Charlotte approves moving forward on Panthers stadium deal (06-25-2024--Hour1)

[00:00:00] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily

[00:00:17] show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to the Pete Kaliner show.com and make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:29] So yesterday I spent a good, oh, four hours watching the Charlotte City Council meeting. So you didn't have to. You're welcome. I am a giver. I'm not going to give you the audio of the people that showed up in support or in opposition

[00:00:49] because let's face it, we all knew that this deal was going to get done, right? Somehow, some way it was going to happen. And the most that I could hope for is that the deal wouldn't be too terrible. And I think it checks that box.

[00:01:08] It's not too terrible. If you ignore the, you know, public funding for, you know, sports stadia, fine. Just ignore that as a principle. But if you've already agreed that you are willing to do that, well, now we're just negotiating on price, right? As the old axiom goes.

[00:01:29] So I'd say not too terrible of a deal so far. Now we don't have the contracts because that's not where we are in the process. They just started off with a terms sheet.

[00:01:47] And there are a lot of them, but it spells out the framework upon which the contract will be negotiated. I understand this as the process. The process that the city is embarking upon. And I'm fine with that.

[00:02:01] It's similar to, you know, other types of deals that occur where, I mean, the first thing you do is not draw up the contract. The first thing you do is you set some parameters and say, OK, I'm interested in entering into a deal with you.

[00:02:16] You're interested in entering into this deal with me. And we will agree. Like I'll put in this amount of money and you'll put in this amount of money. OK, shake on it. Cool. We'll have the lawyers drafted up. Right.

[00:02:29] So in other words, you have the terms that then inform the contract drift. And I'm fine with that process. Again, if you set aside the fundamental disagreement that these billionaires shouldn't be building their own stadium.

[00:02:47] Now here's the on the plus side is that the locations, in this case, the city of Charlotte wants to have an NFL team. And that's why it's not really a negotiation because the deal would have to be really, really, really bad.

[00:03:06] It would have to be too terrible for the city to well, I take that back. It would have to be beyond too terrible because too terrible is my standard. I suspect that the city leaders would agree with a deal that I found to be too terrible to accept.

[00:03:24] I think they still would agree to it. But beyond that, I don't know where I don't know how beyond too terrible it would have to be for them to say no, but it can happen. You can get to that point and you see it happen in other cities.

[00:03:40] So as much as people may not like to hear it, I will say that Tepper Sports and Entertainment, TSE is the company David Tepper's company here. They do seem to be a willing partner and they have been offering to partner with the city to keep the team here.

[00:04:02] And so that's a that's a positive, right? I mean, again, if you are ignoring the idea that we're using taxpayer money for a stadium, OK, and yes, it is taxpayer money. I understand it has to be spent on the convention center or on what did the

[00:04:19] rules say? The law says it's got to be on a facility for. Sixty thousand plus, so basically one facility, the money's got to get used for the convention center or one facility, and that is Bank of America Stadium. OK, so.

[00:04:42] The Charlotte City Council last night, there are two main things here. One is the deal, right? The terms and the debate about that. And then the other is I will call it the process, not the process that they have

[00:04:57] gone through to get the deal onto the table and in front of the city council. Which some council members have expressed reservations and concerns about it being they felt rushed because it popped up in early June and then boom, boom, boom.

[00:05:12] Here we are three weeks later and we got the vote to move forward. And there was concern. We went over this a couple of weeks ago at the rapidity of the of the of the process. But I'm not talking about that process.

[00:05:27] I'm talking about the process by which the vote was held last night. And the process matters when you're running a meeting. The process matters following Robert's rules, following the the normal standard way that you run meetings and stuff. That matters. And as proof, well.

[00:05:48] You'll hear it. What happens when you when you don't adhere to. Robert's rules, when when you kind of let things get away from you and that's that's on the mayor, she was running the meeting and what it came down to was that she

[00:06:04] allowed various well, first there was a there was a proposed amendment that came from Luana Mayfield, city council member Mayfield offered an amendment. She then said, well, don't I need a second for this? And the mayor short circuited that which she should not have.

