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South Bend Redevelopment Commission <br />Regular Meeting -July 21, 2000 <br />6. NEW BUSINESS (CONT.) <br />b. continued... <br />The request for this body to approve Resolution <br />No. 1784 is being heralded by the news media <br />and by boosters such as Project Future's Patrick <br />McMahon as a much - needed solution to the <br />nagging problem of how to pay the $17.45 <br />million Hall of Fame debt. Not so, <br />Commissioners, not so. <br />What this Resolution really means is that the <br />College Football Hall of Fame is a failure, one <br />which must be strapped on to the backs of South <br />Bend taxpayers for the next 17 years. <br />But it wasn't supposed to be that way, was it? <br />Who can forget that bold, confident statement of <br />Mayor Joe Kernan in his "State of the City <br />Address" on Jan. 24, 1994: "The one principle <br />on which there will be no compromise is that the <br />property taxpayers of the City of South Bend will <br />never see a bill, not today and not in 20 years, <br />for the construction or operation of the College <br />Football Hall of Fame. Period. "? <br />Do you remember all the "silver bullets" that <br />would be tried to redeem that reckless promise? <br />First, there were corporate sponsorships that <br />were supposed to pay for the Hall's construction. <br />Only a handful of those sponsorships were <br />obtained, not even enough to pay for the interest <br />on the bonds for the years 1996 through 1999. <br />In fact, the financing loss for those years was <br />$508,115 as you will be able to see in a revealing <br />document I'll give you at the conclusion of these <br />remarks. *(copy of document is attached to the <br />minutes) <br />-7- <br />