My Rebuttal

Former A.C. Commissioner Ed Rousseau had an editorial in today's newspaper. Link here

While I'm not going to try to dispute Ed's facts or statements, I don't want to error check and the guy brings up stuff from the '70's. The only thing I'm aware of from the 70's is that we were about to embark on one of the greatest rock 'n roll decades of all time.

What I will do is comment on some of the statements Ed made.

First, Ed states, "An architect was contacted, and his report stated that the Memorial Stadium is about 13 years old and is built of reinforced concrete. It was also reported that the stadium is good for another 50 years, except for some improvements, including the roofs, plumbing and seats."

Correction - Sure, AN architect was contacted, but it was THE architect. The very same architect that for 7.5 Million of our publicly funded dollars built an 8 million ton re-bar and cement 'ball park'. Of course the architect is going to say that it is still good. What is he going to say? "Tear that thing down because I made a mistake!" Probably not, if he ever wants to get contracted again. Will the memorial stadium fall down in the next 50 years? Without human intervention, not likely. Will it continue to be a viable ballpark compared to newer and updated venues for the next 50 years, not likely again.

Also Mr. Rousseau states, "The only fair thing to do is to postpone the voting until the new administration is in place. It does not seem right for one administration to make the decision on such a large project and then leave office and not have to face construction and financial problems that will occur."

This postponement would kill the project. These dealings are time critical. The financing that Ed is critical of would not even be possible if we wait for the next administration to come along. I'm not to savvy with bonds, CRED and other creative ways to come up with money, but these do disappear. These funds are not in our wallet yet, but could be, if we do not sit around and wait.