General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsClose 6 libraries to save $2.4 million, but spend $40 million on NFL scoreboard (Jax, Fl)
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/topstories/article/317068/483/63M-in-improvements-coming-to-EverBank-Field
The Jacksonville Jaguars announced Wednesday that it has agreed to terms with the City of Jacksonville on $63 million in improvements for the stadium.
The improvements are set to include a north end zone fan engagement area and two new end zone score boards that will be "the largest of their kind in the world," according to a release from the Jaguars.
<snip>
The capital project funding, $36.4 million, will come from the city of Jacksonville. These funds will go toward the infrastructure for the scoreboards and the north endzone area.
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http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=316875
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Some Jacksonville residents are trying to save their local libraries.
That's after the Jacksonville Library Board announced its plans to close six library branches in Duval county.
The new closures are expected to save $2.4 million.
A $64 million short-fall in the 2014 Jacksonville city budget has prompted the Library Board's decision
I have no words sometimes except for...
The stadium is used 10 times a year (8 pro home games, 1 college regular season game, and 1 college bowl game). The Jags lost all but two of their games this past year. They suck horribly and think that putting a bigger Jumbotron will make up for a shitty team with no direction or stars. No one wants to watch a team suck on a bigger screen. The city is also trying to cut pensions for city workers as well as close 4-6 fire stations.
But we'll have a fuckin big ass tv screen at the football game.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)K/R and
corkhead
(6,119 posts)you are due beer money
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)Scuba
(53,475 posts)BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Fire all the teachers!
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)As much a football fan I am (and I don't go to games), I agree that this is a huge waste of money. Let the team go to LA so they can stop bitching and whining about not having a team.
MADem
(135,425 posts)And who needs book learnin' after the first two or three concussions...ya won't remember anything you read, anyway!!!!!
Let me whip this out for the irony impaired...
FLyellowdog
(4,276 posts)dsc
(52,188 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)siligut
(12,272 posts)They want them to conform and spend money. Plus, keeping Shahid Khan happy is probably a high priority.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)SoCalDem
(103,856 posts)Where are their brains??
tokenlib
(4,186 posts)...should be food for thought. Food enough to choke on...
n2doc
(47,953 posts)To London or LA. No matter what sort of screen the rubes pay for.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)since they can't figure out why anybody would go to a library.
A library? Who the hell goes to a library? That kind of tone.
eppur_se_muova
(36,327 posts)if even that.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)Two of the haters' most despised groups
Mr.Bill
(24,438 posts)who could never grasp the Dewey Decimal System.
Initech
(100,213 posts)Because that's what the people who own AEG and the still yet to exist Farmers Field have been saying for the last decade.
mokawanis
(4,455 posts)Maybe they could use the savings to build a better parking lot at the stadium.
Apophis
(1,407 posts)At schools, art and band get cut but no sports do. God forbid if little Junior Sonofabitch can't play football or baseball though.
No wonder our country is full of dumbasses.
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)When I was 8, my Mom wrote and wrote, and pleaded her case, and got a group of other mothers together in attempt for the city to budget $30,000 to add a children's wing to our town public library.
They built that wing.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Squinch
(51,135 posts)NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)They'd do better with an actual circus.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)intheflow
(28,540 posts)Hoo boy. Society is fucked.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)A bigger and better way to remind the few fans remaining that their team sucks.
Auggie
(31,275 posts)Disgusting
1monster
(11,012 posts)in return.
I'm glad I don't live in Duval County. The Jags are constantly getting upgrades to the stadium and they make the Duval taxpayers foot the bill. It's no wonder that Jacksonville's enthusiasm for the Jags went from wildly welcoming to the eye rolling they elicit today.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)Question 1: Jacksonville Florida has a football team? really? Since when? Ignore televised sports for 30 years and this happens...
Question 2: Why doesn't the owner of the team or the owners of the park pay for the giant TV? Won't they be the ones benefiting from it existence?
Question 3: How much voltage was applied to Shad Khan to achieve that hair style?
Question 4: Why attack the Library? If the leaders of a community can't tell the difference between a historically long standing traditional community institution and a money pit; Then I say, the first place to cut to find monies to do stupid projects is the salaries, benefits, and political treasuries of public officials and parties.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Let these billionaires pay for their own damned stadiums and improvements. If they don't like it, they can build another stadium somewhere else. They'll just return, hat in hand asking for more in a few years.
I've been to Jacksonville Stadium a few times, and even though they take whole sections out of circulation, covered by tarps, the can't come anywhere near filling the place. And then the locals who paid for the fucking thing, still can't watch it on TV.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)emmadoggy
(2,142 posts)this country are so fucked up.
Lochloosa
(16,107 posts)I don't agree with what I'm about to post but it is the facts.
The new owner, Shad Khan, is putting up the first 20 million. The rest is coming out of a special fund derived from a tax on hotels rooms.
By law, this tax cannot be spent on anything but capital improvements in the city. No funding of libraries, salaries etc.
If the construction budget goes over the estimated 63 million, Khan is on the hook for it.
It will provide a lot of jobs for the renovations.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)Cut the pensions of the fire and police, close libraries, close fire stations, but somehow find a way to make sure that the shitty football team gets a fancy scoreboard. I wonder if at least the city got assurances from Khan that he won't move the team for a few years.
If the city gave a shit, they'd find the libraries, pensions, and fire stations. They really care about kissing the ass of a rich guy in the hopes that his football team (which sucks) will put the city on the map.
Lochloosa
(16,107 posts)Taxing First Baptist downtown property would go a long way to paying for all of those. IMO.
Uncle Joe
(58,706 posts)Thanks for the thread, NightWatcher.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)This should help to dumb down the kids in Jacksonville.
ctsnowman
(1,903 posts)building stadiums for billionaires to employ millionaires who play a game.