Residents of Fort Worth might want to start paying attention, after all, you are paying for it. Though you don't know what "it" is and Fort Worth's budget falls farther behind each year. Does this remind anyone of the Trinity River Vision and all it's hidden costs?
The new arena will be located near the Cultural District site of the existing arena, the architecturally significant but badly outdated Will Rogers Coliseum (built in 1936). But no one outside of Bass and his minions knows anything about the proposed project, including its funding source. (In May 2011, Bass, via Fort Worth State Rep. Charlie Geren, tried to get his hands on some taxpayer money by changing state law to allow one certain, unnamed city –– that could have been only Fort Worth –– to raise its hotel tax from the state limit of 15 percent to 18 percent. The plan was scrapped after the Hotel Association of Tarrant County raised holy hell.)
In a long letter sent a few days ago to the city council, Douglas Harman, former head of the Fort Worth Convention & Visitors Bureau, lays out a series of concerns, especially about the prospective new arena in relation to the Culture and Tourism Fund.
“The planned new arena appears to fit into [city council members’] budget decisions,” he writes, noting that a Cultural District street, Harley, is being relocated in anticipation of breaking ground on the new arena on nearby Montgomery Street. “Although city council members claim that they have not seen the plans for the new arena, the city council is spending millions of dollars to prepare the area for the new arena through the Harley relocation and stormwater work. It is difficult to believe that city council would spend millions of dollars relocating Harley and doing all of this site improvement work without full knowledge about the planned arena. So much for transparency of government decision making!”
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