Political Quotes

“during the 25 years that I have been privileged to work with communities across the country to help make them more livable, nothing has captured the imagination of the ordinary citizen more strongly than suggesting that our communities no longer be held hostage to the whims of billionaire sports team owners. The fact today is that a few dozen of America's richest people can decide for any reason at all that they are not making enough money, or they think they could make more money, or that they do not like the color of the stadium, or that perhaps they could squeeze more from the fans where they are by offering up the possibility that their team will be relocated somewhere else, perhaps to a town that some other owner has abandoned. The bidding war with threats, implied or explicit, for taxpayers and fans to cough up millions more in subsidies to a franchise is a fact of life for fans in more than half of America's metropolitan areas. It has been a sad spectacle that started in the 1950s when the profitable Brooklyn Dodgers and their compatriots, the New York Giants, both baseball teams, left for greener pastures in California. This has triggered a parade of franchise relocation, many times not because of a lack of fan support or financial support but simply because the owners felt they could get a better deal elsewhere.”