[00:06:23] But she said, oh, well, I just we're just going to go around and everybody can say their their piece or whatever. Well, then. City council member Dimple Ajmera starts talking and she offers up a substitute motion. That's a different thing.

[00:06:38] So an amendment says you have your original motion and I would just like to make a change on that. And that was supposed to have been seconded. And then that should have been debated. Just her amendment. But that didn't happen. Then Dimple Ajmera makes a substitute motion, which.

[00:07:00] Uh huh. Yes, it's swaps out the original motion and substitutes another one in its stead. That should have been debated on its own. It was not. Instead, the mayor allowed all of the council members to go around the dais and

[00:07:20] give comments about the original motion, the original agenda item. And so when everybody went around the table and they all had their say, they then wanted to vote. And now there's a question or two, actually. Right. There's hey, what happened to Mayfield's amendment?

[00:07:43] Never got voted on. It never even got seconded because the mayor short circuited that process. And then the second one was about the substitute motion, which did get a vote. It went down. It did get a vote. But.

[00:07:56] Some of the members, particularly Dimple Ajmera, did not get to speak on the original motion because she offered a substitute motion. And once that happened, she what she didn't speak anymore. And when it when they were done going around the dais, she then wanted to speak on

[00:08:15] the original motion and they were like, you can't do that. See, that's a problem. That's why you got to handle the amendment first, the substitute second, and then you do the original. But that would have meant the meeting would have gone on beyond like

[00:08:28] 930 or so. And this was the last meeting before the summer recess. And I suspect just a lot of council members did not want to stick around because they knew that there were the votes. They knew this thing was going to pass and they didn't

[00:08:41] want to have to go over all of this stuff. You know, until 11 o'clock at night. And I get it, I do, I understand. It's a long day. This is the last meeting before the summer. You're ready to go.

[00:08:55] The votes are already there, you know it's going to pass. But what ends up happening is, well, what ended up happening, which is not a great look, not a great look when you are when you're chastising the owner of the team for his impetuousness and immaturity.

[00:09:18] It's probably not a good look to behave in an immature kind of impetuous way yourself. You know, it's like we demand that this be good faith negotiations. Shut up, I'm talking, you know, that kind of thing. It's like that's just it's not it's just not a great look.

[00:09:35] OK, if you're listening to this podcast, you are obviously paying attention to the world around us. You also have really great taste, I might add. But if you haven't started getting prepared for various emergencies, I got to ask, what

[00:09:47] are you waiting for? Please call my friends Bill and Jan at Carolina Readiness Supply and they'll help get you started. If you have no idea how to start, they can help you. If you're an experienced prepper, they can help you to being prepared is just smart.

[00:10:00] We've already established that you're smart. I mean, you listen to this podcast after all. So let's put those smarts into action. Go to Carolina readiness dot com. That's Carolina readiness dot com or call them at eight to eight to two six. Seventy two thirty nine.

[00:10:15] Carolina Readiness Supply has 2000 square feet of supplies as well as educational materials that you're going to need for any kind of emergency. Veteran owned Carolina Readiness Supply. Will you be ready when the lights go out? Let's start with some audio here.

[00:10:30] This is from Charlotte City Councilman Malcolm Graham. As I understand it, he's going to be joining Brett Jensen, breaking with Brett Jensen tonight at seven o'clock to chat about this. Malcolm Graham is the chair of Economic Development Committee on the city council, longtime Charlotte City Council member.

[00:10:44] And so he has been sort of leading this effort at the committee level on the city council, along with staff. But he he's the elected representative who has been at the forefront of this. The tip of the spear, if you will.

[00:10:59] Councilman Graham on the reports here that the deal sets the city on a course to build a new stadium in about 20 years. I'll explain a little bit more about this in a second. But first, here's Malcolm Graham.

