Mayor Steve Benjamin sure had a lot to say in his annual State of the City address, but we’re not sure if the focus was where we’d have liked it.
He boldly discussed early on his plans to repurpose our sewage into fertilizer to support our growing, verdant community. While we appreciate his green thumb intent, sludge repurposing shouldn’t be near the top of Columbia’s priorities.
Benjamin also said he would like to see more skyscrapers built as a means to galvanize the economy and create more jobs. Talking like that is sure to create some buzz, but before we can build toward the skies, we may need to create a stronger foundation.
Unfortunately, a strong foundation doesn’t usually entail a minor league baseball stadium. As much as Benjamin may want to fast-track the stadium that’s been proposed for the upcoming Bull Street development, more deliberation and careful consideration is in order. Columbia doesn’t exactly have a rich history of minor league baseball.
Granted, poor facilities helped drive the last team out of town, but why should we expect this go-around to be much different? With a nationally competitive college baseball team, the market for a minor league team isn’t as healthy as Columbia would like. We realize that minor league tickets are typically cheaper than college ones, but will enough of those tickets be sold to cover the near $40 million necessary for the stadium?
One contrarian is advocating ditching the stadium and building utopic apartments and condominiums in its place, which sounds a little more practical. Still, the prospect of taking on more debt isn’t an appealing thought.
We appreciate Benjamin’s ambition, but we can’t exactly condone his focus on material development when we grapple with arguably more important issues regarding the community on a daily basis, such as crime and homelessness. There’s no quick fix to either of those problems, but we would like to be assured that people are on the job to mend them.
We have no doubt that one day Columbia will be the bustling cityscape all of its leaders want it to be, but for now, we’d best focus on repairing its foundation.