Lawsuit over St. Louis ordinance heads to court on Thursday

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The City of St. Louis is currently doing a dance that makes Roger Goodell’s mine-field Macarena look like a minuet. On Thursday, the music will be playing in a local courtroom.

Via KSDK.com, a judge will hear arguments on Thursday in a lawsuit that could lead to the relocation of the local NFL franchise.

The Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority has sued St. Louis, in an effort to invalidate a 2002 ordinance requiring an election before public money is used to build a sports stadium. The mayor has said the city will defend the ordinance “vigorously.”

They’d better be careful not to be too vigorous. If the city wins, the city eventually loses the Rams.

The hearing will start at 1:00 p.m. CT, unless the current judge decides that the potato is too hot to handle, like two other judges before him possibly have done.

Avoiding a public vote will be critical to engineering a plan to keep the Rams in town, because the current mood of most taxpayers is to not subsidize the construction of buildings for use by franchises owned by some of the richest people in the world. And Rams owner Stan Kroenke definitely is one of the richest people in the world.

26 responses to “Lawsuit over St. Louis ordinance heads to court on Thursday

  1. That is true. Why should the people pay for a stadium to be built. We already have to pay expensive ticket prices. Why should these rich owners be allowed to have the citizens of that area pay for something just to make them richer. It should be that if they use tax payers money to build a stadium, then all the citizens of that area should get half priced tickets.

  2. Maybe Goodell, Vincent, Kensil, Gardi and Blandino should all be appointed to the US Supreme Court. Then they wouldn’t have to deal with all these hassles.

  3. Public polling has shown local taxpayers are opposed to using public money to build a stadium. The city enacted an ordinance to keep public money from being used without a vote. Despite this the Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority is doing everything they can to override the actual will of the the city and county taxpayers.

    If any judge has a shred of integrity they will force the authority to adhere to the ordinance and allow the city to vote.

  4. Despite the Ferguson incident, St. Louis is a great city (no, I’m not from there.) the fans in that city have had to endure the worst five year stretch in NFL history and still managed to sell 55k plus tickets.

    The NFL needs to keep St. Louis as an NFL city regardless if it’s the Rams or an expansion team. The fans in St. Louis don’t deserve to be screwed over again!

    Bill Bidwell left St. Louis in 1987 because he couldn’t get a new stadium; he then played in a college stadium for 20 years in Arizona before getting one, the Cardinals should have stayed in St. Louis and so should the Rams.

  5. Do the citizens of St. Louis not want to pay for a stadium more or less than they want to not have a football team. This is the only question, right or wrong. If they don’t build it, some other city will OR the owner will build it himself in a city like Los Angeles.

  6. St. Louis taxpayers are still laying off the Jones dome for another 10!years. They built that it it stayed empty for years. Now , if a vote is needed they help pay for another stadium and the owner of the team wants to move? Don’t think I would vote for it.

  7. As a philosophical point, local taxpayers should not have to subsidize the building of a new stadium for the Rams. Study after study has shown that there really is no economic trickle-down, aside from the temporary jobs created by the construction of the stadium itself. As a practical matter, however, so long as there is another city that will spend the money to build a stadium, or, as in this case, a glamour city wants a franchise, then the choice becomes one of ponying up the money and keeping your team or refusing the money and letting it go to another city. It’s a terribly unfair choice to have to make.

  8. It’s a poorly worded, ambiguous law, and the best lawyers in Missouri are representing the RSA in this suit. The city has virtually no chance of winning. Additionally, Bob Blitz (the lawyer who’s part of the STL Stadium task force) is a kingmaker in the MO judiciary. If the judge rules in his favor, there’s a good chance he winds up with a MO Supreme Court judgeship. Rams to L.A. is FAR from a done deal, and in fact with the problems in Oakland and San Diego and the Carson progress, it’s more likely the Rams start play in a new STL stadium in 2019.

  9. The people of St. Louis are just being toyed with. Jackass Kroenke has no intention of keeping the Rams there. He is all about money. You can bet he has something to gain by stringing out this process.

    If St. Louis wants a football team, get a different one. Upgrade the existing stadium for more luxury suites or whatever. Don’t mess up the riverfront for another damned stadium.

    St. Louis got the Rams as a consolation prize because the NFL didn’t think they were worthy of getting one of the expansion teams back in the 90s. Don’t forget that Carolina and Jacksonville got them instead, as if those two are such shining examples.

  10. Teams play less than 20 weeks a year at a home stadium. Tax payers should pay a portion for the stadium as other events take place there that they can take advantage of.

  11. No matter what these owners say these stadiums are always built with public money,

    Not true jimmyt, the team you love to hate, the World Champion New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft built Gillette Stadium with his own money.

    The Rams go back to LA and St. Louis can concentrate on the team they love,

    the computer hacking Cardinals.

  12. It’s time to move on. Kronke doesn’t want to be in St. Louis, The Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority wants some sort of imaginary power, the majority of the vocal mouths of St. Louis are all about the Cards. The next pro team to come to St. Louis will be from the MLS. All of you who are against the city building a stadium for the Rams to stay, just wait until there is no more NFL in St. Louis, it will truly be thought of as a lower tier sports city. BTW, if you think the tax money saved is going to other social programs, you’re kidding yourselves.

  13. Authorities in state government are dangerous things to the democratic proccess. They bypass local government and are under the control of the connected politicians and money men. In Massachusetts the numerous authorities are a constant money drain with bloated salary and benefit packages. These hacks drift from one to another with full retirement packages after 20 years and do it multiple times. It is amazing how many relatives of party bosses get the top jobs after a so called “nation wide search” They do not have to open the books and are allowed to placed tax leans on local business. Government run criminal outfits.

  14. Jetrainer, read my mind, why does STL need/deserve a team again? It didn’t work out, maybe down the road they’ll get a new team. That’s business.

  15. It’s starting to sound like St. Louis has got what it takes to keep the Rams.

    I can’t wait to laugh @ EVERYBODY who said the Rams were a sure bet to move to Los Angeles. {{^_^}}

  16. This is really about whether the people of St. Louis are worthy of being allowed to decide how to spend their own money. The elected representatives of the people St Louis created a law that said the citizens are supposed to have the final say in spending their money.

    You’ve got some rich guys saying that the people of St. Louis are too incompetent to know what is in their benefit. The rich guys say they know what’s best, and that of course is to hand the money over to them so they can spend it in a way that makes them even richer. That may seem like an oversimplification, but it really isn’t.

    It’s sad that whether or not the people of St. Louis should be allowed to make their own decisions is being framed as whether or not they are worthy of an NFL franchise. If I had to choose between being allowed to make my own decisions, or being allowed to watch football … I’d give up football in a heartbeat.

  17. St. Louis is a baseball town. I went there for business conference a few years ago at the Four Seasons Resort. The resort is directly across the street from the Edward Jones Dome. I was there all weekend and the Rams played a home game and I never saw a single piece of Rams gear or heard the game mentioned. Everyone talked about the Cards only. Not an NFL town!

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