[00:11:12] There's been talks about a new stadium all over the news over the last week. And I just want to remind everyone the language that's not established that there will be a new stadium in 2046. But acknowledge that the Bank of America Stadium will be 50 years old

[00:11:28] at the end of the current proposed agreement. And that the two parties will need to address that. It's also a protection measure for the city that established as soon as the two parties would begin those discussions

[00:11:39] and creates a forecast and a timeline for future city and staff ownership. A similar provision has been included in agreements with the Hornets related to the Spectrum Center renovation. And it's in common stipulation is stadium arena agreement. So it's aspirational.

[00:11:58] And we cannot find another council to what will happen in the future. All right, so that last part is key. This council cannot bind any future city council to a decision on whether or not to proceed with a new stadium.

[00:12:11] But it is putting it in the terms, not in the contract yet, but in the terms, because that's all they did last night, was the recognition that by the time this period expires, when we get to the end of the 15 years from now or the 20 years,

[00:12:26] depending on how long that goes. But as you approach the end, I think they want to start talking actually in like 2037 is the year that comes to my mind. That they have to have the ability to start talking about a new stadium

[00:12:39] because at that point, this stadium will be obsolete. It will need to be replaced. Not that they are committing to do so. And I think that's fair. Also, fair warning, if you don't like these types of deals and you're worried about the cost of a stadium in 2037,

[00:12:55] 15, 20 years down the road, you got plenty of time to list your house for sale. Okay, Charlotte City Council last night approving by a 7-3 vote to spend $650 million in tourism tax revenue, which comes from hotels and prepared food and beverages.

[00:13:16] So whenever you go out to eat, you pay the extra 1%. And that is what funds that tourism tranche, the tourism revenue. City Councilman Malcolm Graham said that they will have annual check-ins with TSE, Tepper Sports and Entertainment. They're going to have an annual check-in.

[00:13:41] So once a year, they'll have to kind of come and give an update to the City Council. He pointed out this is not the contract. The next step is contract development. So that'll happen by October based on the deal points that were approved last night.

[00:13:58] I do have the deal points here. I'll run through them as well. After the contract is drafted, council will get to vote on the financing of the deal then in November. And then the funding would become available to be paid directly to the contractors by March.

[00:14:18] First quarter, okay? City Councilwoman Dimple Ajmera said she did not feel comfortable approving the terms of the deal at this point. Many spoke to me about the flawed philosophy and policy which I share that allows wealth to be transferred

[00:14:36] from the poorest among us into the pockets of billionaires. However, this policy... Please, I asked at the beginning if we would allow the council people to speak. So thank you. However, this policy can be modified only by the state legislators and not by us.

[00:15:01] All three, this last group, probably the second most numerous is in the middle. They want to see the details of this deal. They want legal protections in place that my colleague, Council Member Mayfield, raised. Rightfully so, when you're dealing with a partner who sadly has a long history

[00:15:25] of not following through on his commitments. I was helpless in answering the concerns of this last group. Why? One, I don't have the details of the terms myself. True, we were invited to read it, but we were not provided a copy to study.

[00:15:51] And that's not the same thing at all. Two, I don't have a copy of the economic impact report. So important, we are talking about a billion dollar or more in economic impact. Three, I don't have a copy of the payment schedule which I've requested numerous times.

[00:16:18] However, as an elected official, I'm expected to cast my vote on the largest investment of public funds in Charlotte's history. A $650 million proposal without all facts before me. I just cannot do it. My conscience simply will not let me.

[00:16:41] All right, so she says she has not had the details provided to her so she can study it. She said that she had some sort of access, but she had no copy that she could basically take home and leak to the media. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding.

[00:17:00] I mean, she's not Joe Biden with a skiff or something like that, not taking documents. Okay, now she wanted the copies to study the details. She said she had no copy of the economic impact report that is being cited. She wanted to go over those details

[00:17:16] but she has not been provided that either and she has not been provided with the payment schedule. So she felt like she could not support it and honestly, fair points, right? I think fair points. If you don't feel comfortable voting for this because you don't feel like

[00:17:33] you've gotten enough information, okay. Now, Councilman Tariq Bakari said he has opposed publicly funded stadium deals because they have historically been bad deals for taxpayers but he said he does not believe that this is the case in Charlotte with this deal.

