Here & Now

Mike Ellis Opposes Milwaukee Bucks Arena Plan

Frederica Freyberg:

Not everyone thinks the arena proposal is a slam dunk. Wisconsin’s former Senate president has penned newspaper editorials calling for the plan to be benched. Mike Ellis joins us now by phone and, Senator, thanks for doing so.

Mike Ellis:

Pleasure to be with you.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, now you think this Bucks Arena plan has a lot of problems. Like what?

Mike Ellis:

Well, to begin with, you have to stop and ask yourself are we being blackmailed by the new owners and the NBA. Now, these three guys, they’re all billionaires out of New York: Jamie Dinan, Wesley Edens, and Marc Lasry. They knew what they were buying when they bought the Bucks from Herb Kohl. They knew we had the BMO Harris Center. That’s it. They come into town. They buy the team. And now they want the taxpayers of Wisconsin to build them a half a billion dollar stadium. Now, you have to ask yourself this. Didn’t they know the facility that we had when they bought the team? Or did they know when they bought the team that they could, in effect form a — I don’t like to use the word blackmail. That’s too harsh. But the fact of the matter is the NBA and these owners have threatened to move the team out of Milwaukee within a certain time frame if they don’t get the new stadium. So, you know, that is not the right way to go, but that’s the way it’s gone all over the country. Professor Judy over in Michigan has done a study on this. Of 120 stadiums built for professional sports, and ended up with 72% of the cost of those stadiums were on the back of the taxpayers and only 22% being paid for by the owners.

Frederica Freyberg:

But don’t you think —

Mike Ellis:

Now, there’s an exception to that in San Francisco, where Gruber and his partner are building it on their own. So that right away gives me a bad taste about this.

Frederica Freyberg:

Don’t you think, though, that a new Bucks arena, you know, this kind of billion dollar project with the spin-off development and everything is good for Wisconsin and its economy?

Mike Ellis:

Well, it’s great if it happens. But where’s the spin-off that we’ve had in and around the greater area where the donation from the Bradley people went to build that? That was 1988. We still got vacant lots all over the place. Bud Selig took his ball team out of the idea of having it in downtown and moved it out to the Menominee Valley. And there has been a study done by Professor — he’s an economics professor, Dennis Coach from the University of Maryland. And after an in-depth study in cities all over the country, he concludes that it did not result in more employment or major economic development. So that’s a pipe dream that has been refuted by economists.

Frederica Freyberg:

Let’s talk about the piece in the Governor’s budget that has to do with the $220 million in state bonding.

Mike Ellis:

Yeah.

Frederica Freyberg:

What do you think of that?

Mike Ellis:

Well, first of all, the Walker had his head in his tail end when he up with this one. The Fiscal Bureau has already said the Walker plan mathematically doesn’t work. You cannot amortize your principal and interest for at least 14 years, starting off like in two years, with the growth in the income tax collection from the players. So I don’t even think we have to talk about the Governor’s plan. The Governor’s plan is not fiscally doable, and we all agree on that. Now, Fitzgerald’s got a new plan to get $150 million from the Board of Commissioners of Public Lands. And here’s the problem we’ve got. Everybody is tripping over their feet to buy a solution that will be a fiscal balloon hanging around the necks of the taxpayers of Wisconsin. Why aren’t they asking themselves this? These owners are only putting in 25% of the cost of this stadium. 25%. They’re putting in $150 million.

Frederica Freyberg:

We were told $250.

Mike Ellis:

That’s only 25%. They want the taxpayers to pick up 70%.

Frederica Freyberg:

So who do you want to finance it?

Mike Ellis:

Oh, I’m not — I think, hey, if I buy a new Cadillac and spend $60,000 on it, I shouldn’t complain when I only get ten miles to the gallon. I shouldn’t complain because a complicated air conditioning goes out. They bought this team. They should build their own stadium like the people out in California are doing.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. We need to leave it there. Mike Ellis, thanks for joining us.

Mike Ellis:

Thank you.