Playing Footie

by Brian Howard

Last week's cover story, Isaiah Thompson's "Steamrolled!: The soccer stadium barrels its way into Chester," took a hard look at the sizable investment of public funds into a development project that was pitched to bring both a home for the Major League Soccer franchise Philadelphia Union, and a much-needed residential, office and retail space — possibly including a supermarket — into the hardscrabble city of Chester.

The article got quite a bit of reaction online — some positive, some negative and some that seemed to miss the point. In investigating this issue, Thompson wasn't arguing that there should or should not be a soccer stadium built in Chester (the jury remains very much out on whether such projects are sound uses of public money) but rather to ferret out whether Chester was getting — or would ever get — the entirety of what was advertised.

The project — allegedly a $414 million investment — is scheduled to receive $87 million in grants from the state, county, city and other public entities. As Thompson discovered, most of the money that's been allocated for the project is, at present, going toward the construction of the stadium. Which, on one hand, is understandable: The Philadelphia Union is scheduled to play in the 2010 season, and they require a home field. On the other hand, it's curious, as Thompson discovered, that there seem to be very few controls placed on the grants to ensure that the second part of the project, a multi-use site to include office space, residences and retail, is funded.

This was not a hit piece on a soccer team, developers or even Chester (some readers felt we were singling out the city for being gullible). This was an examination of a process:

-Public money was hard to come by when the project consisted solely of a soccer stadium

-The project was altered to include other amenities

-The money was made available without any controls guaranteeing that the other amenities would be built

At present, Chester is very close to having a soccer stadium and not that close to having a thriving waterfront complex — the part that was ostensibly of greater economic benefit to the city. And that seems worth pointing out.

Over on citypaper.net, a brave commenter named "Mike R" wrote this of Thompson's investigation: "Bashing this size of investment, whether supported by public dollars or not, is so last week. Please update your journalistic standards to 2009 and get with the program."

Which is sad.

We understand that big projects take time. It could be that the developers, and the soccer team guys for that matter, are all good folks, and that they have every intention of completing the process. And we know the economic downturn makes everything a lot harder. Which is exactly why we think more people should be paying closer attention to this and all publicly funded projects, especially ones of this size.

Last week I caught director Robert Kenner's issue documentary Food, Inc. , a scathing indictment of big agribusiness, and left the theater so angry and full of rage — in tears, if we're being honest — that I nearly bit my friend's head off for complaining about some of the film's unanswered questions.

Sure, Food, Inc. spends a lot of time rehashing the arguments co-producer Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation) and Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food) make in their books, and little of the evidence — food is big business and the corporations involved maximize and aggressively protect their profits — is earth-shattering. You've heard many of these claims previously. But presented as a whole, it's a damning portrait of the way we eat — or, to be more precise, they way those of us who can't afford to eat all-organic are forced to eat. Catch it at the Ritz at the Bourse while you can.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)