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FEBRUARY 23,1996 — THE DECREE — PAGE 3 To dome or not to dome in Baltimore By PATRICK BRANNAN As a former resident of the state of Maryland and the city of Baltimore, I’ve been following the proposed move of the Cleve land Browns to Baltimore. It just keeps getting weirder every day. Recently the NFL voted to al low Art Modell to move his team to Baltimore. But the team’s name and colors must remain behind in Cleveland. Which leads me to wonder what exactly is Modell moving? More than that, since Cleve land won the rights for the Browns’ name and colors to re main behind, does this give Bal timore the right to take the Colts and their colors away from India- napohs? More than that, would Baltimore want them? Now that the deal is done, Bal timore must begin to construct a new stadium. I was impressed with an article in the Jan. 22 issue of Newsweek where columnist George Will took up this issue. The sad fact of sports in the ‘90’s is that the average fan is building the stadiums, or arenas, which are equipped with luxury suites for rich fans to buy, so the rich owners can pay the rich play ers. In the deal which Modell signed to bring the “Somethings” to Baltimore, he gets the follow ing “perks”: • A $200 million stadium with 108 luxury boxes and 7,500 club seats. • $75 million in “personal seat Total Bran licenses.” • Pay a minimal rent while tak ing all revenues from ticket sales, concessions, parking, and stadium advertising. • When the stadium is used for non-Brown-related events, Modell will get 10 percent of the management fee and 50 percent of the profits. When that is all totaled, esti mates show that the teams’ value will rise by $60 million and that an annual profit of $30 million is nearly unavoidable. But what does the average tax payer in Baltimore or Maryland get out of the deal? Well, that’s hard to tell. You have to weed through a lot of political mumbo- jumbo. Reports shows that the “Some things” will bring $123 million annually into the local economy. Yet that seems to be a little high as it assumes 20 percent of people attending games will spend a night in a hotel. Baltimore is “sandwiched” between NFL cit ies like Washington (soon to be Maryland), Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, so where are these overnight fans going to come from? Reports say the new stadium will create 1,400 full-time jobs. Yet with the cost of the project in the neighbortiood of $200 to $250 million, is it worth it? GOP offers poor alternatives to Clinton By GRANT LONG With all the candidates out there running for the presidency today, it must be hard to decide who to vote for. On the Democratic side of the coin, it looks like Bill Clinton will once again be the party’s candi date for President. The Republi cans, on the other hand, have nu merous candidates in the presi dential race. As of Feb. 12, the GOP had nine candidates in the race. Bob Dole won the Iowa primary and the next day the field dropped down to eight after Texas Sena tor Phil Granmi dropped out. But the Iowa primary also gave life to the campaigns of Lamar Alexander and Pat Buchanan. With his victory in Iowa, most Republicans would vote for Dole for president, but is he the right candidate to vote for? Before we look at Dole, let’s examine the rest of the field. Morry Taylor, Richard Lugar, Alan Keyes, and Bob Doman do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the nomination for the presidency. As a matter of fact, most Americans did not care about them before they got in the race, and they do not care now. These are the people who are in the race to prove a point or get a little publicity for their future en deavors. That only leaves Steve Forbes, Dole, Alexander, and Buchanan. Even though Steve Forbes was doing well in political polls in January, he has fallen more re cently. Most Americans know •Steve. Forbes, wii©- proposed the- Opinion flat tax, and many started to lis ten to his rhetoric. Forbes has pro posed a flat tax between 15 and 17 percent, but even though this would decrease taxes for all Americans, it would also add $210 billion a year to the deficit, which is already $5 trillion. This tax would also shift the tax bur den to the middle class. Ameri can can forget about even trying to pay the national debt. This would also lead to the government’s cutting funding to just about every government pro gram. Forbes also said that his tax would solve all of America’s ra cial problems. I think that I speak for everyone when I say that it will take more than a tax adjust ment to correct all of America’s racial problems. Most people do not realize that Forbes is a busi nessman, not a politician, and is not good for government. Forbes knows very little about govern ment and is very disillusioned about what is going on in America. Steve Fort>es should just stick to something that he is good at, like publishing. In every election since 1988, there has always been a candi date who is tried to carry on all the policies of Ronald Reagan. In 1988 and 1992 it was