FIRST IN A SERIES: MILLIONS MORE OF TAXPAYER $$$ IN "OFF-SITE" IMPROVEMENTS IN SUPPORT OF HOF-VP?

SOMEONE HAS SUGGESTED

(DEEMED NOT PRACTICAL DUE TO  ESTIMATED COST OF $500 MILLION)

TUNNELING I-77 IN THE AREA OF THE HOF-VP

Pictured above is just one aspect of planning for major infrastructure improvements/additions in support of, at taxpayer expense, the Professional Football Hall of Fame (PFHOF, HOF-VP, HOF) village expansion project.

Last Thursday night (January 24, 2019) at the Stark County District Library the Stark County Area Transportation Study (SCATS) office of the Stark County Regional Planning Commission (SCRPC).  It was the third of "meet with the public for input" session on contemplated PFHOF infrasture additions/improvements, the first of which occurred on March 20, 2018.

This project is a study of 'outside the HOF property itself' footprint as it impacts the HOF-VP itself to be able to handle, if the HOF-VP is completely built and increases its current approximately 300,000 visitors a year to a projected 3 million visitors.

The highlight of the Thursday past meeting was the incisive questioning of North Canton civic activist Chuck Osborne.  As North Canton government officials can vouch for:  Osborne can make the recipients of his questions "quite uncomfortable.  The likes of Osborne are a potent check on government at all levels of government.

Osborne's focus-which also the focus of The Stark County Political Report-is his questioning of Consultant Bryan Newell (of Gannett Fleming) was on the cost of the tiered scenarios of infrastructure building/improvement (depending on static or increased attendance at the PFHOF going forward)

This blogger is in Hawaii and will be for more than another month and obviously could not attend the January 24th meeting.

There can be little doubt that whatever infrastructure improvements are undertaken, the cost to Federal/Ohio and Stark County taxpayers could be staggering in terms of millions upon millions of dollars.

Here is a SCPR extract of Osborne's video (Link to the entire video)



And here are links to portable document files (pdf) which outline

1. Request for Qualifications (RFQ) HOF Land Use Planning, August. 2017
2. Hall of Fame Land Use & Transportation Study
3. Hall of Fame Land Use & Transportation Study - another version
4. SCRPC/SCATS Application Summary2017/18 EDC-4 Round ODOT State Transportation Incentive Council Grant
5. Hall of Fame Land Use & Transportation StudyPublic Forum 1, March 20, 2018, McKinley High School
6. Hall of Fame Village Public Forum #2, June 12, 2018, Timken/McKinley High School
7. Hall of Fame Village Public Forum #3, January 24, 2019, Stark County District Library (Main Branch)

From the RFQ:

Project Description

The Stark County Transportation Study (SCATS), through the Stark County Regional Planning Commission (SCRPC), is issuing a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) for the completion of a targeted Land Use/Transportation Study to supplement an overall Comprehensive Land Use Plan and Long Range Transportation Plan. The targeted study area will encompass an area surrounding the Professional Football Hall of Fame Village development project in central Stark County. The study area will include portions of Stark County and the City of Canton.

The study is part of the Federal Highway Administration Every Day Counts (EDC) InnovationInitiative and will be funded in part with a State Transportation Innovation Council (STIC) grant
and other funds.

An outcome of the study will include the development of a decision matrix tool that will be utilized to identify solutions to anticipated traffic flow difficulties in the project area. This project also includes a “Community Connections” element to connect the Hall of Fame Village with downtown Canton and adjoining neighborhoods to improve quality of life, access to employment, and economic development. (emphasis added).

This blog is the first of a series in which the SCPR will endeavor to show that the minimizing talk of HOF officials on the cost of mostly Ohio and Stark County taxpayers direct and supportive (e.g. the study's projected new/improvement costs) prospective infusion of taxpayer money is much, much much more than C. David Baker et al will admit to.

Phase I of the multiphase building of the HOF-VP (the still incomplete Benson stadium) is at least at $139 million some of which has come from public monies which even Baker himself says will not end up being paid for by private investors because of the impossibility in our life times of breaking even on the costs of the stadium; let alone - realizing a ROI (return of investment).

Ohio/Stark County/Canton, Canton City schools, Plain Township schools taxpayers and other public entities in one form or another have already expended (including extensive legal fees) millions of dollars in the HOF-VP and HOF officials appear to be working to devise addition infusions of public money the fund what appears to be a totally unrealistic project in Canton, Ohio.

This series endeavors to supply to the taxpaying public an honest look at the cost of what HOF-VP are asking it to buy into.

Because Canton Repository publisher James (Jim to his family, friends and close associates and, undoubtedly to the likes of Baker, Lichter and Roger Goodell) appears to have a "sweetheart" relationships with those pushing the HOF-VP

• For example
• The Rep be the "official newspaper of the PFHOF,
• Porter being on the Board of Directors of the PFHOF, and
• Porter being the chairman of the Canton Regional Chamber of Commerce

the SCPR is of the opinion that at Porter's direction the taxpaying public gets only a "rose-colored" look at the true cost to the taxpaying public and therefore cannot be relied upon in the case of the HOF-VP on the part of the public to get the unvarnished truth on the details of the project.

By his own words (in yesterday's weekly column), the ethically conflicted Porter makes it clear that elected leaders and others who demonstrate an ability not to drink the Kool-Aid are the object of his scorn.  Apparently, he only values "whatever you say" for Porter, Baker, and Saunier et al and does not abide those who analyze thoughtfully and prudently and courageously disdain cheerleading.

Porter continues his journalistic assault on the "independent' minded.

Isn't strange for someone who exercises First Amendment rights for himself, belittles those who sees things differently that he does.

His words:

Support elected officials who support economic development, and hold accountable the few who, through their actions or lack of action, do not.

An example of a simple-mind journalist, no?

It goes without saying that everybody supports viable economic development and will scrutinize anybody who comes to Stark County with a Music Man mentality.

Jim Porter seems quite susceptible to such.

He is no Marian Paroo, to wit:

Marian is almost certainly smarter than the girls Hill has "befriended" in the past, and in her he sees something that he realizes is missing from his life. Thus, he does not take the next train, choosing to remain in River City even though he knows this means he'll be discovered as a musical charlatan.

Rather than castigate Marian types who effects a reform the con artist Harold Hill," Porter ought to welcome the scrutiny that might make an untenable situation tenable.

The HOF-VP in terms of dipping into the public coffers is quite a contrast to the reported "no cost" to the taxpaying public on the proposed new Los Angeles Rams stadium.

Of course, Los Angeles a venue that there is a user base that actually might provide a ROI for private investor.

But not so in Canton, Ohio for a nearly $1 billion projected cost of the HOF-VP.

If the HOF-VP was totally funded by the private sector like the Rams stadium, who would object.

Certainly, not the SCPR.

Even with public money in the HOF-VP the quest is two fold:

• chapter and verse accountability of how the public's money is spent, and
• the viability of the project in terms of the taxpayer getting a ROI

The Hall Fame folks hide behind the PFHOF (National Museum, Inc) being a "private" entity and by laws enacted during former Republican governor John Kasich are legally allowed to not to have to account for taxpayer dollars put in the HOF-VP.

Why would Stark County elected/appointed officials abide the secrecy?