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Dropped ball on stadium project February 9, 2011 Letter in The Journal News Out-of-control costs have already guaranteed that Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence's vanity stadium will lose millions of dollars a year. Initial bids have meant nothing. Contractors have been forced to do dangerous work on water saturated mud and to remove snow from frozen ground so that work can continue. We, the taxpayers of Ramapo, are paying for overtime and could cover endless "unanticipated" construction costs. St. Lawrence is working with such urgency that one might think that he is preparing for a foreign invasion. He couldn't care less what it will cost. But we should care. The current total cost for the land ($7.8 million), completed construction, and ongoing work already contracted is now around $25 million! And how is the Can-Am league doing? On Jan. 11, another Can-Am team, the Sussex Skyhawks, declared bankruptcy. Our own Rockland Boulders are so inept that a local hot dog entrepreneur has beaten them to a "Rockland Boulders" trademark. The Boulders don't even own all of the rights to their own name! Ramapo has never asked Bottom9Ball to put up earnest money, they have not given us a letter of credit, or provided any other proof of economic viability, but we have already committed about $25 million to their stadium. This project is a truly horrible example of how our out-of-control supervisor does the people's business. Robert I. Rhodes
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