In another Mary K. Reinhart article in the Arizona Republic yesterday, we learned some details of the Valley-wide, taxpayer-funded Superbowl welfare program into which the City of Scottsdale will pay $650,000 of your tax dollars for something we would get anyway: Visitors to Scottsdale during the Super Bowl.
This is another stroke of genius by Scottsdale Mayor (and former CPA) Jim Lane and the Chamber of Commerce caucus on the Scottsdale City Council…who can’t seem to find any money to build real fire stations instead of mobile homes in North Scottsdale, or pay cops a competitive wage.
At least Scottsdale isn’t the biggest sucker in this deal. Phoenix is supposedly going to pay more than double that amount…though the article doesn’t say they’ve actually agreed to it yet!
Glendale will give $72,000 over 2 years to Super Bowl committee
By Mary K. Reinhart, The Republic | azcentral.com
Glendale has agreed to give $72,000 to the Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee to help market the city in advance of the 2015 game at University of Phoenix Stadium.
The City Council approved the spending Dec. 10, to be paid over two years from the Glendale Convention and Visitors Bureau, using tourism funds raised from a countywide voter-approved tax. The host committee will use the marketing funds to promote Glendale minority and female-owned businesses, and the money allows the city to participate in a visiting CEO program, designed to attract new companies and convention business.
Host-committee executives and city officials have had a frosty relationship in recent months as Super Bowl XLIX-related events have been scheduled in other Valley cities, and parking and hotel-room rates remain unresolved issues.
Sam McAllen, director of neighborhood and human services, said seven Glendale hoteliers have been negotiating with NFL executives in recent weeks toward inclusion in the Super Bowl’s official room bloc.
The host committee needs to raise roughly $24 million to fulfill commitments to the NFL and is looking for Valley cities to kick in $3 million. City contributions are based on a formula using 2010 hotel-room sales and revenue sharing from a tourism- related tax. Scottsdale in May signed a contract to give the host committee nearly $650,000. In exchange, the committee has agreed to encourage sponsors and groups to stay at Scottsdale hotels and resorts and visit area businesses and include more than 3,000 rooms in the official room bloc.
Scottsdale’s contribution comes from a 2010 city bed-tax hike. Glendale’s payment to the host committee comes from Proposition 302, a 1 percent hotel tax and car-rental surcharge approved by Maricopa County voters in 2000. The ballot measure created the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority, which distributes tourism funds and manages the football stadium.
The formula, agreed to by city convention and visitors bureaus, envisions a $1.4 million contribution from Phoenix.
Paradise Valley plans to donate $75,000 to the effort, less than half of the $182,000 the town should invest based on the formula.
The Super Bowl Host Committee raises millions to market the game and related NFL-sanctioned events, secure team hotel rooms and work out parking, security and other details.
4 Comments
You’re right when you say we would get the business anyway. Does this ignorant city council actually think that NFL owners and their high roller buddies are going to stay anywhere but Scottsdale? Where is the common sense? It’s called the Scottsdale cachet Somehow I don’t see Robert Kraft of the Patriots booking rooms in Glendale or Peoria.
I can see Korte, Klapp, and Milhaven not “getting it” on this just like their limited thinking on the failed bonds. Maybe they should go to the Scottsdale Airport after the game and look at the line of private planes leaving after the game. They are full of people who spent a lot of dough in Scottsdale without being asked to do it.
It is tradition that Super Bowl Committee members hand out the BIGGEST candybars on Halloween. Did Mayor Lane, Korte, Klapp and Milhaven also hand out BIG candybars?
To the kids…..not bar owners and land developers.