Yet another “historic” community benefits agreement…this time in Chattanooga

In July, the Chattanooga Lookouts, a minor league baseball team, reached an agreement with the city to build a new ballpark. Although the price was originally going to be $79.5 million, the final price tag was actually $120 million. Not to worry, though, as the public contribution amount is capped at…$112 million? Anyway, ever since 2022, local groups in Chattanooga have been pressuring local officials to make sure that the community was represented whenever a community benefits agreement (CBA) was discussed. One community group called CALEB took over negotiations in 2022 and tried for 18 months to get the Lookouts to agree to an acceptable CBA. But the team would not agree to legal language that mandated local workforce standards or penalized the team for not following through on CBA promises. As CALEB told the local newspaper, the team would not give any “meaningful safeguards”. So, CALEB walked away from the negotiating table.

However, on August 27, 2024, it was announced that another local group called Bethlehem Center had secured Chattanooga’s first CBA with the lookouts! It was deemed to be “historic” and fantastic for the local community. But, is it? Because I don’t see many guarantees made by the team.

For example:

• The Lookouts are “committing to attempt to hire 30 percent of all their staff from South Chattanooga residents”.
• The Lookouts are also “committing” to create “mixed-income housing”.
• The Lookouts “will seek to spend 20% (of expenses)” with local and minority vendors.
• The Lookouts will start a hiring program “with a goal of having 15% of team employees from that neighborhood”.
• The Lookouts will “explore green features such as solar, geothermal and rainwater recapture”.
• A landowner near the ballpark will conduct a traffic study “to consider options” for future traffic changes.
• Another landowner near the ballpark will “make reasonable efforts to identify at least one location that may be suitable for a child care operation”.

I don’t see anything concrete about this so-called agreement. Whenever you see “will seek”, “reasonable efforts” or “with a goal of having…”, then you can be assured that the promises have little chance of ever being fulfilled.

Further, is this historic? This CBA? Haven’t I heard that before?

Kansas City

Yes, I heard it earlier this year when the Kansas City Royals and Kansas City Chiefs were asking city voters to approve a sales tax increase to fund both a new Royals ballpark and upgrades to the Chiefs venue. The teams claimed to have agreed to a “historic” CBA that forced the teams to invest over $260 million in the community. In reality, the CBA forced the teams to do nothing and give nothing. There wasn’t even language included in the CBA that dealt with enforcement. As one local official asked, why did the Kansas City teams not include the county in any part of the negotiations?

The teams called the CBA “historic,” but not everyone sees it that way. “I didn’t read it and get excited,” Laura Dresser, an associate director at High Road Strategy Center, said of the press release. “I didn’t feel like I was reading a historic document. I was reading a document that disappointed me.” — KSHB.com, 03/22/24

Buffalo

Last year, the Buffalo Bills agreed to a stadium deal that gave the team $850 million of taxpayer dollars. After being kept secret for many months, a “historic” CBA was released to the public. The big story from this CBA was that the Bills were committed to annual payments of $3 million towards local projects…which means the team will give more than $100 million over the 30-year stadium lease.

But this is where the hard details end. Does the CBA say which organizations benefit from the yearly payments by the team? Of course not. Does the public have any authority or veto power where the team’s money goes? Nope. Why is there an oversight committee if it has no power? Good question.

Anaheim

In 2019, the city of Anaheim approved a “historic” agreement for the Anaheim Angels ballpark. To briefly summarize, the owner of the Angels was going to spend $150 million in cash and $170 million in community benefits, through things like affordable housing. In return, the owner would own a 150 acre site near the ballpark. Unfortunately, the deal was called off after the Anaheim Mayor resigned over accusations that the Angels agreement “came under questionable circumstances”…which is what happens when the mayor is given millions behind the scenes from the team owner.

Former Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu has publicly copped to charges of public corruption that killed the city’s $320 million sale of Angel Stadium. In a federal courtroom in Santa Ana, the 66-year-old former mayor pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, wire fraud and two counts of making false statements to the FBI and to the Federal Aviation Administration, the Orange County Register reported. “Yes, I’m guilty,” Sidhu told Judge John W. Holcomb. The court admission comes more than 15 months after the Anaheim City Council voted to nix a $320 million deal to sell Angel Stadium because of a corruption scandal involving the former mayor that included misconduct and pay-to-play schemes. — TheRealDeal, 09/19/23

Philadelphia

A few weeks ago, the Philadelphia 76ers agreed with the city on a $1.55 billion deal to build a new Arena. A significant number of people have come out against this deal as it will rip into several communities.
However, the Philly Mayor, Cherelle Parker, officially expressed her support for the arena and announced a $50 million dollar community benefits agreement with the team. Some of the people who benefited from this deal came out supporting it and called both the arena and CBA “historic”. This sounds great. Except, as always, we know little to no details. As the local newspaper noted, the CBA is “is surrounded by more questions than answers”.

Why? Because unlike a lot of recent CBA’s, the neighborhood groups were never invited to talk about the CBA. It was put together behind closed doors by the Mayor and the 76ers billionaire owners. One local faith leader called the CBA an “insult” to the area. After councilman Mark Squilla, who represents the district where the new arena would be located, publicly pledged to introduce legislation that gives the affected neighborhoods additional benefits, the 76ers responded by claiming that the agreement can’t change due to “critical deadlines”. Mind you, deadlines that the team imposed on itself. But this CBA is the “largest in the country” according to the team. No, it isn’t. No even remotely. Did they forget the recent Buffalo Bills CBA, which gave the city $3 million yearly for 30 years?

Others

The list could go on and on for quite a while. But here are some of my favorite CBA’s not named above:

• Atlantic Yards — One of the worst CBA’s ever put on record can be found in Atlantic Yards for the creation of the Brooklyn Nets arena. This perfectly sums up what a disaster this CBA was for the area. When the CBA was established, an independent compliance monitor was going to be selected to guarantee that all community benefits were met. No compliance monitor was ever named.
• Cincinnati — In 2019, FC Cincinnati signed a $16 million dollar CBA that would “deliver economic concessions to community organizations in exchange for public support of their project”. One small issue…weeks before the stadium deal was agreed upon, the team changed the language of the CBA so that it was simply not enforceable. It was so bad that one attorney called the CBA “a dereliction of duty” by the Cincinnati City Council. When local news began asking questions, FC Cincinnati did what most do in the sports world…run and hide.

• Detroit — I have lost count on the number of times that the Ilitch family has screwed over the city of Detroit and its taxpayers. In 2013, the city of Detroit was about to go bankrupt when they agreed to give the Illitch family millions and millions for a new arena and many other buildings that would create a new city that was full of life. Included in this deal was a CBA promise of jobs and other benefits for locals. The team simply ignored this part of the deal and hired who they wanted to. They just paid a fine, so they don’t seem to care that much.