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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
10:31 pm on Saturday, February 9, 2013
JT, 4% is less than the going rate for a 15 year mortgage.
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
3:16 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013
ReplyHere is a novel idea for paying for the hockey arena. Get a loan and pay it back with ice fees. Assume it costs $2 million, which is a fairly good number for a small rink. Assume the hockey association wants to pay for the rink in 15 years and can get a 4% interest rate. Using an online mortgage calculator, the monthly payment would be $14793.76. (It would be $9548.31 if the term was 30 years.)
There are 720 hours per month. Assuming 50% usage, that means 360 hours of billable ice time. Divide $14793.76 by 360 hours and you have $41.09 per hour. Divide that by 20 players on a team and the cost to the players is $2.05 per player per hour. I think they can handle it. (If that is too much, a 30 year option results in a cost of $1.33 per player per hour.)
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
12:53 pm on Friday, February 8, 2013
Robin, we all understand hockey is expensive, primarily because an indoor ice arena is very expensive to build and maintain. However, why does the fact that hockey is expensive and ice times difficult to get give anyone the right to force their neighbor to pay for it? What portion of my or anyone else's income do you feel entitled to take?
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
9:59 am on Friday, February 8, 2013
You are correct. We all subsidize many things that only a fraction of the population use. I am in favor of transferring the cost of those services and facilities to the users of those services and facilities as well. The City of St. Michael operating costs over the last couple years for things like the soccer and baseball fields, minus the contributions from the various clubs, has cost the city approximately $5,000 a year for each. The Senior Center gets approximately $80,000 per year. (This is quite out of balance given there are far many more kids and adults using the sports facilities than there are seniors using the Senior Center, but that is beside the point.) In all these cases, the costs of these facilities should be paid for by the people that use them. Note these numbers do not include capital costs, which are very high for an ice arena.
Your argument of the arena bringing in business doesn't hold water because the increased taxes to pay for such arenas also drive away businesses and makes all of our pockets a little lighter. You may be able to point to some extra hotel stays and restaurant visits on the plus side; but you can't quantify how many businesses stay away, don't expand, or don't hire and local people that go out to dinner less because of these taxes. Anytime people argue for some big new arena or community center, they always point to the seen, but they always discount and ignore the unseen.
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
9:58 am on Friday, February 8, 2013
You are correct. We all subsidize many things that only a fraction of the population use. I am in favor of transferring the cost of those services and facilities to the users of those services and facilities as well. The City of St. Michael operating costs over the last couple years for things like the soccer and baseball fields as well as the arena, minus the contributions from the various clubs, has cost the city approximately $5,000 a year for each. The Senior Center gets approximately $80,000 per year. (This is quite out of balance given there are far many more kids and adults using the sports facilities than there are seniors using the Senior Center, but that is beside the point.) In all these cases, the costs of these facilities should be paid for by the people that use them. Note these numbers do not include capital costs, which are very high for an ice arena.
Your argument of the arena bringing in business doesn't hold water because the increased taxes to pay for such arenas also drive away businesses and makes all of our pockets a little lighter. You may be able to point to some extra hotel stays and restaurant visits on the plus side; but you can't quantify how many businesses stay away, don't expand, or don't hire and local people that go out to dinner less because of these taxes. Anytime people argue for some big new arena or community center, they always point to the seen, but they always discount and ignore the unseen.
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board and Cities Approve $10,000 Contribution Each for Upkeep of Ice Arena
Eric
1:07 pm on Thursday, February 7, 2013
ReplyInstead of soaking the taxpayer to subsidize an expensive sport / hobby, how about increasing the ice time fees and setting aside a portion for capital repairs and maintenance or borrowing the money and paying it back with the increased fees? That is what responsible businesses and homeowners must do. This puts the cost of the arena on those who use the arena. This is the only fair way to pay for something that only a very small percentage of the entire community uses.
There are 8760 hours in a year. Assuming just 50% utilization, that means there are 4380 hours of available ice time. To raise the same $30,000, ice time fees would only need to increase by $6.85 per hour. For a team of 20 players, that is only 34 cents per hour per player. That is not a hardship. It's half that for a game because there are 40 players between both teams.
I don't buy the second sheet of ice being used as a community center. That is just an excuse to justify more taxpayer dollars subsidizing hockey. We already have multiple schools with large gyms and large auditoriums. We already have two city halls with small and large meeting rooms. We already have a Senior Center. We do not need another community center.
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On the article Gov. Dayton Proposes a Tax Overhaul: What Do You Think?
Eric
8:35 pm on Wednesday, January 23, 2013
ReplyIn the end, this is a net tax increase. The governor is just playing a shell game shuffling things around to try to confuse and hide what it is, more money for greedy government, less for those who earned it.
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On the article St. Michael-Albertville School Board Urges Legislative Action on Equitable School Funding: 'A Lost Cause Worth Fighting For'
Eric
10:42 pm on Tuesday, January 22, 2013
ReplyEquity is very important. There is no reason there should be so much difference in State funding. A kid is a kid. I can understand a small difference for special ed and districts like Minneapolis with lots of kids from poor households, but these inequities go far beyond that and the taxpayers of STMA are forced to make up the difference.
Rick is also correct that school spending has got to be put in check. I saw a report a few weeks ago that said on average in the US, taxpayers paid $75,000 per kid for his or her entire K-12 education (in 2009 dollars) for a 1980 graduate. That number has doubled to $150,000 for a 2009 graduate. Where is all this money going? That's a huge increase while on average national test scores have remained flat.
I do applaud our teachers and students for doing so well with relatively less. Let's export those ideas to the other districts.
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On the article What Are the Most Dangerous Intersections in Your Neighborhood?
Eric
2:11 pm on Tuesday, January 22, 2013
ReplySean is correct about seperate paths being more dangerous, especially when there are many side streets and driveways. Drivers do not pay attention to the sidewalk.
While I haven't ridden much in the last several years, I used to ride a lot. The only time I was ever in an accident was when I was on a sidewalk and a car pulled out without looking. Thankfully I saw it coming and was almost stopped, merely getting knocked over from barely hitting the side of the car.
The only other bike crash I witnessed was when a bus made a right turn in front of a bike on the sidewalk. The bike's front tire was destroyed and the rider lucky that his back pack slid up and got between his head and the pavement.
Eric
10:42 pm on Saturday, February 9, 2013
So it costs you $185 per hour to rent ice and if there are 20 kids, that is only $9.25 a kid. I pay more than that for my kid's dance classes (which use a 100% private facility with no taxpayer subsidies at all) and far more than that for my kid's swim class (also at a 100% private non-taxpayer subsidized pool). I think you can handle it. Even as stated earlier, if you paid for your own building via a loan, it would add only a couple bucks more to the per kid cost. Quit whining for more of my income. Pay for your own kids just like I pay for mine.