THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 1996 TAG: 9604160012
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Gov. George F. Allen loves to talk about trusting the people to decide.
He should trust the people of Hampton Roads to attract a major-league basketball or hockey team - without his interference.
Instead, he has attached two harmful amendments to a General Assembly-approved bill to create a regional sports authority for the purpose of issuing bonds to finance a $150 million arena.
The legislature will consider the amendments Wednesday. If it cannot muster the two-thirds vote to overcome them, it should kill the bill entirely. No action on the arena this session is preferable to a large step backward, which the governor's amendments would be.
Allen's amendments would require that:
A National Basketball Association or National Hockey League team be committed to Hampton Roads before bonds could be issued.
The governor appoint the sports authority's 15 members, one each from the 10 cities and five counties in Hampton Roads.
The first amendment, say local officials, would kill Hampton Roads' chance of enticing a major-league team here from another city, for no existing team would commit to moving to a city that did not have an arena already built.
If an expansion team were to commit to come here in two or three years, the arena could be built after the commitment, as the governor wishes. But a study last year by two nationally prominent consulting firms concluded that it is doubtful Hampton Roads could attract an NBA or NHL expansion team.
The reasons are that the NBA is looking to expand overseas and the waiting list for NHL expansion teams includes American metropolises bigger than Hampton Roads. Although Hampton Roads is the 27th-largest metropolitan area, which sounds good, it is the 40th-largest TV market. (To the East, Hampton Roads TV signals are received by fish.)
Allen notes that building the arena before a long-term team commitment is received could lead to localities losing money, assuming they underwrote the bonds sold to finance construction and no team was found. A better method for building the arena, however, would be to repay the bonds in less than six years with revenue from a sales-tax increase in Hampton Roads of one-fourth of 1 cent - assuming a regional referendum showed local residents favored the tax.
Allen believes he has a responsibility to appoint the sports authority members because state sales taxes collected at the arena would help retire the bonds, under the present bill. Still, it's far better if the localities name their own representatives, so membership doesn't change with every governor and so the localities are more directly involved.
Allen complains about the federal government pushing Virginia around. He should lighten up on Hampton Roads.
If need be, the existing Sports Authority of Hampton Roads, a voluntary organization of eight localities, could be expanded to 15. Better to have that panel proceed with arena studies, with questions of how to finance the arena answered later, than to have the governor intrude unnecessarily on this region's affairs and kill any chance of attracting an NBA team. by CNB