I just came across this story about Stockton, California, in the Huffington Post. It sounds eerily familiar:
A $47 million bond issue in 2004 was meant to finance construction of a sports and concert arena to revitalize t he city’s downtown. The arena was built, but it ended up losing money.
A downtown high-rise building was acquired for a new City Hall. A revamp of Stockton’s downtown riverfront was financed, along with other projects, by more than $100 million in debt between 2004 and 2006 by the city’s redevelopment agency.
Why does our proposed arena cost five times as much? And of course, Stockton also had problems with their pensions. Oh wait, so do we.