2 days ago
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb isn't happy about the Browns' relocation to Brook Park
The Cleveland Browns got what they wanted from Ohio, in the form of $600 million in taxpayer money and a change to the law that would have otherwise kept them from leaving downtown Cleveland for suburban Brook Park.
And while the Browns are very happy about the outcome, Cleveland is not.
'We are deeply disappointed that the final state budget includes both a $600 million public subsidy for a domed stadium in Brook Park and changes to Ohio's [Art] Modell Law — provisions we strongly opposed and requested be removed,' Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said Tuesday, via 'Relocating the Browns will divert economic activity from downtown, create a competing entertainment district, and disrupt the momentum of our lakefront redevelopment.'
The change to the Art Modell Law allows Ohio teams to move within Ohio. Given that the Ohio legislature created the initial law after the Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996, it seems that there's little room for Cleveland to fight the legislature's decision to change the law.
The planned use of unclaimed funds to pay the $600 million to the Browns may become a bigger impediment to the plan. A 2009 decision of the Ohio Supreme Court could provide the basis of a challenge to the plan to tap into the money for the purposes of funding the new stadium.
Put simply, 'unclaimed funds' are not abandoned. They remain the property of those who have not claimed them. The argument would be that those funds cannot be redistributed by the state for the purposes of building a new football stadium.
And so, even as the Browns declare victory and rush forward to make plans for selling season tickets to their new stadium, there's a chance that Ohio will have to scrap the plan to pay the $600 million via unclaimed funds and come up with an alternative approach.
The one approach that will never happen is to put the issue to the voters. When the voters have a chance to say whether their money will be used to subsidize the multibillionaire owners of sports teams, the response is usually, 'Hell no.'
As it arguably should be. With the values of NFL teams skyrocketing, why shouldn't NFL teams pay for their own stadiums? The habit of using public funds for such projects feels less like good governance and more like the misadventures of Dennis Moore.
