Overtaxed Caddoans, get set to receive a sales pitch this week about a low-priority sports complex that won’t come close to paying for itself, whether measured tangibly or intangibly.
In three sessions, the parish will present an idea for a complex that will allow for a variety of indoor sports – including pickleball, on which last year it already blew $10 million for a dedicated facility on land owned by the Northwest Louisiana YMCA. Outdoor sports around it also remain a possibility.
Perhaps it could have used that $10 million as it says the parish through debt issuance will cover only $60 million of a projected $70 million cost and apparently has hat in hand for that remainder. As of yet Caddo Parish commissioners haven’t decided where to put it, which they might want to do as voters will decide on whether to grant that debt request Nov. 3.
At a special meeting last week, the usual suspects showed up to laud spending other people’s money either to ease their occupational demands or to make themselves look relevant. A couple of tired points, one pecuniary and one not, were made: a complex could attract out-of-towners to tournaments that would boost tax collections and that the good-old-nebulous “quality of life” would be raised making it more likely to encourage people to move to the area.
There’s no evidence the latter would happen in any meaningful way and what data exists on the former – looking at various taxation regimes and even slotting in pie-in-the-sky athletic tourism projections – shows that costs to build, and even to operate, will far exceed any bounce from area visitors. And would beggar revenues from local, some nongovernmental, providers. Aren’t there enough area schools, Y facilities, tennis centers, cheer/gymnastics venues, collegiate wrestling centers, for-profit operators, etc. already in the parish and across the river from it to serve at least local needs, and even attract some area visitor competitions?
Maybe there’s some fantasy that such a complex could piggyback off of the growing youth travel ball mania in enticing tournaments there. Except that has the collateral effect of crowding out local participation and encourages transferring team participation in the area in favor of hitting the road elsewhere on travel teams (for those families who can afford them in an area with a struggling economy and stagnant population change).
Recognize this for what it is. When (most; some didn’t vote for this) commissioners insist no tax increase would be necessary, they admit taxes are too high and they need some place to spend the collections rather than return it to the people in the former of lower taxes. Ironically, the property tax funding parks and recreation and revenues generated from those activities didn’t even cover its spending last year, causing the parish to dip into other tax revenues to the tune of a half-million bucks to keep the special fund backing parks and recreation at a level equivalent to about one year’s spending.
That raid on taxes collected will escalate by a few million dollars a year to prop up this complex if voters assent. It’s just another shoot-the-moon the idea all too common around northwest Louisiana local governments that substitutes for genuine economic development efforts that begin with tax relief. Caddo voters don’t need to attend the informational session to know enough to defeat this boondoggle.
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