The ‘convadium’ conundrum

[Ref: “The ‘convadium’ tax hike option,” Vol. 17, Issue 4, or online at tinyurl.com/jvemogv]

What do you think about this scam billionaire team owners have done to millions of Americans? Billionaires set up an organization to make $100s of millions every year with their workers making millions. We, the public, spent many billions across America to help build their places of business and gave them free of charge many millions worth of prime public land.

The public does this because the billionaires spent the highest amount of political advertising ever in local elections, to convince them that they do not live in a real city without their product and they make huge false claims that it makes good economic sense for public funding when numerous economic studies show it doesn’t make sense, usually by a wide margin, because there are just 10 football events/year with low paying jobs and other events used to possibly help justify it can be done at other places already built.

Then we also spent $100s of millions of additional public funds (i.e., taxes) to maintain and upgrade their places of business, provide the necessary surrounding infrastructure, train their workers at public expense in our colleges and high schools, provide extra police protection and give them a very large amount of free advertising on our public airways from our news organizations.

Because their business is very dangerous, many of their workers suffer severe body and brain injuries ruining many lives and increasing heath care costs also paid by the public. All this so these billionaires get to keep most of the $100s of millions of annual profit and have their net worth increased by billions.

Wow! Americans would never go for this huge very expensive corporate giveaway that provides them so few economic benefits.

Well, they have already convinced probably about 100 million Americans (many just getting by) to do so. They named it the “National Football League,” NFL for short.

—Wayne Dunlap, Downtown resident, via email

I am afraid the Chargers are going to get their way and build a stadium Downtown. Even though I do not live Downtown, I am an advocate of the 14th Street Promenade.

Please act quickly to push and promote your vision to the public and politicians via newspaper articles, etc., before the mayor and everyone else jumps on the Chargers bandwagon. Qualcomm is where Chargers should be, not East Village.

—Michael Korotaeff, via sandiegodowntownnews.com

I am fully aware that a moral argument against the stadium financing has the same chances as a candle in the wind. But please consider how low we are sinking in our search for self-gratification without paying the attendant fees.

Spanos, a billionaire, wants the stadium but doesn’t want to pay for it. The city, which will almost exclusively use the stadium, doesn’t want to pay for it.

So both Spanos and the city have turned to the poor slubs from Iowa, Texas and New York to pay for our pleasure, the stadium, with hotel taxes.

Clever idea, but morally corrupt and perhaps legally wrong.

Remember the fundamental basis of the American Revolution — taxes are not to be laid on the people but by their consent in person or by deputation — these are the first principles of law and justice and the great barriers of a free state …

Sure there will be a vote but not by the people who will be paying a 30 percent tax increase.

Better put: No one wants to pay for their own dinner …

—Ron, via email

Fellow residents of San Diego: Before you vote in November, I’d ask you to drive by Qualcomm Stadium one day this summer and try to imagine that huge, empty, silent fortress plopped down in the middle of your neighborhood.

Because that’s what the Chargers are asking you to fund — acres of walled off dead space in the middle of my neighborhood. I’m not talking about game day — I’m talking about the other 300-plus days of the year when there are no fans, no income for the neighborhood, no excitement, nothing.

Contrast that with the plans being generated by the innovative (and volunteer) group of architects, urban planners, designers and residents of the East Village South Community Vision Group.

Envision high-paying, high-tech jobs, a respected university, family-friendly sidewalk cafes, preservation of key historic buildings, dog parks, a soccer field, a farmers market, attractive lighting, street signs in multiple languages, and most important, lots of pedestrians strolling through a series of tree-lined boulevards and a necklace of pocket parks, all the way from the Convention Center, Horton Plaza, or City College, to Barrio Logan or across a park covering Interstate 5 into Sherman Heights.

Also imagine the Convention Center widened right over Harbor Drive, the railroad tracks and the trolley tracks, so that you could stroll right across those barriers without waiting for a traffic light and have easy egress from the Bay to the Gaslamp Quarter and the ball park neighborhoods.

Before you cast your vote about this precious, undeveloped acreage (the only large, undeveloped area left Downtown), please ask yourself which alternative would provide more higher-paying jobs, more tax income for the city, more housing, more recreation and value to the city of San Diego.

For more information, visit the East Village South Community Vision on Facebook. Thank you for your consideration,

—Valerie Hansen, resident of East Village, via email