The city claimed that the process used to greenlight the stadium construction in 2015 was no longer legitimate after a court ruled a similar development agreement in the Inland Empire was void a couple of years later.
Now, Superior Court Judge David Reinert has not only agreed with the city, but said in a Sept. 1 ruling the process leading to the contract had been problematic from the start. Developments similarly based on signature-gathering campaigns that skirt voter feedback had been overturned in the 1990s, according to his ruling.
The order calls into question the future of the financial arrangement the city and the stadium developer have maintained for more than a decade, one that promised Kroenke’s companies reimbursement for the infrastructure and services they paid for and that has generated millions in tax revenue for the city.
So I’m sure they’ll punish Kroenke for it right?
What would Kroenke be punished for exactly?
He’s the reason that the Rams are even in Inglewood. He pulled the Rams from St. Louis because the city wasn’t profitable enough. He wanted to use a stadium as an excuse to move to LA, but the city offered to build him a brand new stadium on the riverfront. So then St Louis sued the NFL over it and got a huge settlement. So if the stadium was built for him, then he’s the reason the law was broken.
He paid for the stadium in Inglewood priavately, entirely without taxpayer funds. It wasn’t built for him. He built it. The deal with the city is that they would reimburse him part of it from tax revenue collected from it.
And the Rams have spent more time in LA than St Louis by a WIDE margin. They were only in St Louis for 20 years. 95-2015. They were in LA before then from 1946-1994.
They were the LA Rams when I was born, and were the LA Rams again before my first son was born lol. And I was only 24 when they moved back to LA. They’ve been back in LA for more than half the time they were in St Louis, total.
St Louis didn’t really give a shit about the Rams until Kroenke wanted to move them. They only voted to approve a new stadium AFTER the move was announced. The Rams started the process to end the lease in 2005 because everyone hated the stadium and attendance was ass. They waived the contingency in the lease for 2005 to give the city a chance to make progress, but they didn’t.
From 2008-2015 they were at the bottom 5 of the league for attendance. They were dead last in attendance the last couple of years. The city only wanted to put in $48 million towards a new parking garage, while the Rams countered with $700m to rebuild a good bit of the stadium because the lease required that they remain in the top quintile of NFL stadiums, and they were about dead last. They went to arbitration where the arbitrators ruled in favor of the Rams, and the city continued to fight it, wanting to be as cheap as possible.
They approved a new stadium weeks after SoFi was announced. The city broke every clause in the lease for years, then acted all surprised pikachu when the Rams said fuck it and left.
So again, what would he be punished for?
He should be punished for underhanded dealings that siphoned tax payer dollars off to reimburse him for investments made by his private company into his own private infrastructure. Who cares what the Rams attendance was like or how long they’d been in one location historically. None of that has anything to do with this case of corruption.
I agree in part with earthworm. He took advantage of a common tactic, get a city to pay for a stadium. I know people often say that the economic benefits to the city putweight the costs… but that’s a lot of cost. I am dubious of the claim. Yet it is probably popular for the politicians involved. That is likely why it happens.
He should be punished for the city voting on it???
You’re actually insane lol. Punish the corrupt city council that voted on the deal if you’re going to punish anyone.
Tear it down, boys!
Sorta too little too late.
