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County studies suing hapless Bengals
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Prosecutor to review stadium lease
By Mark Curnutte [email protected]
The Cincinnati Enquirer
County commissioners unanimously agreed Wednesday to send the Bengals' stadium lease to the prosecutor's office for a legal opinion on whether the team has violated the agreement by failing to field a competitive team.
Todd Portune received support from fellow commissioners John Dowlin and Tom Neyer to ask Hamilton County Prosecutor Mike Allen to review the lease.
“They are asking for a legal opinion on the viability of taking legal action,” Allen said.
Portune brought up the issue Wednesday morning at a commission meeting at Finneytown High School. He referred to a sentence in the lease that says the one-half percent increase in the county's sales tax was needed to “keep competitive and viable major league football and baseball teams in Cincinnati by construction of a new football stadium in Hamilton County.”
Said Portune, “Has the long losing record of poor performances on the field risen to violate the express or implied conditions of the agreement?”
Troy Blackburn, the Bengals business development director, said the organization had no comment about Wednesday's action.
Steve Alic, an NFL spokesman, said, “We will not have any comment on that.”
One commissioner cannot send an item to the prosecutor's office for research. That move requires an agreement by two or more commissioners.
“I am not an attorney,” Dowlin said when asked why he went along with Portune. “The prosecutor is our legal advisor. I have no idea if we have legal grounds. Geez, let's see.”
Dowlin repeated in an interview a comment that he made during the sales-tax debate. It passed in March 1996.
“I would have gone to the train station and kissed them goodbye,” he said Wednesday of the Bengals, which threatened to leave if they didn't get a new stadium from voters. “From the beginning, it was very obvious to me the Bengals were making money and the Reds were not.”
The sales-tax increase also is financing construction of the Reds' Great American Ballpark, which will open next baseball season.
The Bengals are 0-6, the league's only winless team. They are 10-28 since moving into Paul Brown Stadium, the taxpayer-financed facility that opened in September 2000. They have sold out just seven of 19 home games there.
“My layman's view is that we don't have a legal leg to stand on,” Neyer said, “but I am a layman. So it makes sense for us to consult with our attorney.”
Neyer also said that he thinks the county's stadium lease with the Bengals is consistent with other professional sports leases.
“Everybody would feel better if the Bengals were 6-0 instead of 0-6,” Neyer said. “But how you feel is different than the letter of the law. I still think it is a good thing for Hamilton County that we have a professional football team.”
