When you’re broke and can’t afford to pay for food, do you slap down your credit card to pay for a vacation and a night on the town? That is exactly what the Board of Public Works voted last week to do, with the notable exception of Comptroller Peter Franchot.
Treasurer Nancy Kopp and Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, standing in for Gov. Martin O’Malley, voted to let the Maryland Stadium Authority forgive $444,274 in unpaid rent by Sports Legends at Camden Yards and to cut its rent by more than $20,000 each month to about $10,000.
They also voted to approve $8 million in taxpayer aid for the perpetually money-losing Rocky Gap State Park to stave off foreclosure. This is a property, a project of the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, that never was supposed to become the responsibility of state taxpayers. We wonder how much more we will be on the hook if slots fail to revive the resort’s fortunes.
The MSA is an agency charged with finding ways to make money for the state. But it is not very good at its job. As the Daily Record reported recently, Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, located with Sports Legends in Camden Station, owed the MSA over $600,000 in back rent as of the beginning of October and is scheduled to pay off outstanding debt in installments at the end of this month and December. This follows the MSA dropping a claim against the Orioles last October for $1.5 million in back due rent. Its 2007 annual report shows its operating expenses are more than $10 million more than its revenues. Great business partner, eh?
At a time when state revenue collections are declining, must taxpayers be forced to subsidize entertainment venues and resorts we didn’t want to go to in good times? Tell us, Treasurer Kopp and Lt. Gov. Brown, why these two venues are more important than ensuring our roads are paved and children educated? What criteria make them qualify to take money from state taxpayers?
Comptroller Franchot was right to question both projects. Legislators can right this wrong by voting to dissolve the MSA when they return next year. It outlived its mission to secure a National Football League team for Baltimore and sign a long-term lease with the Orioles a long time ago. Legislators must also force Rocky Gap to pay for itself or fail. We must not be asked to pay for mistakes — in good times or bad.
