$18 Million dollar stadium goes up while education budget goes down

Ok....., how about the Laredo Carpetbaggers??

On one side, you have the Laredo city council deciding (again) to go ahead with an $18million baseball park. On the other, glaring budget shortfalls facing both of our school districts. Why in the world wouldn't it make sense to scrap the plans for the baseball park and, ready for this?, help out our school districts instead.  I' m no expert at how the city and school districts can or cannot work together but my point is....why waste all those millions of dollars on a baseball park which was promised to us for less than  half its current price?

The much-talked about Pony league tournaments are not reason enough to proceed with this ill-conceived baseball park. Neither are the sentiments in the letter that councilman Rendon read out loud. I'm referring to a letter from dedicated UHS coach JJ Gomez about the support that he and his players have for the new park. In it, he mentioned that his players often wonder aloud, why Laredo doesn't have the kind of baseball parks that other cities have. The coach and his players are to be admired and respected but there are a lot more pressing needs in our community than this park.

The Mayor says that we are making history by proceeding with the plans of the previous city council. Sadly, most of the present city council agrees, except for Charlie San Miguel. It was he who stood alone in speaking out against this waste. We applaud him for his efforts. If Laredo is making history, as the mayor asserts, it's the history of making mistake after mistake during these times when many having been forced to take austere measures.  It is obvious that what matters most to the city council, mayor and staff is implementing their view of economic development, which in reality is closer to economic stagnation. This distorted view has become all consuming at the expense of the taxpayers and citizens.

Anyone wondering if this proposed park will create any jobs ask yourself this question. What kind of good-paying, quality jobs were created by the $40 million Laredo Entertainment Arena? What was the multiplier effect of that multi-million investment?  I can almost hear the crickets chirping.