Open letter to city of Austin from AutoWeek editor, re F1, run away!

[jobert]

Originally Posted by gpurcell

Why do people insist on perseverating on this "$25 million a year."

The issue is that this 25MM would normally be used to reimburse municipalities for police, traffic control, EMS, cleanup, etc. for any other event such as a Superbowl. In the Austin/F1 case, it's being paid directly to Ecclestone, leaving Austin on the hook for everything outside property line of the track, without a dime of that 25MM going to pay for it, and that doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

As much as I would love to see this built in not only Austin, but in my part of town, the best interests of Austin need to come first. I've had a real change of heart since reading that letter and critically thinking about the whole arrangement. There needs to be more concessions for this to be palatable.

Originally Posted by gpurcell

It's not coming out of Austin's hide

Part of it is, just not most of it...overall a neglegible amount.

Originally Posted by gpurcell

if we don't get it it will go to another city in Texas.

It will go to another city in Texas to pay local policemen, garbagemen, EMS workers who have mortgages and families.. in the F1 case, it will be deposited into the savings account of one Mr. Ecclestone somewhere on the other side of the world.

I'm experiencing bit of cognative dissonance about this as I'm sure others in this town are, too. I want the track and it's events for the direct and indirect benefit it will bring to Austin, but I'm having moral objections to how we are going about procuring it.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by cBach

Why such the dip in December? I would think some snowbirds would want to escape the northern winter down here?

Christmas, Thanksgiving.. I guess people are more inclined to stay with relatives. Notice how the downtown occupancy rates dip the most in Dec. - there's no events that month, and they don't need to be where the "action" is because there isn't any... if given the choice, they would just as soon stay at some place like the Omni and save money for Christmas shopping.

[Pontificator]

Just wanna know if the track would be sustainable.

[ImOnFiya]

Originally Posted by jobert

In the Austin/F1 case, it's being paid directly to Ecclestone, leaving Austin on the hook for everything outside property line of the track, without a dime of that 25MM going to pay for it, and that doesn't sit well with a lot of people.

As much as I would love to see this built in not only Austin, but in my part of town, the best interests of Austin need to come first. I've had a real change of heart since reading that letter and critically thinking about the whole arrangement. There needs to be more concessions for this to be palatable.

To clarify, the Austin City Council is delaying signing the waiver with F1 to double-check the current agreement to ensure that there no loopholes in which Austin would be liable to pay the 25 million.

Repeat: The current agreement on the table does not have any known loopholes that would leave Austin liable. City attorneys did say there were possible wording 'clarifications' needed.

[atxcio]

Originally Posted by jobert

It will go to another city in Texas to pay local policemen, garbagemen, EMS workers who have mortgages and families.. in the F1 case, it will be deposited into the savings account of one Mr. Ecclestone somewhere on the other side of the world.

That's not completely right. Here's an assessment of the $31M METF payout for the Superbowl this year:

State fund to help pay for Super Bowl expenses | Super Bowl XLV News - Sports News for Dallas, Texas - SportsDayDFW

The cities will be reimbursed from the fund to cover their security costs, which Lively estimates will be $5 million to $6 million. From the remaining money, the host committee will get reimbursed for some of its $39 million budget.
“No parties. No frivolous stuff,” Lively said. “It’s lots of stuff you have to do to bring the game here.”
Lively has confirmed that about one-fourth of the host committee’s budget will go to the NFL to cover the admissions tax on game tickets, which goes toward paying off Arlington’s bonds for the construction of Cowboys Stadium.

Basically, some portion goes to city expense reimbursement. But the majority of the money goes to the host committee's expenses... which in the superbowl case involves money that was paid to the NFL. In Formula 1, the major expense is the sanctioning fee -- which itself does cover quite a lot of stuff, since they bring the whole production to town for you. All of the TV production, lots of race employees and equipment, some travel costs, etc, are covered by Formula 1 (or the teams, which get money from F1 and sponsors). They don't let the individual race promotors/hosts do the TV or really any of the event production. I'm sure the total cost of those expenses are not close to $25M worth, but it is somewhat of an "all inclusive" situation from what I understand.

[tfresca]

Its okay to bail out a company BEFORE it gets in trouble but not after, okay. I think the crux of this is that this thing could end up being a white elephant.

[ImOnFiya]

Originally Posted by tfresca

Its okay to bail out a company BEFORE it gets in trouble but not after, okay. I think the crux of this is that this thing could end up being a white elephant.

For the state of Texas, yes. The Austin City Council and city attorneys are making sure the city will carry no liability on this waiver to the state.