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Indybay Feature

America's Cup Costs SF $31 million plus

by Smell a Deal
The sailing race, America's Cup, will cost San Francsico taxpayers $31 million and must find corporate donors to pay $270 million for this latest palm-greasing racket. If the City has $31 million to spare, why do we have a budget crisis?
The sailing race, America's Cup, will cost San Francsico taxpayers $31 million and must find corporate donors to pay $270 million for this latest palm-greasing racket. If the City has $31 million to spare, why do we have a budget crisis?

See SF Chronicle, 1/1/11 at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/01/01/MNQ11H1QRE.DTL

Since there is apparently some construction on the piers involved, will the workingclass of San Francisco, especially of Bay View Hunters Point, finally got all of those jobs, and not just the measly 10% worked out in the latest deal?

Here is some information from Bay Citizen:
http://www.baycitizen.org/americas-cup/story/americas-cup-entry-fees-slashed/
http://media.baycitizen.org/uploaded/documents/2010/12/americas-cup-northern-waterfront-budget/NWABudgAnalysts.pdf
http://media.baycitizen.org/uploaded/documents/2010/12/americas-cup-northern-waterfront-impact/NorthernAnalysis.pdf

As you can see from the second Bay Citizen article, here is the breakdown on costs, including tenant evictions:
Table 1: Estimated New City Costs due to Hosting the 34th
America’s Cup
Port costs and lost revenue
Pier 27 Cruise Terminal Shortfall $6,500,000
Litigation and Settlement, Tenant Evictions 1,500,000
Additional Staffing 290,072
Loss of rent from Port properties used for Event 7,862,195
Total Port Costs & Lost Rent if Piers 26 & 28 used $16,152,267
Other City Departments
San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency 6,430,228
Environmental Review (Planning) 3,115,000
Department of Building Inspection (permits,
inspections) 1,723,984
Police 4,000,000
Subtotal: Other City Costs $15,269,212
Grand Total $31,421,479

This is all for 43 days of racing. As to what it puts into the economy, the city budget is $6.55 billion. The Bay Area economy, which is larger than San Francisco, is supposed to get $1 billion out of all this. As you can see from the above articles, there is a lot of condominium development in the project. We already have thousands of empty condominiums in San Francisco. As with all projects, this $31 million taxpayer cost will soon be ridiculously low. This is clearly another palm-greasing project to make the rich richer, and payoff their construction company friends.
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