Ohio governor signs $600m state subsidy bill for Browns stadium, $600m more in city/county cash still pending
Well, that was anticlimactic: After insisting he was opposed to the state legislatures plan to pay $600 million toward a new Cleveland Browns stadium by using an omni-TIF, Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill to do just that last night, either because he knew any veto would get overridden or because he just didnt care enough to fight about it. (The state budget bill that DeWine signed also changed the states Art Modell Law to no longer prohibit teams from relocating in-state.) The $2.4 billion stadium project in Brook Park is now all set, except for all the ways it isnt set at all:
Former Ohio attorney general Marc Dann and former state representative Jeff Crossman announced plans to file a class action suit against the state borrowing the money from its unclaimed property fund, which Dunn called an unconscionable, unconstitutional, and blatantly illegal confiscation of Ohioans private property.
Its still unclear what will become of the $600 million in city and county money that Browns owner Jimmy Haslam previously said would be part of the stadium funding, Cleveland19 reports that the Browns would fund the remaining $1.8B to complete the project, also covering overruns, while News5Cleveland reports that theyre looking to taxpayers to cover up to $1.2 billion of the tab for the stadium, good work, local news teams!
This is a bit of a trend, it seems, state governments ponying up for public cash before local governments have decided on their share: We just saw this happen in Missouri with the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, which got around $1.5 billion combined in state funding last month while awaiting even more money from whichever city and county they end up playing in. The difference with the Browns is that they didnt even have an offer from another state that Ohio needed to worry about matching in fact, Haslam had previously said he would stay put in Cleveland if the state turned down his request. Theres bidding against yourself and then theres bidding against yourself, and Ohio really broke new ground here, good work, local legislators!
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