[00:17:51] You do have a second vote in the future. Oh my goodness, hang on a second. That's not Tariq Bakari. That's Assistant City Manager, Tracy Dodson, sorry. She laid out the timeline which seems to be what Ajmera was asking for. Let me re-rack this, sorry, I'm sorry.

[00:18:06] It's only 30 seconds, I'll play it again. You do have a second vote in the future. You will vote on the financing anticipated some point in this fall. The way we did it with the Hornets is we told you we would bring you back the documents

[00:18:18] before you voted on the financing so that you had them in hand and you could review them and you could see what was the final negotiation of the documents. So from tonight, vote on the terms. We would then work with everybody to execute

[00:18:34] or create the documents ready for execution. And then you would vote on the financing of it in the fall. All right, so that's the timeline. I think that makes sense. Here are the terms that we agree to. Let's craft the contracts based on that.

[00:18:48] And then we bring those back for final approval. All right, so now Tariq Bakari says that this Charlotte deal is different. And so that's why he supports it when he generally does not support these types of deals because they're bad for taxpayers.

[00:19:02] There aren't many conservatives, I might add, that are elected officials left here in Charlotte. But as your neighbors, we make up 20% of this community and you should know we take these decisions very seriously. And we set a very high bar for even considering topics like this.

[00:19:16] That's why I and many of my colleagues here proactively had working sessions in Tracy Dodson's office to get access to and perform diligence on all documentation that has been crafted and negotiated over the last many months, specifically including the negotiated and redline contracts

[00:19:35] that have been crafted by our legal and business teams together. And in its current state has zero unresolved issues in the red lines from our legal department, which align to the deal points in front of us all now. I'm thankful to my colleagues who cared enough

[00:19:50] to take advantage of this option to have a meeting of the minds that was open to us all. Oh, shots fired, shots fired. All right, so okay. Read between the lines here. He's talking about Dimple Ejmera. He's talking about some, I think also maybe Tijuana Brown,

[00:20:10] because she made some comments about not being ready to vote for this. And she had a lot of questions still about stuff. And just as an aside, by the way, she spends a lot of time kind of playing the poor me card.

[00:20:23] You know, like I got all this stuff going on and I'm trying to do all this work and people try to keep me down, all this stuff. Like just do your job. You already won the seat, you know? You've already won, you're there.

[00:20:36] Just do the work, you know? We don't need, you don't need to lament how much work you're doing. We all know it's, you know, you asked for the job. So if it's too much work, then say you're not gonna run for re-election because it's too much work.

[00:20:48] I don't know, anyway. So that clip there from Bokhari is a direct response, I think, to Ejmera. He's essentially criticizing her for her comments about not being fully informed of this stuff, but not then going to staff and not engaging to try to get answers to these questions.

[00:21:14] Now, I don't know if it's directly responsive just because she's saying she did not get copies. She wanted to study the copies. She wanted the details and she wanted time with them alone or whatever. And he's saying, look, you had the opportunity

[00:21:29] to get all of this stuff, to talk with the staff. I don't know if that meant that she would have been allowed to take some of this stuff home with her to review. I just don't know what that back room process looked like,

[00:21:41] but he's obviously making the point that there were opportunities for her to get informed and she did not avail herself of those opportunities. And I think that might have been what prompted some of the nastiness that erupted later on in the meeting.

[00:22:00] Alrighty, so Charlotte City Councilman Tarek Bakhari going over the deal and his support of it with the Panthers to renovate the stadium over the course of the next few years here. He says that we should look at the, we should picture this in three phases.

[00:22:20] Okay, that's how you need to think of this work. It's gonna be done in three phases and he outlines them here. The foundation is number one, from 2018 to today, TSE has invested 125 million and expanded the economic impact of the stadium from 600 million to 1.2 billion annually.

[00:22:40] Second is the expansion phase. As we now embark on phase two for the next five years, the city will invest 650 million on a specific and defined list of assets while TSE invests 150 million. And that's all followed by the third phase from 2029 to 2045, which I'm just referring to

[00:23:00] as completion and growth, where TSE will invest $421 million on three things and they will invest all of that money based on the contract that's been negotiated, building things they didn't get to in phase two, maintaining things that they did get to, and operations.

