So now that the Rams are gone...

The defeat in their eyes...

Well, the Rams moved to Los Angeles.

This is old news, but for anyone who missed out on any of the details I'll recap:

Before the move was officially announced and was still assumed to be in the "rumor/preventable occurrence" stage, a group of people got together to prepare a plan for a new stadium to keep the Rams in St. Louis. They had an architectural plan, a plan to secure funding, the property (mostly) acquired, etc. There were some details still needing to be ironed out but that's irrelevant for purposes of this discussion.

When this was all announced there were people who were vehemently opposed to the idea, saying "I DON'T WANT MY TAX MONEY GOING TO A FOOTBALL STADIUM! THEY COULD SPEND THAT MONEY ON FEEDING THE HOMELESS INSTEAD OR BUILD A NEW AARDVARK SHELTER OR WHATEVER!"

My response to that was "But they won't."

"It's not like there's a bucket with a billion dollars sitting in it waiting for someone to decide which project it'll be thrown at," I said. "Almost all of the funding is coming from new hotel taxes, stadium naming rights, and other new taxes that are related to the stadium. Either this money is used for the stadium or it's not used at all. Even the revenue streams that aren't related are only going to be created if this stadium is built. If there isn't a new stadium, they aren't going to feed the homeless or build a park or bring back Firefly. NOTHING will happen except people staying in St. Louis hotels will save a buck or two."

Well, now that all has been said and done, stadium-opposers, I'd love to know what altruistic ends that money has gone to.

Now that we don't have a stadium to build, I'm sure the homeless of St. Louis are feasting gleefully upon the lambs and sloths and marmalade and orangutans and breakfast cereals that have been purchased for them with the money that would have been wasted--WASTED I tell you!--on a football stadium.

I'm only being partially snarky here--it's possible that something actually has been done, in which case I'd love to hear about it. I truly do hope I'm proven wrong. 

I'm asking the stadium opposition to come forward with the information because since they were so fervent about not wanting their money to go to a stadium I'm certain they've been monitoring where else it might be going and are keeping very well-informed about municipal fiscal matters.

So I ask you again--where did this money go instead of being WASTED on a stadium?
Was it put to good use, making everyone's arguments against building a stadium valid or was I [gasp!] right again?

I'm disappointed that the Rams left, but as Christina Aguilera sang in the theme from Pearl Harbor, my heart will go on.

The problem is that they didn't take all the assholes with them.


Image stolen from stltoday.com