Are you paying for a new sports stadium?

(8/30/07 - KTRK/HOUSTON) (KTRK) -- Is Houston ready for another sports stadium and will taxpayers get the chance to vote before any public money is spent? The answer may be no because your money is already being spent.

The Houston Dynamo are soccer champions, but they play in an old arena, Robertson Stadium, on the University of Houston campus. Is the Houston Sports Authority planning to join the city to help the team build a new one with your money?

"I don't think there's any question that's what they are going to do," said Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack. "That's what they are leading up to and I am 100 percent opposed."

No one is saying yet whether taxpayers will get to vote on a new stadium, but Mayor White says a Dynamo decision could come this year.

"We want to keep the Dynamo, they need a place to play," said Mayor White. "We want to support them, but we don't want to use taxpayer dollars dedicated for emergency services or parks or libraries like the one I'm standing in front of today."

Recent sports authority deals prompted board member Joe Slovacek to write in one email, 'No more construction." The Sports Authority was being asked to spend $150,000 for improvements to the club level at Reliant. Then chairman Billy Burge described it as "sensitive request" and added "I would like to find a way to participate if we can".

That deal was struck down, but it's deals like that drawing scrutiny from some public officials. Concessions on a Toyota Center garage already losing money, improvements for an already pricey football stadium and even attempts by the Astros owner to get repairs to Minute Maid Park when the teams are responsible for repairs under their leases which never go up.

"The chairman has almost been a yes factory to everything that costs the public more money," said Harris County Tax Assessor Paul Bettencourt. "You got the fox guarding the henhouse, literally."

Bettencourt has been opposed to the Sports Authority since the beginning.

"You hope it's not as bad as you think it's going to be, but the last three nights has its worse," he said.

That's why the use of public money for a possible soccer stadium is controversial, but your money is already being spent. And sports authority legal bills prove it. Former Houston City Attorney Gene Locke is the Sports Authority's chief attorney. You pay him more than $500 an hour.

In April, there was a two and half hour meeting with city officials on possible soccer arena. Lockes' bill was more than $1,250. Another meeting, $1,350 more.

In May, he billed another $626 for "attention to comments to city's soccer arena draft letter of intent and revisions."

"I'm outraged by this," said Bettencourt.

The sports authority spent close to $3 million to operate last year and one in four of those dollars went to pay lawyers, even though the three big projects of the Sports Authority, Minute Maid Park, Toyota Center and Reliant had long been built. When trying to find someone to set up a meeting, board member Kitty Allen wrote in an email, "Please not, Gene. It will cost us at least another $5,000."

Board member Carl Warwick balked at paying $750 an hour for another consultant: "I think that would be a mistake to hire him and then explain it to Wayne Dolcefino. We already have a consultant that does not do a lot of work."

The Sports Authority has a $2,000 a month public relations consultant.

With the stadiums built, the sports authority spends much of its time trying to bring sporting events to town to help the economy, like last week's US Boxing Trials. But critics argue that's already a job being done by the convention and visitors bureau. You can see the battle lines forming.

"If they're doing such a lousy job, the visitors bureau is controlled by the mayor, then he needs to figure it out," said Radack.

So how much money should be spent on the sports authority?

"Does it really need a huge board of directors," asked Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. "Probably not. Could it operate with a smaller staff? Probably so."

The sports authority has a $145,000 executive director. So does it need a $100,000 a year event planner?

Emails show Kathy Dean was hand-picked for her job by Burge. Last year, she got a $25,000 taxpayer financed bonus. This year the sports authority removed Dean from a post doling out tickets for a suite at Minute Maid because of alleged misuse of the tickets.

Emails from board members also take shots at the employee watching over the stadiums. Jerry Dinkins makes $100,000 a year as facility director. One board member pointed to his public record of being "ethically challenged." She was talking about Dinkins' conviction of tampering with government records when he worked for the city of Houston.

"It's bad government," said Bettencourt. "It needs to be mothballed."

The Sports Authority was created in part so that property tax money would never be used again to finance local sports stadiums. It's the expensive legacy of the Astrodome. Friday night at 10pm, how the eighth wonder of the world has become what one county official calls a money pit.
(Copyright © 2007, KTRK-TV)

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