In the 30-year history of D.C. home rule, Sept. 29, 2004, will go down as a day of unsurpassed exploitation of the District of Columbia. Let us count the ways.
First, as D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton aptly noted during floor debate on Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives sank to a new low in its attempts to do low-down, dirty, mean things to the people of this city when it voted to repeal all of the city's gun safety laws.
Second, by sundown, the District's own leaders -- hellbent on bringing baseball back to Washington -- cut a deal that may enter the annals of American history as the greatest land grab since Manhattan Island was bought for $24.
Seldom have so many non-Washingtonians come together on any given day to take advantage of the nation's capital.
Let us first explore baseball. A stipulation: As a lifelong baseball fan, going back to Griffith Stadium and the days of manager Bucky Harris, with Mickey Vernon on first base, Eddie Yost on third and Sam Dente at shortstop, I'm glad to see the national pastime return.
Another point: I have enormous personal and professional respect for Mark Tuohey, chairman of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, who helped the city get another baseball franchise. He did the best he could with what he had to work with.
But to call what went on between Major League Baseball and the city's leaders a "negotiation" is tantamount to describing a football game between the 2004 Super Bowl champion New England Patriots and the Little Sisters of the Poor as a contest.
Major League Baseball, which owns the money-losing Montreal Expos, has been trying for two years to dump that last-place team. A relieved baseball commissioner Bud Selig put it this way: "This was a team owned by baseball that we were anxious to get rid of." So they shopped the Expos, and Washington's leaders, devoured by desire for baseball, outbid the competition.
Today Major League Baseball owners are in hog heaven.
And why not? The new franchise owners will get a brand-new, $440 million, 41,000-seat stadium with the city picking up most of the construction costs. The owners get to keep all the money from tickets, concessions and merchandise sales -- the city gets the taxes -- and the owners don't have to share any of the game-day revenue from the stadium's 1,100-car parking garage. Yep, they'll have to pay rent on the stadium -- $3.5 million in the first year, rising to $5.5 million in the fifth year, with small percentage increases thereafter. But the owners get naming rights to the stadium, which may be worth another $2.5 million a year.
And here's what makes the owners happier than pigs in slop: They are going to put the Expos franchise up for sale. Yup. The struggling team they bought two years ago for $120 million will be sold to the highest bidder. They expect to rake in more than $300 million. One more thing: D.C. leaders don't have a legal say in who gets to own the team or the conditions under which the sale is made.
But shucks, Major League Baseball couldn't have done it without Washington's business community, which is going to foot most of the bill for the new stadium. The city's largest businesses have agreed to be taxed to the tune of $21 million to $24 million annually to help pay the debt on 30-year bonds that will finance the stadium's construction.
"We're talking numbers that for a lot of the larger [businesses], at least, are not going to break the bank," said Bob Peck, president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. That's for sure.
According to city officials, only businesses grossing more than $3 million a year will be affected by the new tax. The smallest would probably pay about $2,500 a year and the largest about $28,000. Chump change.
