sticker shock
JohnAl Austin and local Republican fundraisers have been fighting for Tampa to host the Republican National Convention for several years now — failing to win the 2004 RNC (coming in second to New York) and now trying again to win hosting rights for the 2008 convention.
This week the Tampa Tribune had to sue in order to get access to the details of Tampa’s bid for the Convention. The host committee relented and allowed the public to review the bid for themselves.
…Which allowed city officials to find themselves on the books for 12 times the amount of money they had vowed to spend for the convention. That’s right - a one million dollar vow turned into a $12.7 million dollar tab.
Even though the average citizen won’t see any direct benefit, along with the likelyhood of major traffic and the possiblity of major civic disruptions, the RNC would be a boon for the local economy on both sides of the bay. Still, that does not excuse organizers for intentionally falsifying the amount of money the City of Tampa is expected to contribute to throw this partisan party.
If organizers believed this is worth almost $13M from the City, they should have been up front about it with the Mayor from the start.
Tags: citizens, city, marketing, politics, tampa
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June 7th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
I think they knew her rep of being tight-fisted. Not a fault mind you but I’ll bet her kids (does she have any?) always asked dad for money in her house.
June 7th, 2006 at 6:34 pm
Typical. Just typical.
June 7th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
I’m more concerned with his assertion that protestors are terrorists and that the MacDill fighting men and women could be called in to quell some kind of rebellion.
June 7th, 2006 at 11:31 pm
If it’s gonna be such an economic boon, why did Orlando and Miami both turn it down?
June 8th, 2006 at 12:18 am
The mere fact that the local committee can’t even get it’s math straight should be enough to strike Tampa off the RNC list. It was already bad enough they were going to hold the convention in an arena named for a liberal paper. I’m willing to bet the 2008 GOP nominee will be introduced in Cleveland.
June 8th, 2006 at 9:25 am
I have trouble with this, because I don’t see it as much of an economic boom as they are claiming. I mean, wasn’t there a story somewhere recently that kind of made the claim that Super Bowls don’t have anywhere near the kind of economic impact that is claimed? If a Super Bowl can’t do it, how can a bunch of politicans do it?
And do I really need to go to Busch Gardens and have a one-sided history lesson, no matter who is benefitting from it?
June 15th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
[...] Alright, so it is not exactly the Super Bowl. Or the Stanley Cup. Or maybe even the Arena Bowl. Or when the Devil Rays win from time to time. Still it’s at least nice to see the $1 million $12.7 million dollars we spent on the bid are producing some results. This means we were at least able to outshine a lot of other competition to now stand as one of the best four bids, right? [...]
September 27th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
[...] Yet, the local media demanded a little light shed on the the local bid for the convention, and what was uncovered was more money expected from the city of Tampa than promised. While the area had a very strong bid, the money-conflicts could easily be looked at as what broke the camels back. [...]