Pittsburgh — Hold on tight, Philadelphians. For you’re about to go on the wild stadiums ride. And if your experience turns out to be anything like what happened here, you indeed will have been taken for a ride.

The Pittsburgh stadiums story has become legendary, not just across Pennsylvania but the nation for the sheer chutzpah of its corruption of the public process and of Economics 101. Those same seeds clearly are germinating in Philadelphia.

Pittsburgh’s tawdry little tale began in 1997 when the erstwhile Steel City’s business elite formed the oh-so-civic-sounding Regional Renaissance Partnership. By piggybacking an itsy-bitsy half-penny onto the sales tax in 11 southwestern Pennsylvania counties, we were assured that our ailing infrastructure would be healed, there would be a rejuvenated pool of investment capital and economic nirvana soon would be ours.

Oh, yeah, and there was that stadiums thing. Most of the money raised would go toward construction of a new football stadium for the Pittsburgh Steelers and a new baseball field for the Pittsburgh Pirates. The idea was to tax our region to prosperity. It was but wealth transference billed as wealth creation. The issue — dubbed the Regional Renaissance Initiative — was rammed through the state legislature and onto the ballot.

But not even a slick, multimillion-dollar public relations campaign nor the shameful shilling of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (whose parent company held and still holds a financial stake in the Pirates) could fool the people. They knew a hustle when they saw it and resoundingly rejected the RRI.

The defeat, however, only emboldened stadiums statists. And Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy created "public support" for new stadiums out of whole cloth: The election results were a loud-and-clear endorsement that taxpayers didn’t want taxes raised to build new stadiums, he said, but that meant the public wanted the job done using existing taxes. "Plan B" was born.

Eight months after the RRI went down in flames, public underwriting for new stadiums rose from the ashes. The board of the Allegheny County Regional Asset District — which administers a 1 percent piggyback to the 6 percent state sales tax, and which also was packed to ensure approval — agreed to provide the financial wherewithal to back the bonds to build the stadiums. The state agreed to chip in one-third of the cost; the teams are contributing woefully little.

Pittsburgh’s tale of woe, however, has only just begun. Leases for the stadiums — negotiated in secret and without any public hearings — were approved last month. They are filled with the usual public-be-damned provisions that allow these kings of sports wealthfare to milk a hefty chunk of cash out of these predominantly taxpayer-underwritten cows. But there’s far worse.

Both teams were awarded major concessions when it came to maintenance and upgrades. (Taxpayers will be required to foot most of the bill.) The franchises also were handed — with no competitive bidding — development rights to the publicly owned 25-acre tract of land between the two new stadiums. The Steelers even were allowed to weasel out of paying about $4.9 million in rent over the term of their 29 1/2-year lease in return for a lump-sum payment now of $2.5 million to cover additional construction costs.

It is not a pretty picture in Pittsburgh. And the canvas for you soon-to-be poorer Philadelphians looks no more attractive. Mayor John Street has chosen a more expensive option for the Phillies’ new ballpark. The June 20 public hearing before Philadelphia City Council to discuss what will amount to a $1 billion boondoggle has all the makings of one giant monument to lip service.

If the Philadelphia experience becomes anything like Pittsburgh’s — and I suspect it will be far worse — public process and purpose once again will be corrupted. Good luck, Philadelphia. You’ll need it.

Colin McNickle is the editorial page editor of and columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. E-mail him at: cmcnickle@tribweb.com. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (650 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper news editor, 123 Chestnut St., Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.

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