Thursday, April 10, 2008

Spending Other People's Money is Hard!

After taking a tour of Nationals' Park, Florida Marlins President David Samson is in awe of all the work he'll have to do to build the Marlins' new joint:

"We walked around and saw all the little details that [owners] Mark Lerner and Ted Lerner attended to, and we leave here with a to-do list that numbers 6,000," Samson said. "It gives new meaning to the insomnia I have. There are so many details from the sinks in the bathroom in the upper deck to the path of a fan from his or her seat to the nearest concession stand. There's a lot to do."
I realize that the public funding ship has sailed down in Miami. The taxpayers are going to foot the bill, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. Still, wouldn't it be nice if someone in Miami-Dade's government had the stones to tell Samson that, given the public's investment, a team of government comptrollers is going to step in to choose the sinks in the bathroom and all of that?

Sure, it may not turn out to be as cushy a place Samson had in mind, but at least he won't suffer from insomnia over how hard it is to spend money that isn't his.

1 comment:

Ken Dynamo said...

yeah, they better attend to all those details. i heard, before kasten and lerner came into to supervise, DC was planning on installing all the urinals upside down and putting the pitchers mound in left field!

seriously, what the hell is this guy talking about? oh boo hoo, youre getting a $600 million dollar capital asset gift and now we're going to feel sorry that you have to spend a lot of time making sure it gets constructed right? owners are real assholes sometimes.