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There are number of substantial issues with the article and the new proposal. Chief among them are:

1) Bayhawks do not have funding the pay for the new stadium complex. They fully expect AAC, MD, and federal government to pay for the stadium and access roads’

2) The Bayhawks can not reliably get 5000 people to attend their games in the perfectly acceptable and under utilized Navy-Marine Corp Stadium in Annapolis. Does anyone magically believe that attendance is going to double at a stadium in Crownsville?

3) the consensus of the community groups around General’s Highway have consistently said they do not want the the noise and traffic associated with the stadium. AAC has stated publicly that I97 is already at capacity. This project would make that worse.

4) currently the state pays amount $1M a year to maintain the current property. It would cost FAR less to tear down the existing buildings and turn the land into a park and grass sports fields than loan repayment costs for the new stadium per year.

5) when we asked AAC staff at the community meetings related to this project to produce evidence their were insufficient lacrosse fields they could not provide any evidence of the fact. The Crownsville area already has 3 major parks all of which have land that is either not used or could be modified at relatively low cost into more lacrosse fields. AAC and bayhawks fail to bring this fact up. They instead praise how many new fields would be created. but AAC staff consistently fail to consider the amount in debt payments we will paying for those fields because the citizens would be shouldering the burden for the loan payments and the risk.

6) their estimates of $40M in taxes to the county and state are not based on reality and when pressed to provide details on how they arrived at that number they could not provide details. Simply stating those are preliminary estimates.

Studies have consistently shown that sport stadiums are money losers for the communities that build them. While there certainly are some that are a financial success most are not and the citizens not the sports team get stuck footing the bill.

When I have asked Burdett and the Bayhawks staff at the various community events why don’t they get the entire loan and take all the financial risks. they stuttered and tried to deflect the question. The answer is simple they don’t trust their own numbers. They don’t want to take the risks. Let’s see Mark Burdett and Brendan Kelly put their homes and businesses (not just CESG) but also Brendans other companies like SmartLink up as collateral for the loans.

The Bayhawks have a perfectly good stadium today. Building their stadium in crownsville is not needed, not wanted and is going to leave the citizens of AAC and State of MD millions of dollars in debt while the the sports team profits. The Bayhawks have not been honest and forthcoming about the true costs and risks of the project.

If AAC wants more lacrosse fields there are far cheaper and much less risky avenues to pursue to obtain more fields that would citizens tax dollars at risk.