Issue link: https://nebusinessmedia.uberflip.com/i/1046888
24 Hartford Business Journal • November 5, 2018 • www.HartfordBusiness.com OTHER VOICES One, purporting to establish a "lockbox" for money collected by state government in the name of transporta- tion, is as phony as the "spending cap" amendment offered to voters in 1992 as an apology for the income tax imposed the previous year. To become effective the "spending cap" amendment needed implementing legislation, but the General Assembly let decades go by before enact- ing any. The loophole in the "lock- box" amendment is that it would allow state govern- ment to withhold transpor- tation revenue from deposit in transportation accounts, and the "lock" would not work until the revenue was actually deposited in the "box." Besides, transportation money should be subject to diversion in emergencies, as all state government money should be. The problem is that governors and legislators have defined emergency too broadly. The second amendment, requiring public hearings for any disposal of public land, is too trivial for the Constitution. Its objective could be achieved by ordinary legislation. The bigger problem with the two amendments is that they pretend that there is some substitute for the ordi- nary integrity and conscien- tiousness of legislators. There isn't. Chris Powell is an opinion writer/ columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester. EDITOR'S TAKE The latest head-scratcher is UConn's decision to build a $45 million ice hockey rink on its Storrs campus. At a time when Hartford officials and boosters are angling for as much as $250 million from the state for an XL Center renovation, the pending school/donor- funded investment by Connecticut's flagship university, which has been complaining about state funding cuts, is misguided. UConn men's hockey already plays the majority of its games in Hartford and would likely continue to do so even after the new Storrs arena is built. Therefore, it would be wiser for UConn to co-invest in a renovated XL Center arena. State lawmakers, which have so far rebuffed the XL Center renovation investment given Connecticut's fiscal crisis, will likely be even less inclined to foot that bill — particularly if Republicans take control of the House, Senate or governor's mansion — if UConn is building its own new, expen- sive hockey arena. A $45 million investment may be small compared to UConn's overall budget, but this has as much to do about politics and optics as it does affordability. To be fair, this issue is not black and white and we've known about the proj- ect for years. In 2012, UConn hockey announced it would join the high- profile Hockey East Association. As a result, UConn agreed to replace its current 1,650-seat arena — the Freitas Ice Forum — because it doesn't meet Hockey East standards, which require all teams to have an on-campus rink with at least 4,000 seats. The conference granted UConn a waiver to build a smaller on-campus venue partly because the school draws strong attendance at the XL Center. (The new arena is slated to have 2,500 to 3,500 seats.) However, UConn and the state should have pushed harder to scrap the on-campus arena requirement altogether, and instead committed to renovating the XL Center into a top college hockey venue. UConn's co-investment in the XL Center could make it more palatable for lawmakers to finance a large-scale renovation. And if that didn't satisfy Hockey East's overlords, maybe joining the conference wasn't the right decision in the first place. UConn's argument is that joining Hockey East, which includes hockey heavyweights like Boston College and Boston University, is a boost for the school and helps attract outside donor investment. That may be true. In fact, UConn has a tentative $6 million donor com- mitment to help repay a temporary loan to build the arena and others are interested in donating when the rink deal is finalized, a school official said. (In terms of financing the project, UConn would invest 49 percent equity in the arena, which would be built by a private developer. Tax-exempt bonds, which UConn would repay over time, would cover the remaining price tag. Included in the equity investment is $10 million the school earned from recent property sales.) Meantime, Michael Freimuth, execu- tive director of the Capital Region Development Authority, which is the chief entity vouching for the XL Center renovation funding, says there are real scheduling concerns the new arena would help alleviate. "Because the playoff schedules are unpredictable and the XL can be booked, often years in advance, it would be unfair if UConn couldn't have a home playoff date if earned and if XL was unavailable on short late season notice," he said. He added that CRDA's working agreement with UConn for a "new XL" is to have 30 games across the three sports (women's and men's basketball and men's hockey), which is roughly where we are now. Test case When I think of UConn's hockey investment I can't help but draw paral- lels to the school's football program. The state made a huge investment at the turn of the century to build a $90 million stadium in East Hartford for UConn football, which was transi- tioning from Division I-AA to Division I-A (now called the Football Bowl Sub- division), the highest-profile league of college athletics' most lucrative sport. That was followed up by a multi- million-dollar investment in a new practice facility in Storrs. How have things turned out since then? Well, the team showed promise for a short stretch, sharing a Big East championship in 2010 and making it to a Fiesta Bowl game that same sea- son. Since then, the Big East disman- tled, UConn joined a subpar American Athletic Conference (largely because major college football conferences rebuffed the school's program) and the team is now barely beating second-tier schools in front of largely empty seats. Meantime, Rentschler Field, which has seen its UConn football revenues and attendance decline in recent years, remains an underutilized asset. I'm not saying UConn hockey or the Storrs arena are headed toward a similar fate (UConn says multiple other revenue-generating uses are planned for the facility). But Connecti- cut and its top state university should not invest in two separate facilities for the partial benefit of a college hockey team, even if being in the Hockey East conference means the school can at- tract more donor funds. How about convincing those donors to help rebuild XL Center instead? Opinion & Commentary Greg Bordonaro Editor UConn hockey rink investment wrong-minded W hen it comes to regional or even statewide planning, Connecticut often struggles to get a passing grade. Reject the amendments By Chris Powell T wo state constitutional amendments on Nov. 6's election ballot should be rejected. Chris Powell