's also an irrelevant Q. The right Q is if residents are better off with or without higher taxes and the cap imps the taxes pay for.

My Bentley comment lacks context in the Bears story. I was responding to a question about credibility/reasonability of fiscal impact estimates by Indiana leg. Here are screenshots of my complete comment, including my fat-fingered typos. www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/14/c...

Fun fact: In its pursuit of MLB in 2001, the Oregon legislature approved a property tax exemption for any lessee of a city-owned sports facility. 25 years later that legislation is protecting the Blazers after the city bought the arena. Without that legislation, the Blazers would owe PI taxes.

Theories on Dundon: the NBA BOG approved his purchase bc they don’t want the NBA in Portland; they didn’t know he’d be a twat and now have buyers remorse; or they knew he was going to be a twat and wanted him to be the foil to make all other owners look benevolent—-good owner/bad owner sorta thing.

As I pointed out to a journalist, under it's 1992 lease, OAC/Rip City had to surrender it's ownership in Moda by no later than 12/31/25 anyway. That the city bought it for $1 in 2024 means a few things but to me the most interesting is that the city overpaid (but did get ownership 1.5 years early).

For anyone that cares about such things, data centers should be centrally assessed. They are nodes in an information utility system, not warehouses with lots of personal property. This means valuing them as parts of a system rather than as standalone brick+mortar. This is a hill I’ll die on.

The idea that the value of a ptax break is based ONLY on current land use reveals a deeply flawed understanding of land econ. By this logic, govt should own all property bc it would generate no taxes, hence no taxpayer cost, an f'ing bonkers and false claim. www.chicagobusiness.com/opinion/comm...

Modesto kills USL stadium proposal in the works for two years. For now anyway. What makes this remarkable is that it was rejected on a vote, not killed in some committee early in the policy process. www.modbee.com/news/local/a...

Modesto kills professional soccer stadium idea. But is the decision final?

The hope of having a professional soccer stadium in Modesto is dead, at least for the foreseeable future.

modbee.com

Stars arena in Plano is on the agenda tomorrow. Under the current plan, a referendum will be required. Proposed TIRZ is both ptax and sut. Also on the table: increases in the car rental tax, hotel tax, event parking tax, and admission tax. My current est for the ptax TIRZ is $645m pv over 30 yrs.

Someone should tell DeSantis he didn’t make a property tax savings calculator. He made a home insurance premium increase calculator. Interesting H0, though: eliminating ptaxes increases FL home insurance suppliers. www.wfla.com/news/desanti...

DeSantis rolls out property tax savings calculator amid tax relief proposal

Gov. Ron DeSantis unveiled a new state website Saturday allowing homeowners to calculate potential savings under his proposed property tax plan, ‘Save Our Homes.’

wfla.com

The real loser of the Spurs-Thunder series is Vivek Ranadive. Mike Brown and DeAaron Fox (and Harrison Barnes) are going to the Finals. As a Kings fan, I’m stoked for them.

You can't solve the stadium subsidy mess with more subsidies, so the whole "let's get the feds to make stadiums/arenas eligible for historic tax credits to reduce s&l govts buying new stadiums every 30 years" is a silly argument. www.cleveland.com/opinion/2026...

Billion-dollar sports subsidy demands require a congressional response

It is past time to acknowledge that billion-dollar sports subsidy demands are federal issues requiring a congressional response, writes guest columnist Ken Silliman, who advised three Cleveland mayors...

cleveland.com

Subsidy debates are filled with bromides. Case in point, Hillsborough Comms' dropping "real" to make themselves sound thoughtful, presumably in an attempt to convince skeptics that they haven't already made up their minds. Real tax base as opposed to fake tax base? www.tampabay.com/news/hillsbo...

What each Hillsborough commissioner said about the Rays’ proposal

County commissioners voted in favor of the non-binding memorandum of understanding, 5-2.

tampabay.com

Oregonian ed board arguing Portland's fiscal challenges are not caused by declining revenue but soaring costs. Its rec solution to soaring costs? Subsidize an arena reno. Re declining revenue, the city bought the arena, removing it from the tax rolls for ~$2m/yr www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2026...

Editorial: Moda Center discussions need city leaders’ professionalism, not their hot takes

The city can and must get a lease negotiated and funding set this year to renovate the Moda Center arena, the editorial board writes. Grandstanding by city councilors isn't helping.

oregonlive.com

I watch Korean baseball. Twice each break are Trump commercials praising him for reducing cigarette smoking. The argument? He is making flavored vapes cheaper and more accessible. We should praise Trump bc he is increasing addiction another way. That’s his argument. I live in a Black Mirror episode.

Props to whoever convinced lawmakers to drop the clause in the megaprojects bill that allowed a project's market value to be included in local debt limits. There are other reasons why ptaxes will go up bc of the legislation, but that was easily the biggest risk factor. Hopefully it stays out.

SF1501 in MN creates a sports event slush fund from tax increments---but which increments for which taxes measured by whom? The bill spells out the 1st (a mega tif!) and the third-ish. UMN will determine the size of the increment, uh, but UMN isn't a person. My $ is on the marketing dept.

More air tight lawmaker logic. The arena is city owned only bc the city bought it and some land in 2024 from the blazers, costing city taxpayers ~$2m/yr in ptaxes. Now the gov uses that policy choice to give hundreds of millions more in taxpayer resources to the team. www.koin.com/news/portlan...

Caputo’s in Brooklyn…you made the best olive loaf I’ve ever had, and you were a staple of my family’s life while we lived there. Sorry to see you go, and thank you for the memories.

There's enough info to get a ballpark ptax cost estimate of Royals Hallmark HQ stadium proper. Nom is $678 to $1,384 m --- real is $428 to $873 m (at 3%) over 30yrs. Here's a table showing the cost distributed by the public services affected by the proposed exemption.

I will take the over on 10 times "transformational" or its derivatives are used in the Royals announcement.

While we all wait for Royals shenanigans, here's a window into how lawmakers make terrible fiscal and budgeting decisions. It doesn't matter if it's a rounding error. If you dismiss spending millions bc it's a small %, you can always justify taxing and spending more. www.wusf.org/sports/2026-...