Richmond City Council cancels “special” meeting on Washington Redskins training camp

On Tuesday, the Richmond City Council canceled its “special” meeting on the Washington Redskins summer training camp, opting instead to consider the issue at the council’s Land Use, Housing and Transportation Standing Committee.[1]

Instead of the scheduled meeting at 4PM, Mayor Dwight C. Jones made a presentation on what critics consider the “sweetheart” deal to lure the Redskins to Richmond for their summer training camp.

Bon Secours also held a community meeting on Tuesday in which it talked about its partnership with Richmond and their mutual plans to construct a training camp for the Redskins near the Virginia Science Museum.

Proponents of the Redskins deal have lauded its potential to raise millions of dollars in annual revenue and create jobs. According to the city of Richmond, close to 200 jobs would be created and the expected economic impact of the three-week training camp would be about $8.5 million annually.[2]

But for opponents of the deal, the pitfalls are many. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, “a crowd of about 50 grilled city officials on the project's financing, its economic impact, traffic and noise, the site selection process, a perceived lack of transparency and the merits of essentially transferring a valuable piece of city property to Bon Secours Virginia Health System, the chief sponsor of the training camp, as part of the arrangement.”[3]

While the idea of the Redskins holding their three-week summer training camp in Richmond sounds good, it has all of the outward trappings of a deal ‘too good to be true’.

The city has called the deal “a $40 million investment,” an investment that will supposedly have considerable future returns.[4]

But the lack of transparency noted above, among other things, is just one reason why this deal should at the very least be further scrutinized with greater public input. Of course, the upfront costs are also a rub.

In the words of a former Richmond City Council president, Manoli Loupassi: “I want the Redskins here; I think that would be great. But the question is at what cost?”[5]

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[1] http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/latest-news/council-committee-discussing-redskins-deal/article_26a265cd-c715-5433-b665-ab050df51e21.html

[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins-richmond-announce-training-camp-site/2012/10/22/8a9ce7d0-1c8e-11e2-8817-41b9a7aaabc7_story.html

[3] http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/11/redskins-richmond-officials-grilled-about-training-camp-plans-81910.html

[4] http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/richmond/richmond-to-front-money-for-redskins-training-camp/article_0d3c75fe-ccb7-5778-8c52-542ddbb53061.html

[5] http://www.timesdispatch.com/news/local/richmond/richmond-to-front-money-for-redskins-training-camp/article_0d3c75fe-ccb7-5778-8c52-542ddbb53061.html