Comments about Michael LaFaive of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy - ignorant comments, about Tiger Stadium - federal funding - David Malhalab ***********************************************************************************
I do not appreciate you calling supporters of a restored Navin Field or those who understand the meaning that the stadium carries in the historic fabric of the City and the State thief's. It is both classless and unprofessional but I have come to expect such from most every individual who feels the need to put in his/her 2 cents yet never contributed a second of research to back their opinion.
I'm sorry John Gallagher chose to contact your organization for comment but then I've already given him my opinion of his story. Since my family and I have contributed nearly $500,000 dollars over the past decade to better educate the public on the stadium issue as it really was and try to assist the City of Detroit with making the best out of Tiger Stadium you can see why I resent your treatment towards people trying to create a positive out of a negative.
It is 110% true that the ILITCH family the City of Detroit and the DEGC have been no help working with those that had money to spend on the stadium. All this is fact which you could have concluded had you put in the effort. The Conservancy having raised nearly $400,000 through public contributions since last summer should be praised not shot down.As my mother former Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Dorothy Comstock Riley used to say if you cant set the record straight then you need to get your facts.
The $3.8 million is about helping Corktown and improving the quality of life for Detroit's oldest neighborhood......now how can you do that without a plan. Coming with it is another $11 million dollars that the City of Detroit can use......money that with a corrupt City Government running amuck as I write never would have gotten on there own.
So you best a say a big "thank you" to the Senator from all of us locals. If I were you I would stick to the problems in Lansing and leave the ballpark to me. When I write about the subject I never write in crayon but rather in black and white.
Respectfully,Peter Comstock Riley
Founder & PresidentMichigan & Trumbull,
LLC.2200 Trumbull AvenueDetroit, Michigan 48216
http://www.preservetigerstadium.com/ ************************************************************************************************************8 From: Reed, Lawrence W. To: DAVID7750@aol.comCc: PETERRILEYGPM@aol.com; LexiconSvs@aol.com; daleatkinson@msn.com; dsokolowski@charter.net; demesrey@yahoo.com; jgallagher@freepress.com; LAGUILAR@DETNEWS.COM; djosar@detnews.com; JKURTH@DETNEWS.COM; nrubin@detnews.com; DCHOWES@DETNEWS.COM; VBTHOMAS@CBS.COMSent: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 8:26 pm
Saying this federal handout would “create jobs” is naïve. If a
thief goes door to door in a neighborhood grabbing all the loot he can get his hands on and then goes and spends it at the local shopping mall, I suppose you would only focus on what his spending does for the shops in the mail and never think about=2what would have happened if the thief hadn’t stolen the money in the first place.
So government magically creates wealth just by spending it?This is pre-school economics, not rational or adult thought. I’m surprised you don’t write your e-mails in crayon.
Lawrence W. Reed
President Foundation for Economic Education
Mackinac Center for PublicPolicy
30 S. BroadwayIrvington, NY 10533
Phone: 914-591-7230 Fax: 914-591-8910
Web:
http://www.fee.org/Personnel [Mackinac Center for Public Policy *************************************************************************************************************** From baseball's - 'the lady in blue'......
The important thing here, Dave, is to bring out the fact that the "precious money" doesn't go into some safe deposit box marked "Tiger Stadium." It pays the LOCAL people who will do the restoration work. It helps contractors and builders pay their employees, helps those employees put their kids through school, pay their medical bills, pay their mortgages...I could go on and on. We want people to earn that money by working on the stadium.
LaFaive, whoever he is, probably would prefer to put them on the dole and give it to them directly. Now you tell me which approach really helps the economy and the city of Detroit, and which approach has long-term value.
Karen Elizabeth Bush ---------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Reed,
I tend to ignore
bombast as a general rule, but the charm and overwhelming tact of your last communication deserve considered response.
For the record, I am a political conservative, a devout capitalist, and I am the first person to scream that there is no such thing as a free lunch. We will all pay -- dearly -- for the well-meaning naivete (your word) of our president and of Socialists everywhere.
However, to be so myopic as to dismiss good because it comes out of a larger evil is not just naive -- it falls in the category of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Tiger Stadium -- or, more properly, Navin Field -- is at this point probably worth not much more than the cost of its remaining demolition. In case you hadn't noticed, prices are down, including those of scrap.
The land under Tiger Stadium possibly could be attractive to builders sometime in the next millenium, but, for the nonce, it is absolutely worthless.The city hopes to "attract a developer." Perhaps it can choose one from the organizations queing up to redevelop the train station or the land where the Statler and Tuller once stood.
