Sabre Ally
01-06-2003, 07:56 PM
Hammering of Hamister is perplexing
1/6/2003
By DONN ESMONDE
Maybe the best thing Mark Hamister could do is change his name to Ralph Wilson.
Five years ago, the Bills owner got everything from taxpayers save the keys to our cars in a deal to keep the Bills here.
It was a $124 million package for a team that plays in an isolated suburban stadium that's empty 350 days a year. Yet county taxpayers will spend $2.4 million this year alone on renovations - on the heels of a $62 million face lift - for an owner who reportedly pockets $11 million a year.
Some folks grumbled, this columnist among them, but people let Wilson feast at the subsidy trough without much fuss.
Hamister comes along and wants a quarter of what Wilson got, most of it in loan refinancing. He doesn't want it to buy the debt-heavy team in a shaky league but to prop up a $120 million downtown arena taxpayers invested $55 million in. He apologized weeks ago for not being more clear, earlier, about the need for outside help.
Full Story (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20030106/1034284.asp)
1/6/2003
By DONN ESMONDE
Maybe the best thing Mark Hamister could do is change his name to Ralph Wilson.
Five years ago, the Bills owner got everything from taxpayers save the keys to our cars in a deal to keep the Bills here.
It was a $124 million package for a team that plays in an isolated suburban stadium that's empty 350 days a year. Yet county taxpayers will spend $2.4 million this year alone on renovations - on the heels of a $62 million face lift - for an owner who reportedly pockets $11 million a year.
Some folks grumbled, this columnist among them, but people let Wilson feast at the subsidy trough without much fuss.
Hamister comes along and wants a quarter of what Wilson got, most of it in loan refinancing. He doesn't want it to buy the debt-heavy team in a shaky league but to prop up a $120 million downtown arena taxpayers invested $55 million in. He apologized weeks ago for not being more clear, earlier, about the need for outside help.
Full Story (http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20030106/1034284.asp)