Grand Forks Alerus Center Needs Another Four Million Dollar “Investment”
When will enough be enough? WDAZ TV
The Alerus Center is on track to have new turf installed before next year’s football season.
The new turf is a longer, two inch fiber with a rubber infill. This longer turf is more like regular grass.
It will require some construction work inside the Alerus center. The new stuff is about four times heavier than the old turf.
The project is expected to cost around $4 million.
I’m assuming that they plan on taking this money out of the sales tax fund that we were promised was going away as soon as the initial construction was completed. That’s something missing from WDAZ’s story but they at least covered it. The Grand Forks Herald is doing their best to keep the public uninformed on how our money is being mishandled.
Shouldn’t the football fans be paying for this? Certainly the voters weren’t told that they’d have to be continually be throwing more money from the building fund tax to keep the building up. Rather we were told that the 1/4 cent restaurant and hotel tax would be all we’d need to pay to keep the place current.
The fact that the Alerus has been so mismanaged that they have to come back again and again is disgusting. This tax that we approved was meant to pay for the initial building of the Alerus Center. It certainly wasn’t meant to go on forever. Since then they have tapped into this fund to redecorate (illegal) as well as to add to the parking lot. The one that really cooks my bacon is the massive amount we got stuck paying to replace the convention center entrance that they had torn down to accommodate the private privileged hotel operator.
They’ve also wanted to add in an escalator after they removed it from the project to keep the costs under control. I’m not aware that got accomplished.
I think the Alerus has probably hosted one-hundred football games in the eleven football season it’s been opened. There are maybe six home Sioux games a year and the Alerus has hosted a few high school regional games. If that one-hundred games is correct and we really have to spend $4 million replacing the carpet that means that each game is costing the taxpayers in the ballpark of $40,000 apiece. The question is why should those that don’t attend football games pay others entertainment?
Tags: Alerus, Alerus Center, Greedy Grand Forks, North Dakota News