Bush; now it’s Pat Buchanan. In this elec tion Buchanan is trying to come off as the most conservative can didate, and it is working. He won •m-Loiiisiana wkh it'and •finished > second in Iowa, and is quickly coming up through the field. But if Buchanan were elected president, he would probably con tinue all of Ronald Reagan’s eco nomic policies. This would be a bad thing because it was these policies that put America in bad financial standing during the 80’s and early 90’s. If “Reaganomics” are allowed to continue, this will widen the gap between rich and poor, and be very harmful to those who rely on government pro grams to survive. Pat Buchanan only has the interest of the rich and upper middle class in mind. In most presidential races there is always one candidate who usu ally has a real grass roots cam paign, and this year it is Lamar Alexander. Besides touring the country and giving away his ugly red and black lumberjacks, Alexander claims he is the candi date of the people. In 1985, when Alexander was governor of Ten nessee, he wanted to attract more industry to his state and eventu ally drew General Motors and Saturn Division there. Some may say this was a good move that brought more industry to Tennes see, but at the cost of millions of tax dollars. The only way GM would move there is if it only had to pay a partial share of its prop erty taxes. GM also moved to Tennessee because of its right- to-work laws and to pay its em ployees lower wages. This only proves that Alexander has only business interests in mind and will cave into their interests than the interest of the people. This only leaves Bob Dole, ' whe*I might add-is the oWest^jer- ■ son running for the presidency. I also want to add that Bob Dole is a World War II veteran. Bob Dole is out of touch with the times. We are talking about someone who grew up in the mid to late 1930’s; voting for Dole would be like vot ing for your grandfather. Besides that. Dole is gutless. All throughout the campaign he has never taken a clear stance on many issues and would rather be popular in the polls than take a stand that might bring him a little criticism. When it comes down to it. Dole is a sniveling, whining coward. If he is elected, then this country is going to be in real trouble. Do we as Americans want a coward in the White House? All I can say is that we can blame this on the people of Kansas who send Dole back to the Senate ev ery six years. Even though the Republican Party has numerous candidates in the presidential race, it still is not clear which one is the best candi date to vote for. As we see, the pretenders are quickly being sepa rated from the contenders. No one quite knows who will represent the Republican Party in Novem ber, but none of the above men tioned candidates are worthy of the job. Bill Clinton may not be the best president in American his tory, but he is getting better at the job every day. At this critical point in our nation’s history, we need a leader who is ready to take charge and not someone who is just learn ing the job. There are really no great leaders out there, but we should stick with someone who •has four years-of* ettf»efienee; •••■*• The trend over the past few years in building new stadiums and arenas is to put them down town. Baltimore led the way with the building of Oriole Park t' Camden Yards and from that suc cess many cities are following Baltimore’s lead. But the numbers are a littU; different for baseball. The Or; oles play 81 home games a yes even more if you make the pc . season. They have average 45,036 in the new stadium, bring ing roughly 3.5 million pec; into a commercially revitali^. section of the city. So spending $200 to $300 mi; lion on a baseball stadium is ferent. A football team plays at lea. 10 home games. Then what eL.; can the stadium be used for? V it’s an open-air stadium, no; much. Sure, you can put in sonv college games, or hold outdoijs concerts during the summer, ba you are still quite limited. Even though I hate Astrot; • what Maryland should do is bui!r a domed stadium which could 'c used for more events year rouB A city like Baltimore witr. domed stadium could attract . kinds of large events. Not o;i could the stadium be the home “Somethings,” but many of th smaller sports teams, like hock ' indoor soccer, and lacrosse, cois*^ make the stadium their home. The NBA could come back town if it wanted. Even more, t' NCAA Final Four could be host in Baltimore. Large conventions could ab? be attracted. Who knows, maybt one of the political parties would bring their convention to town. Spending $250 million on football-only open-air stadiui: really doesn’t make all that muc> sense. Therefore, the question i? To dome or not to dome? (Patrick Brannan, a Wesleyar graduate and last year’s Decree, editor, is now a sports writer with the Rocky Mount Telegram.) Very Important. Graduating se niors need to make sure the Registrar Office has your cor rect mailing ad dress so graduation information can get to you in a timely manner.
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