[00:23:18] I've articulated my desire to see a spirit of additional weighting placed on CapEx opposed to OpEx in that final phase, but that is the art of the deal. It has to occur still. Okay, so he's looking at it, right, three phase. I know, honestly, the first phase,

[00:23:32] that did give me a little bit of comfort in this deal in that, in hearing the interview with the former executive from the Miami Marlins and he talked about this deal and he said, you know, Tepper needs to put up money first.

[00:23:47] So this would seem to satisfy that in that the Panthers have already pitched in $150 million going back to 2018 to do some retrofits and renovations in the stadium. So they're gonna count that towards this, I mean, Boccari is, he's counting that towards this sort of overall deal

[00:24:06] that TSE has already put money in to try to improve the stadium already. So I was not aware of that, so that was some good information too. Going to the terms of the deal, and by the way, you can find this, it's in the city council's agenda packet,

[00:24:22] it's item number 11, and the terms are outlined in the packet. And there are a great many of them, project timing, they say the stadium work in 2025 is to start, it's expected to complete the stadium work in 2029. There's the field house, which I believe is like,

[00:24:41] what, the practice facility? The field house work commences in late 24, so the end of this year and early 25, it's expected to be done in 2026. On the funding side, the city is gonna contribute $650 million towards the renovation and development of certain defined areas within the project

[00:25:00] as an example of, but not limited to, field house construction, repair and replacement of existing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing infrastructure, updates to the bowl seating, vertical transportation improvements, I believe those would be called elevators, maybe, modernization of safety and security equipment,

[00:25:20] updating of team locker rooms and operational space, and that is, by the way, that's a pretty big one, because if your facility has crappy locker rooms and quote, operational, or yeah, operational space, then players don't wanna go there, right? When you, they don't wanna play for a team

[00:25:40] if the locker rooms are shambles and there's no good training equipment and that kind of stuff. Addition of new spectator viewing areas, updating of restroom facilities. Ooh, could we get one of those things like they put in the urinal where it broadcasts onto the Jumbotron screen?

[00:25:58] It's like a video game inside the, have you heard this? They're doing some of this in order to keep, especially in the men's room, it makes the dudes want to hit targets, if you know what I mean, in the urinal,

[00:26:10] they have this little, they set them up like video, they got sensors in there, and then it's like on the screen, it looks like a car racing on the screen, and everybody can watch the car dodging things. Anyway, nevermind, just an idea, I'm just spitballing here, okay.

[00:26:25] Elevated exterior facade, all of which would be owned by the city and then leased to the stadium company, Stadco, I think is the name. The project will be completed in several phases and draw schedules for city funding and will align with the construction schedules for each phase.

[00:26:42] Okay, so that's the funding component. Let's see here, what else do we got? I mean, like I said, there's like three pages of terms here. I'm not going to go over all of them. Payments to the contractors, right, they're paid directly to companies doing the work.

[00:27:00] TSE funding starting in 25, they'll contribute a minimum of 150 million towards the renovation and development of areas of the stadium facility that are on either the city mandated list or the city slash owner elected list or the owner elected list. So there are three different lists that they've created.

[00:27:20] One is the stuff that the city is mandating, that's the first list. The second list are the sort of the want to haves, right? So the first list is the need to have, the second list is the want to have,

[00:27:33] whether that's the city wants it or the owner wants it, those are the want to haves. And then there's the third list that is the owners want to have list, right? So you got three different lists and the city money goes to the first list.

[00:27:51] Any cost overruns borne by the owner. Funding will be expended by the year 2029. It'll contribute proportionately as city funds are contributed, the owner will. They may use up to 75 million to fund the cost overruns on city mandated and funded projects, they will.

[00:28:10] Any of the 75 million not used for cost overruns can then be used on any of the lists. Does that make sense? Those are the terms of the deal, the basic terms of the deal. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:28:27] I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepeatcalendarshow.com.

[00:28:40] Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.