Northeast News
September 9, 2015
The St. Louis Rams organization continues to hold taxpayers hostage with threats of abandoning their present taxpayer funded stadium in favor of greener pastures back in Los Angeles. Capitulating to that threat, our illustrious Governor Jay Nixon is attempting to circumvent the legislative process by appropriating state bond money to keep the Rams in St. Louis.

While a circuit court judge may have made that appropriation a little easier by invalidating a city ordinance that dictates such appropriations should be approved by a public vote, this conservative minded news-dog is applauding the efforts of State Senator Ryan Silvey and his legislative colleagues to block Nixon’s end around of the legislative process for a statewide money grab. In 2005, the citizens of Jackson County voted to make improvements to the Truman Sports complex, Nixon apparently wants to bypass that process and pilfer roughly $988 million to keep professional football in St. Louis.

As an aside, Missouri taxpayers already pay close to $12 million a year for upkeep of the Edward Jones Dome. Weigh that against the paltry $3 million received by the Truman Sports Complex and the picture gets abundantly clear that taxpayers on this side of the state are getting shafted in a royal way if Governor Nixon continues his shakedown of the general public. This overtaxed pooch is having none of it. If the governor wants to throw taxpayer dollars at another losing sports franchise on the other side of the state, he should at least respect the legislative process enough to allow the proposal a public thumbs up or thumbs down vote. Anything else would be akin to corporate thievery. But that’s nothing new for this administration.