Nassau County, Long Island Voters Reject Proposal to Fix Coliseum (Islanders Owner 'Heartbroken")

New York Times ^ | 08/02/2011 | Dave Caldwell

[SeekAndFind]

UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Nassau County voters, who pay among the highest local taxes in the nation, handily defeated a contentious proposal on Monday to spend $400 million to overhaul the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum, the outdated home of the New York Islanders hockey club.

With 82 percent of the ballots counted late Monday, the vote was about 57 percent to 43 percent against borrowing the money through a general obligation bond to pay for the plan, which also called for construction of a minor-league baseball park and convention space. The results marked an enormous defeat for Charles E. Wang, the owner of the Islanders, who had sought a new or refurbished arena for nearly a decade.

“I have to tell you I’m disappointed, and to put it very bluntly, I’m heartbroken,” Mr. Wang said. He said he would not discuss his next move.

Mr. Wang could sell or move the National Hockey League team, which began play in 1972, the year the Nassau Coliseum opened. Mr. Wang, who has owned the Islanders since 2001, had said construction would begin next June. The Islanders’ lease with the Coliseum expires in 2015. He said after the defeat, “We will honor our lease.”

Edward P. Mangano, the Nassau County executive, who supported the plan, said: “Tonight is not an ending but a beginning. We will find a new path that brings people together — a path that solves the problems and blockades for the redevelopment of this property.”

On Monday evening, voters at the poll at California School in Uniondale, about a mile from the arena, fell into two camps: those who thought the project would benefit Long Island in the long run, and those who did not think the project was worth paying additional taxes.

[buccaneer81]

The NHL can afford to rebuild the stadium. The get more than enough income from the TV-Networks who get their share from the advertisers during NHL games.

You're not very familiar with the NHL's finances.

This is not the NFL.

[NativeNewYorker]

Don’t know if they can veto it.

[Wuli]

“You’re not very familiar with the NHL’s finances. This is not the NFL.”

It doesn’t matter. The NHL league and the NHL teams are “private enterprises”.

If they cannot afford, on their own, a capital plan in their business model, then they are not an economically viable enterprise to begin with.

That is their own responsibility, not the responsibility of government; not the responsibility of tax-payers.

Money earned through economically viable private enterprises should not be sucked out of the income from those enterprises - legally stolen with taxes by government, to make viable that which is not.

The money NOT spent on this fools errand is better spent WHERE EVER it lands by the free choice of individuals and businesses.

[buccaneer81]

Show me where in my post I supported any use of taxpayer money to support the Islanders, the coliseum or the league.

[Wuli]

“Show me where in my post I supported any use of taxpayer money to support the Islanders, the coliseum or the league.”

I never said nor claimed in any way that you did say those things.

I did however reiterate the many reasons that your belief that I lacked an understanding of the economic status of the NHL was irrelevant to the central question. It - the financial status of the NHL - does not matter.