Perhaps Bobby Ferguson could suggest a name or so, or, failing that, I'm sure that Bernard Kilpatrick knows somebody who could fake it and make the city look good for a nanosecond or so.However, instead of being faced with the inevitable creation of one more very expensive parking lot, we offered an opportunity to create something good -- to let one small part of much-maligned Detroit rise like Phoenix out of the ashes.
We live in a nation determined to deny its own culture and, to a degree, its own history. In a world where whole societies derive a sense of place and identity by reveling in the cultural heritage bequeathed by preceding generations, America stands almost alone in its contempt for anything that does not have immediate (and usually commercial) significance.
Baseball is part of America's social history, a sport that reinvents itself each generation to match popular culture. Even the changing architecture of baseball stadia is a commentary both on structural advance and decline and on public expectation. The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum rightly terms one its traveling exhibits, "Baseball as America."
We have in Detroit -- a city so often justifiably criticized -- a unique opportunity to preserve a small portion of the entire nation's heritage in a way that can ensure a local revenue flow from property otherwise destined to be part of an urban prairie. (Yes, that revenue flow is assured -- both from actual facility use, and from spinoff custom of area restaurants and -- in the case of youth tournaments -- hotels.)
It will take money to effect preservation, but it is important to realize that the money will not be squirreled away in some bank account, idle revenue from sale of an expensive ticket to nostalgia. The money is, deny it how you may, going to be paid to various businesses contracted to do restoration work. In short, it will be pumped directly into the state's struggling economy.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (and Herbert Hoover before him) looked to public works as an ideal way to utilize federal "stimulus" money -- ideal because construction of roads, dams, parks, and the like created jobs during their construction and provided ongoing benefit to the people who would use the facilities so constructed.
We are offered $3.8 million that would otherwise be redirected in incentive-destroying quasi-Marxist giveaways.We will use that money to help restore the original segment of a beloved public landmark, and then go on to use that restored landmark as a vehicle for instruction, entertainment, youth enrichment, and -- frankly -- as a much-needed tourist attraction.
This represents an chance that only the most inflexible, narrow-minded, and otherwise limited of individuals would eschew.
Karen Elizabeth Bush
http://www.lexiconsvs.com/ *************************************************************************************************************** hello mr.reed
You arent looking at the broader picture....that this project will create jobs...and take a abandon piece of history and restore it....so that it will produce revenue that flows back to the city, state andnation......
LaFaive should have kept silent...or know the facts first...he hasnt the slightest idea about the issues about tiger stadium......... David L. Malhalab ...................................
MCPP members,
Michael Lafaive, should not to make statements that make your organization (Mackinac Center for Public Policy - look, sound and appear ignorant, about historic Tiger Stadium.
"It's not only irresponsible to redirect these precious resources to saving Tiger Stadium," he said, "it's unfair to everyone with no voluntary connection to the stadium whatsoever. And that comes in the form of people who don't like baseball, people who don't go to the city of Detroit, people who have no desire to see what remains of the old stadium because of this rescue." free press 2/27/09.
If the City of Detroit, the DEGC and Mike Ilitch had not conspired to abandon and denigrate historic Detroit Tiger Stadium it would be a revenue producing entertainment center today and since 1999. Ilitch has taken $2-$12 million dollars, since 1999 to maintain and secure Tiger Stadium - tax payer dollars - a billionaire...He has failed to maintain and secure the Stadium and maybe under FBI investigation.
Members of the DEGC lied before members of the Detroit Planning Commission, which knew, that they were lying and rejected their proposal to demolish Tiger Stadium.
A member of the DEGC lied to the Corktown Citizens Council - telling them that Tiger Stadium was to dangerous for them to tour and make an evaluation themselves.
100,000,000 (100 million) people have come to Tiger Stadium over the years, and would come today -
as they do to Lambeau Field and Fenway Park and the Field of Dreams (IA) to see and be a part of history.
Tiger Stadium is viable...It is historic, and it can be a revenue producing tourist attraction - had not those like LaFaive, taking a wrong headed and ignorant view of the Stadium.
David Malhalab, Detroit, Mi
David7750@AOL.COMMoney pitched at Tiger Stadium; group needs more Freep.com Detroit Free Press - read the story that started this discussion....click line above
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Reed Lawrence is comparing us to thieves because of the earmark, and that's exactly how I took it!
This is wrong! The earmark for the stadium came into the picture long before the latest economic down swing. Would Lawrence be making the same comments regarding the earmark if the economy was in an upswing???
Regardless, he's not going to be convinced the $3.8 million reserved for the stadium is the right thing to do. Thank God this is America and not everyone shares in his views... at least I hope not. Dale
