"All those in favor of building this decadent monument to excess say aye!"

ddeclue

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Wed Mar-10-10 12:47 AM
Original message

"All those in favor of building this decadent monument to excess say aye!"

Edited on Wed Mar-10-10 12:49 AM by ddeclue

<rant>
:rant:

"All those in favor of building this decadent monument to excess say aye!" - Mayor Joe Quimby

"Welcome to the American dream: a billionaire using public funds to construct a private playground for the rich and powerful." - Montgomery Burns

- from the Simpsons episode "The Burns and the Bees".

The City of Orlando and the Orange County Commission literally acted out this episode of the Simpsons back in 2008 when it voted to build our own version of Mr. Burns, out of state uber conservative Amway billionaire Rich DeVos a new 500 million+interest stadium to replace the 20 year old one that exists now along with fixing up an empty football stadium and replacing the existing one with one the current occupants won't be able to afford to operate. Overall this whole waste of taxpayer money cost around 2 BILLION dollars and has screwed over our local government for a long time especially in light of the ongoing recession.

Part of the scam to convince people to go along with this was to have the Orlando Magic build 5 "free" (originally the legislation said "up to" 5 free) community gyms. Of course we could have cut out the middleman and built those 5 gyms long before for far less than 2 BILLION dollars but of course doing things for ordinary voters isn't exciting enough for the commission or the council to be bothered with.

Now we find out that our five allegedly "free" community gymnasiums come "No basketballs included. Some assembly required".

Apparently, Orange County Government is going to have to cough up ANOTHER million dollars for equipment and the Citizens of Orange County will have to pay to use the allegedly �free� facilities - I presume to pay for the staff which were apparently also not included in this Faustian bargain.

I wonder what essential government service we'll have to cut back on next?

Douglas J. De Clue
Orlando, FL

</rant>

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Electric Monk

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Wed Mar-10-10 12:50 AM
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1. A billion here, a billion there, before you know it you're talking about real money.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

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Hannah Bell

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Wed Mar-10-10 02:20 AM
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2. deVos. not only amway but r/t blackwater. wingnut extraodinaire.

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Name removed

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Wed Mar-10-10 02:39 AM
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3. Deleted message

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SycamoreFlynn

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Wed Mar-10-10 06:19 PM
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4. "All those in favor of building this decadent monument to excess say aye!"

These taxpayer financed stadium funding scams have been
occurring for years and will never end. The billionaire owners
know a good scam when they see one. They frighten the people
and the politicians by threatening to leave and then fleece
their pockets.
These are the phonies who preach the "free market"
and then plunder your wallet.

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