New York Yankees Get Subpoenaed by Assembly Over New Yankee Stadium

Anyone who knows the story of the salaries the New York Yankees are dishing out to players this offseason has to be wondering why the organization needs over $1 billion in public funding to build their new stadium. Apparently, so does the assembly headed by Richard Brodsky, a Democrat from Westchester County. Brodsky and his committee have subpoenaed Yankees president Randy Levine as well as city Industrial Development Agency Chairman Seth Pinsky (source: new.yahoo.com).

Brodsky's move, which was criticized by Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office, compels the officials to appear at a hearing and provide documents that the committee wants to use to determine whether more public money should be used to fund the new stadium being built in the Bronx. Although the Yankees officials and city officials have already appeared in front of the committee in the past Brodsky says that they have failed to provide the committee with the documents related to the additional public funding (source: news.yahoo.com).

Brodsky has openly accused the Yankees and city officials of holding closed doors negotiations that altered the property assessments to make the deal legal. In return, Brodsky alleges that the city officials were promised luxury suites at the new stadium. These are some pretty serious accusations. In fact, last week the Bloomberg administration said it would forgo its luxury suites valued at $850,000 following months of criticism on their handling of the new ballpark. Beyond that, Brodsky contends that the project will not create enough permanent jobs to justify the additional public funding, which has been a main argument of the Yankees and city officials (source: news.yahoo.com).

The New York Yankees have already received a whopping $940 million in tax-exempt bonds and an additional $25 million in taxable bonds from the city and are now asking for more. Now the Yankees are seeking an additional $259 million in tax exempt bonds and an additional $111 million in taxable bonds (source: news.yahoo.com). Meanwhile the spending spree continues and the Yankees have been signing every free agent in sight for hundreds of millions of dollars.

Along with the allegations raised by Brodsky and the spending frenzy that the Yankees are going on it is hard to be sympathetic to the Yankees plight. It's actually nice to see someone stick up for the little guy for a change and while I am not wishing any ill-will on the Yankees, I do hope the truth comes to light and anyone who is found guilty of trying to bilk tax payers out of money that they don't have due to a bad economy, is caught and punished. If the subpoenas do turn out to find these miscreants inside the Yankee organization or the city hopefully it will not be too late for Brodsky or someone else to do something about it.