Wednesday, March 15, 2000
Public should have say on our stadium
BY CLIFF RADEL
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Hamilton County starts running want ads today for a company to manage Paul Brown Stadium.
This is more than just a job opening for someone to make sure the gates open and the toilets flush.
This is an opportunity to make the Bengals' new home more accessible to the people paying for it, the taxpayers. It could open up the stadium to other events, break the stranglehold Mike Brown and his Bengals have on the place and make the facility more responsive to the community at large.
Ever since construction started on the Bengals' money pit, Mike Brown has wanted to manage the stadium. And Hamilton County officials were ready to let him operate the facility. That's the trend among cities in the National Football League. Teams run new publicly financed stadiums in Nashville and Cleveland. It's a matter of control and economics. The team controls where it plays and how much it pays to make the place look good.
And we know Mike Brown likes control.
The deal hit a snag this week when the county asked the Bengals to run stadium-management projects through the public bidding process. Public bidding for goods and services is required by state law in Ohio for government-run and publicly owned facilities. Law or not, Mike Brown didn't want to use public bidding, saying he could do a better job. The county decided that couldn't happen and stepped away from the deal.
Not having the Bengals manage the stadium has its advantages. A professional management company would run the stadium for the entire community and have the ability to stage events other than football games.
Up the ante
Finding a top-flight stadium manager is a way to give the taxpayers a chance to enjoy what is rightfully ours.
Taxes from the people of Hamilton County and environs are paying for Paul Brown Stadium. We should have a bigger say in what goes on there.
Suzanne Burke, the county's director of administrative services, described the facility manager's job as keeping “the stadium well-maintained, things painted, cracks fixed, make sure it is fan friendly and ready for all events.”
I want more than a glorified custodian. So, let me add one more line to that job description: Make sure the stadium gives as much as possible back to the community.
“This is the perfect time — while the bidding process for a stadium manager is wide open — for the community to get some benefit back from the stadium,” said Bill Lester, executive director of the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
Bill Lester is also president of the Stadium Mangement Association. He said if you give stadium managers power “they can ensure the community gets its fair share of events out of the facility beyond football games.”
The stadium manager needs the authority to run the facility as a landlord, not a groundskeeper. Do the groundskeeper stuff — keep it well-maintained, book the Bengals' games first. But make sure the site does not sit idle. Open it to high school football games, soccer tournaments and concerts. Open it to many more people in our community than long-suffering Bengals fans.
Free agents
To do this, a stadium manager needs to be exempt from Mike Brown's veto.
Up to now, the Bengals' owner has pretty much had the final say on just about everything to do with the stadium. That the county has stepped away from the management deal with Mike Brown shows that at least this part of the stadium package is not ironclad. Let's use this opportunity to bring in a national-level management team to run the stadium.
The team's lease with the county also calls for a promoter to be hired down the road to book concerts and other events.
Now is the time to make sure the stadium manager's duties include working closely with the promoter and anyone else who can help bring a variety of events to Paul Brown Stadium. Such an approach would make the stadium a downtown destination far beyond the 10 Bengals home games.
The county has the power to hire a top-flight manager to run the stadium according to the wishes of the community. Use this job posting as a way to make the most of our nearly $500 million investment in downtown.
Columnist Cliff Radel can be reached at 768-8379; fax 768-8340.
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