Photo by City of Amarillo
The fans of Prop A, especially “Build Amarillo PAC,” are quite fond of resorting to appeals to “experts” when confronted by the simple truth that Proposition A is a bad deal. At least, they were fond of doing so until they began to block critics from interacting with their Facebook page.
With their numerous appeals to “experts,” I am reminded of a passage from Asimov’s science fiction classic, Foundation. (There are minor spoilers for the book ahead, but, come on, it’s Foundation. I might as well also spoil the end of The Lord of the Rings.) Some context, for those not familiar with the book: A planet, nominally under the protection of a falling empire, wants assurances it will receive protection from a growing threat. But, when analyzing the statements of a representative of the empire, something odd is found:
“When Holk, after two days of steady work, succeeded in eliminating meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications – in short, all the goo and dribble – he found he had nothing left. Everything canceled out. Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. There are the assurances you had from your precious Empire."
I want to be clear that I’m not claiming that those who conducted the analysis for Proposition A intended for it to be hollow rhetoric. But, anybody can see the numbers for Proposition A. Even if one takes away the half of the project not associated with the new arena, it will still cost $155 million. Lubbock’s United Supermarkets Arena, when adjusting to 2020 dollars using nonresidential construction inflation rates, is about $138 million. Despite the arena proposed under Proposition A costing millions more, Lubbock’s arena is larger than the proposal. And, again, that’s even when removing the superfluous extras included in the proposal, which take up the other half of the full price tag.
No matter which experts are appealed to, no matter how the numbers are dressed up, no matter how many “meaningless statements, vague gibberish, useless qualifications” are used, Proposition A cannot be defended.