Q: For those who haven’t tuned in yet, what’s this issue all about?
A: The City of Los Angeles is broke. Our revenues cannot adequately cover issues of critical city services, police officers, fire fighters and other aspects of life safety. As a citizen, I am very concerned with the cutbacks we are already faced with and also well aware of the skepticism out there about putting the City at risk.
That said, there are two critical aspects of our deal that address this. First, the City is at zero risk because with our plan, the private sector will take on all of the risk.
Second, I am convinced that the only way this City can work its way out the current “slash and burn†budget of the past 3-4 years is to create new revenue and, the only way to do this is to either raise current taxes or create new revenue streams for the City. As one of the largest taxpayers in the City and County of Los Angeles, we are adamantly opposed to raising our taxes while willing to take on the necessary risk needed to bring the NFL back to L.A. and fix our Convention Center. Our plan is developed to generate $40 million of new economic impact to the City while creating additional new tax revenues to the City, County and State.
Q: What would the risk be to Los Angeles?
A: With AEG completely privatizing the NFL stadium by investing 100% of the capital and assuming 100% of the risk, the stadium and entire project will be built at absolutely no cost to the taxpayers.
By entering into a land-lease agreement for Farmers Field and producing new advertising revenue for the Convention Center that, when combined with the property taxes we will agree to pay to the City for Farmers Field as well as new property taxes created, sufficient new revenue would be created to cover all of the payments for the bonds used to build a new West Hall that will be a contiguous extension of the current South Hall of the Convention Center.
Q: Any particular benefits to those who live West of the 405? Anything you can do to help provide more public transportation between the Westside and Downtown?
A: Above and beyond the creation of 20,000 – 30,000 new jobs and $40 million of new tax revenues for the City, the economic and other benefits for all residents of Los Angeles will be far reaching:
By entering into a deal allowing us to bring the NFL back to Los Angeles, Farmers Field will be developed in a way unique to our City and the league as only one other NFL stadium has ever been built without public subsidies. We know that the only way this project happens here is for us to completely privatize the stadium and guarantee that there is no cost to the taxpayers of Los Angeles.
The modernization of the Los Angeles Convention Center combined with the opening of Farmers Field will instantly make Los Angeles a top 10 United States convention market. The revenues created will greatly enhance the economic base, create jobs throughout the City, and the taxes generated will benefit public safety, police, fire and schools across the entire City.
The uniqueness of downtown plays to the long-term vision for public transportation. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money have already been invested in mass transportation which has been included in Farmers Field’s overall planning and part of our goal of having a majority of fans walk to events held in the stadium. The ability for people like me and my family to drive to Century City and take the light rail downtown and go to Farmers Field makes this the most unique mass transportation system built in the United States.
Q: What hurdles remain to getting this approved?
A: Like we experienced with the 405, when a group of just a few people, solely because of their own personal vision that the Mulholland Bridge should be iconic, have the ability to tailor a lawsuit which ultimately resulted in a plan which inconvenienced our region and cost the City millions more than it should have, we have a problem with unnecessary litigation.
Farmers Field can also be subject to litigation from a few that can effectively delay the project to the detriment of all. Our political and legal system should not be held hostage by such a small minority with other agendas. This is the hardest and most difficult issue to overcome.
Even though we are committed to and already underway with the most extensive Environmental Impact Report in the history of Los Angeles, we will need the vision of the City Council to approve plans and cooperation from the State so that what happened to all of us on the 405 doesn’t happen to us on Farmers Field.
