Less than four years ago, former D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams announced plans to use public funds to finance a new baseball stadium. The stadium cost D.C. residents $611 million. Now, the D.C. government is considering spending at least another $150 million in public funds for yet another stadium.
The Crystal Kim PSL campaign for D.C. Council opposes in the strongest terms possible the proposal to use public funds to finance another stadium.
When the plan to build the Nationals baseball stadium was announced in 2004, PSL fought alongside the community to oppose the stadium. We protested in the streets, petitioned in the neighborhoods and intervened in public hearings because we understood that the stadium was part of a project to gentrify the city.
As socialists, we adamantly oppose gentrification because it is a form of eviction. It is a racist phenomenon in which working-class residents are displaced with the goal of bringing in a more affluent and profitable community under the banner of “urban renewal.”
Four years later, it is clear that gentrification is exactly what happened.
As a result of Nationals Park, hundreds of working-class people, predominantly African American, have been forced to move out of their homes. Local businesses are going belly-up due to skyrocketing property taxes. In their place, mega-corporations like Marriott and Starbucks are moving in.
Positive Nature, a non-profit organization two blocks away from the new stadium that offers therapeutic services to at-risk youth, is in danger of closing because the organization’s property taxes have increased over 900 percent-from $9,000 to $83,699. (Washington Post, 2008)
When asked what the government is doing to help these victims of gentrification, the city’s acting chief tax assessor replied, “All we are doing is reflecting what the market is telling us.”
Stealing from the poor and giving to the rich
City officials stole $611 million from working-class people to fund the baseball stadium for the benefit of billionaire team owners, corporations and real estate developers. They have ignored the cries for help from those who are suffering.
Now the D.C. government wants to steal another $150 million–this time for a soccer stadium.
The proposed soccer stadium would be built in Ward 8, across the Anacostia River from Nationals Parks. Ward 8 is predominately African American, and one of the most oppressed areas in city. Unemployment is at 16.3 percent, and the average income is $25,000. This is in stark contrast to the more affluent, majority-white Ward 3, where unemployment is about one percent and the average income is $70,000.
According to economists, there has never been a publicly-funded stadium anywhere in the United States that had the effect of increasing employment or economic growth in the city where it is built. Furthermore, according the D.C. Chief Financial Officer, spending $150 million of public funds for the soccer stadium would push the government into a serious budget crisis.
People over profits
Public funds should be used for people’s needs. The hundreds of millions of dollars spent on National Park should have been used to provide affordable housing, free health care, job training and free, high quality education to D.C. residents. The same goes for the $150 million being contemplated for the proposed soccer stadium.
We live in a city where the percentage of adults living with HIV/AIDS is higher than that of 27 sub-Saharan countries. The rate of illiteracy in D.C. is twice the national average. The Fenty administration is aggressively trying to close 23 public schools and privatize the public education system.
Given the current conditions for workers in D.C., it is appalling that the government is even thinking of using public funds for another stadium. Public money should be used to fund people’s needs, not line the pockets of the ruling class.
The Crystal Kim PSL campaign for D.C. Council believes that the team owners and corporations that stand to make super-profits from the proposed stadium should pay for the stadium. Profits from the stadium should be shared with the community to provide free health care, job training and free, high quality education to the people of Ward 8. Legislation should be passed that bans rent increases in Ward 8 before, during or after the building of the new stadium.
Our campaign understands that gentrification is a product of capitalism–an economic and social system that produces for profits alone, not to meet people’s needs. The Crystal Kim PSL campaign for D.C. Council is intervening in the local elections to give a voice to the demands of working people of the city. Together, we can build the kind of multinational, working-class unity that is necessary to create a society where people’s needs come first.
