Public Money – Secret Negotiations

While the City of Mesa works hard to convince voters that the spending of well over $100 million on the proposed new Chicago Cubs spring training facility is a good investment, precious little information has been made public regarding the details of this arrangement between the city and the baseball team. Officially, there is no location for this project, there is no design for this project, there is no binding agreement delineating responsibilities of the parties and there is, in short, really nothing definitive about this venture. With a proposition measure already approved for the fall election, it seems voters will be asked to trust the judgment of their elected officials on the matter. Negotiations continue – in secret – between the parties.

Meanwhile, some concern has been expressed about the welfare of some other city programs. Beyond the elimination of hundreds of employment positions over the last couple of years, the city has recently decided to underfund employee retirement benefit funds. By coincidence, the sum of this underfunding over the past two years was somewhat over $100 million. Of course, this does substantiate the official city position that money is available to develop the spring training facility; it is just a matter of prioritizing where the available funds should be spent. This came about, no doubt, with the consent of the retirees involved.