{"id":6708,"date":"2023-10-29T04:03:53","date_gmt":"2023-10-29T05:03:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6708"},"modified":"2023-10-29T18:59:00","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T18:59:00","slug":"brewer-ballpark-funding-plan-faces-opposition-in-wisconsin-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/?p=6708","title":{"rendered":"Brewer Ballpark Funding Plan Faces Opposition in Wisconsin Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/brewer-ballpark-funding-plan-faces-opposition-in-wisconsin-senate\/tcsquare\/2023\/10\/29\/<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Benjamin Yount<\/h5>\n

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The plan to spend $500 million in taxpayer money on the Milwaukee Brewers\u2019 stadium may look different once it gets through the Wisconsin Senate.<\/p>\n

A Senate panel held a hearing on the stadium funding proposal Wednesday and immediately hit supporters with questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would seem to be rushed,\u201d Sen Julian Braldey, R-Franklin, said at Wednesday\u2019s hearing. \u201cIt was intentionally half-baked. And it was just dropped. I don\u2019t think any of us planned to take this up this session.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bradley said he wants the Brewers to stay in Milwaukee, but he wants to get \u201cthe right deal\u201d to make it happen.<\/p>\n

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said before the hearing that there are not enough Republican votes to get the ballpark package through the Senate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think, ultimately, people are looking for maybe a little larger contribution from the Brewers and a little less contribution from the state,\u201d LeMahieu said. \u201cI know that the avenue that some of the members have looked for is a ticket tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Rep. Rob Brooks, R-Saukville, who has led the negotiations in the State Assembly said a Brewer ticket tax is a non-starter, but he said there is support for a ticket tax for concerts and other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep in mind, it\u2019s got to be a very small threshold,\u201d Brooks explained. \u201cBecause we\u2019re not talking huge, expensive events in some cases. We could be talking about a George Strait concert, which I paid over $1,000 per-ticket to go to, or we could be talking about $20 monster truck show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brooks told senators he intentionally \u201chalf-baked\u201d the proposal to allow the Senate to put its stamp on the ballpark funding deal.<\/p>\n

Sen. Dan Feyen, R-Fond du Lac, said there is a need for some urgency because of a possible collapse at the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District and a desire to settle the ballpark issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cBusinesses want certainty,\u201d Feyen added. \u201cAnd if you\u2019re running a Major League Baseball team, and there\u2019s going to be no deal done, [they] need to know for their future. And so does the state, the city, and the county.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats, many of whom have never supported using taxpayer dollars for the Brewers\u2019 ballpark, continued their opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this were the university system, a government agency, or any other entity, lawmakers would be asking a lot more questions about their financial management before forking over half a billion dollars,\u201d Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said. \u201cJust because it\u2019s a team we like and they hired an army of lobbyists doesn\u2019t mean we need to shut off our brains. The Senate needs to slow the bill down and get to the bottom of the scam the Brewers are trying to pull on taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Brooks and Feyen reminded senators the state owns American Family Field, and without a deal, taxpayers in the state will continue to be on the hook for the ballpark with or without the Brewers.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Yount is a contributor to The Center Square. <\/a>
\nPhoto \u201cAmerican Family Field\u201d by Milwaukee Brewers.<\/a>
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The post Brewer Ballpark Funding Plan Faces Opposition in Wisconsin Senate<\/a> appeared first on The Wisconsin Daily Star<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared at https:\/\/wisconsindailystar.com\/news\/brewer-ballpark-funding-plan-faces-opposition-in-wisconsin-senate\/tcsquare\/2023\/10\/29\/ by Benjamin Yount \u00a0 The plan to spend $500…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":3495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wi-daily-star"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6708"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6709,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6708\/revisions\/6709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wifamily.news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}