A Dichotomy of a Day: Rays get $300 MILLION from Pinellas County As Property Owners Get a Tax Increase

Yesterday was a day of dichotomies in Pinellas County.

Yesterday morning, St. Petersburg, Pinellas County and the Rays held a joint news announcement to announce they had struck a deal struck for a new Rays stadium and redevelopment surrounding it. 

Sunday May 17, 2015 Pinellas County Arts Funding May Increase

Opinion by: E. Eugene Webb PhD
Coauthor of: So You Want Blog .

This past week it looked like a window for more Pinellas County funding for the Arts may be opening.

 Creative Pinellas, the county-funded arts agency, is seeking $300,000 a year to promote the arts and to fund local artists and programs for the next three years.

You can read more in Steven Girardi article in the St. Pete Tribune Pinellas leaders see value of arts, seek more information.

County funding for the arts dried up when the County Office of Cultural Affairs was shuttered five years ago in the midst of the financial downturn.

This is the moment when the arts community should be fully prepared with a program and details. County Commissioners want to know where and how any funding increase will be spent.

Publically funded arts programs have a tendency to become cliquish. A broadly based program and accountability for how public art funds are actually spent is a necessity.

The $300,000 is a reasonable sum if Creative Pinellas can produce a plan with sufficient detail to make Commissioners feel comfortable. Beginning with a modest working budget line item in the new budget, the arts community should be encouraged to return in the next budget cycle to report on their success and the County Commission should be open to additional funding.

The County Commission should avoid throwing a ton of money at the Arts only to be disappointed when the outcomes don't meet expectations or controversy arises over the program.

In St.Pete they have begun to realize throwing money at arts programs and using public funds to support individual artist or groups of artists does not produce a sustainable arts community.

The St. Petersburg approach to the arts community is one the County should consider. St. Petersburg is moving toward a sustainability model which brings customers to buy local art to support its growing arts community.

You can read about the Saint Petersburg approach in my six Post series A Casual Conversation with Wayne Atherholt St. Petersburg's Director of Cultural Affairs .

For now it looks like the County Commission is poised to renew its commitment to the arts and they should.

 The Arts community should also realize that what comes from the public trough can just as easily disappear as it did 5 years ago. Moving from subsidy to sustainability is a model the arts community should embrace.

E-mail Doc at mail to:dr.gwebb@yahoo.com or send me a Facebook (Gene Webb) Friend request. Please comment below, and be sure to share on Facebook. See Doc's Photo Gallery at Bay Post Photos

Sunday November 23, 2014 Is it time to stop using Tourist Tax money to pay for Big Boy Toys?

Opinion by: E. Eugene Webb PhD

Wednesday the Pinellas County Commission voted to restrict the funds being used to pay off the Tropicana Field construction bonds when the bonds expire in 2015.

The tourist tax dollars have long been eyed as pot of money for a new stadium for the Rays and St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman also has his eye on some of those dollars for capital improvement projects like Al Lang field and the Walter Fuller Baseball Complex.

While the Tourist Tax was originally conceived to actually promote tourism, like most taxes it was a target for every high dollar idea that came down the road.

Same with Penny for Pinellas.

The County Commission was wise to restrict these funds, but the whole issue begs a bigger question; is it time for local governments to stop funding stadiums where private enterprises make large profits at the expense of taxpayers.

Here in Pinellas County we have seen how much impact major league baseball has had. It’s time for Major League Baseball to lose its federal tax status, fund its own venues and generally start acting like the big business it has become.

If the venue is as important as the team owners would have us believe, then it seems to me that any organization that can sign a single individual player or group of players to  multiyear multimillion-dollar contracts, can eke out a mortgage payment on the facility they play in without taxpayer support.

Baseball and most major league sports see government as a honey pot of money. They tell the sports impact story, which is rarely true, pass out a few hats, some autographed bats, balls or sticks and the politicians swoon. Same story over and over again.

For now the Pinellas County Commission has taken a good step to gain control over the tourist tax revenues. Keeping that control will require significant diligence.

E-mail Doc at: dr.webb@verizon.net. Or send me a Facebook (Gene Webb) Friend request. Twitter@DOCONTHEBAY. Please comment below, and be sure to share on Facebook and Twitter. See Doc's Photo Gallery at Bay Post Photos