There's no clearer example of Columbus City Council's complete unresponsiveness to the needs of our neighborhoods than the proposed giveaway of a Southside community park and $50,000,000 of taxpayer dollars to Jimmy and Dee Haslam in an attempt to lure a women's soccer team to Columbus.
Council is set to vote on this proposal Monday evening April 20th, so your letters of opposition are needed right now. (Councilmembers Green and Day-Achauer, to their credit, have spoken out strongly against this proposal; the rest of the councilmembers have not yet indicated how they will vote.)
Tell the City Council today: vote NO on this bad deal.
The proposal would commit $25,000,000 from city funds, with another $25,000,000 from Franklin County, to support the National Women's Soccer League proposal being submitted by the Haslams -- the billionaire owners of the Crew, the Cleveland Browns, and potentially the new team in Columbus.
City leaders such as Mayor Ginther have promised that McCoy Park -- which had already been promised significant upgrades over the next few years, with budget funds already committed -- will be replaced with a new park "somewhere else." Vague promises mean nothing; why not put the proposed new training complex in that "somewhere else" place, and implement the planned (and much-needed) improvements to McCoy Park as promised?
Bringing the NWSL to Columbus is a good idea overall, but multiple other cities -- such as Kansas City and San Francisco -- have secured NWSL expansion teams without millions in taxpayer subsidies. The Haslams have the resources to make a fully private bid, and they should.