Comments on Advance Indiana™: Indy Eleven Replaces Peter Wilt

Indy's new Boss Hog is just like the old Boss ...

2016-01-12T13:17:11.876-05:00

Indy's new Boss Hog is just like the old Boss Hog. What's changed? Nothing.

Indy has the best Democrat and Republican career politicians money can buy.

The corruption class is convinced that it has lott...

2016-01-12T08:57:21.089-05:00

The corruption class is convinced that it has lottery rights to play the public treasury...

If Ersal wants a new stadium for his amateur socce...

2016-01-12T02:29:32.069-05:00

If Ersal wants a new stadium for his amateur soccer team there is nothing to stop him from doing so. If he does not have sufficient resources to buy land and build a new facility then he may finance through private investors or arrange for a business loan. Evidently there is no investor that believes there is profit to be made or in the fantasy that a new stadium will double attendance at an average ticket price of $29.50.
The NASL Chicago Sting averaged about 8,000 in attendance for 10 years before folding and now has the problem of finding a location in Chicago for their resurrection. The NY Red Bulls of the MLS sold their recognized Cosmos name to the NY NASL team playing at Hofstra University. The Minnesota United team is leaving the NASL.
The Chicago Fire of the MLS employed the same puppet masters as the Indy Eleven and the new $100 million stadium in Bridgeview, IL is losing 3 to 4 million $ each year in operating losses now being paid by local taxpayers. Construction bonds floated in 2005 at a cost of $134.6 million are now on the S&P watch list and rated two levels above junk. Stadium and debt has escalated to $250 million and, at best, can now be paid off by 2056.
It would seem that the Representative from Fishers may want a new stadium built in the Fishers/Carmel/Westfield area. I'd expect taxpayers in these communities would accept an additional tax burden like the $18,000 per person taken on by the citizens of Bridgeview, IL. As for me, I am sick of the stupidity in having the Marion County taxpayer holding the bag on any such a shaky, contrived, long term project.

It's called "The Combine" - R's ...

2016-01-12T01:07:34.908-05:00

It's called "The Combine" - R's and D's working together to f**k you over

Some of your readers may wish to return to this en...

2016-01-11T21:57:26.520-05:00

Some of your readers may wish to return to this entire article on your blog. The following is just a small portion about Todd Huston's involvement back in Feb. 2015.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Retired Barnes & Thornburg Partner Unloads On Indy Eleven Soccer Stadium Deal And Former Colleagues

Tom Huston
When an Advance Indiana reader forwarded to me a column Tom Huston penned over at Indiana Policy Review's blog, I had to do a double take. Huston's scathing critique of legislation authored by his nephew, State Rep. Todd Huston (R-Fishers), to force taxpayers to finance a nearly $90 million, 18,500-seat soccer stadium for Ersal Ozdemir's Indy Eleven minor league soccer team could have been written by me, but I assure you I had no part in authoring it. Huston, a retired Barnes & Thornburg partner whose practice area focused on real estate development, had particularly harsh words for his former colleagues' role in aiding the passage of HB 1273.

State Rep. Todd Huston
Huston opens his column by telling readers not to "believe a thing you are told by its proponents or their mouthpieces at the Indianapolis Star." "They are in a Putin frame of mind, and if you are inclined to believe that the Legislature has the slightest interest in protecting taxpayers from the rapacious grip of Ersal Ozdemir and his fellow schemers, you have lost contact with reality," he writes. And that's just for starts.

So are you trying to tell us Ozdemir owns Hogsett ...

2016-01-11T18:51:25.710-05:00

So are you trying to tell us Ozdemir owns Hogsett as much as he owned Ballard?

It's sad, but I just assume that this guy will...

2016-01-11T18:51:22.511-05:00

It's sad, but I just assume that this guy will get his publicly funded stadium because there are no elected officials in central Indiana with the courage to stand up and say that pouring money into downtown for close to forty years now has accomplished nothing. There is no urban vitality downtown, other than contrived "festivals" and "shows" that the taxpayer also finances. If not for that, there's nothing. Compared to the urban core in similar sized metros (Austin, Portland, Nashville) Indianapolis is an empty wasteland. They have nothing to show for forty years of misdirected public money. In most places, people would rightly throw them out. In Indy, people just leave and abandonment takes over. Is it just me or is this Potemkin Village downtown surrounded by a wasteland not obvious to everyone?