* Jim Thompson called yesterday to bust my chops about something. I gave as good as I got, as you might imagine, but it was mostly in fun. I really let the profanity fly, though, about his goofy idea to have the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority buy Wrigley Field and then lease it back to the billionaire(s) who buy(s) the team from the Tribune Co.
One of Big Jim’s arguments was to point out that the state helped subsidize the Soldier Field renovation (a publicly owned stadium, by the way), helped build the United Center and, of course, there was that White Sox deal that Thompson, himself, played such a large role in bringing to fruition. So why not help the Cubs?
What I didn’t know at the time was that taxpayers are already subsidizing the Cubs. From Mark Brown’s column today…
I can’t tell you what Wrigley Field is really worth, but I can tell you what the team claimed it was worth earlier this year in an appraisal submitted to the Cook County assessor’s office: $12.3 million.
Yep, that’s all, barely more than the $7.9 million that former Sox slugger Frank Thomas got on the sale of his Oak Brook mansion a few years ago, or almost equal to the $12 million the Cubs will pay new Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome for his salary for each of the next four seasons.
The assessment was submitted to Cook County Assessort Jim Houlihan, whose own laughably low assessment of just $20.5 million ought to be remembered by every property tax payer in the county whenever they write that annual tax check.
And how much did the Cubs pay in property taxes this year? $1,151,487, according to Brown.
The park is essentially off the roles, no matter how much Mother Tribune whines about its assessment. The team is already heavily subsidized by taxpayers. They don’t need and shouldn’t get another subsidy.
* More from the Rockford Register-Star…
If the state were paying its bills on time, if its roads were in decent shape with a long-term plan for keeping them that way, if its school system had a fair method of doling out tax dollars and if there were adequate funding for mass transit systems, maybe — maybe — we could find some merit in this plan.
Yet all we see is another error in the score book.