April 28, 2010 Last week, Preserve Ramapo received a stack of 120 pages, documents and notes, from the Ramapo Town Clerk’s Office. We had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for two things: the business plan for Supervisor St. Lawrence’s $26m baseball park (Project Grand Slam) and a list of the investors he said he had lined up for the project. What we got back was an assortment of unrelated papers pulled from a number of areas, but there was no document that purported to be or even vaguely resembled a business plan, and there were no investors.

　"A business that does not have a plan is heading for a cliff,"—Forbes.com

We had gone back and forth over this point for months. On March 23, after a FOIL request produced no business plan from the town records, we submitted a Community View in The Journal News—"Let taxpaying ‘investors’ view business plan for Ramapo ballpark." The opinions page editor agreed, and then Supervisor St. Lawrence sent in his own Community view—"Baseball will lift up region." He wrote: "We have attended minor-league games, toured team facilities, procured input from team owners, general managers and community leaders concerning the economics of minor-league baseball. If a formal business plan doesn't exist, and minor-league facilities are not money-makers as the editorial asserts, individuals would not be investing millions in our project. Project Grand Slam has investors, and I receive calls daily from individuals expressing interest in being financially involved."

OK, so even though we had been drawing a blank at the records office, here was the Supervisor announcing, with some attitude, Well if it doesn’t exist, how come we’ve got so many investors? They had done their homework and there was a formal plan. So he said.

We went back again to Town Hall with another FOIL request. Only this time we used St. Lawrence’s exact words from the Community View that identified a business plan and a list of investors. We asked for both. But we included one other thing. We asked for a formal, legal certification that the papers returned to us did include everything related to the request, and that nothing was withheld.

And what did we get back? A grab-bag of mostly irrelevant documents. No business plan, no investors. There was, as we requested, a "Certification Pursuant to Public Officers Law §89 (3)(a)" that claimed "the attached are the only documents responsive to the FOIL request." A legal, "That’s All Folks!" footnote.

So what conclusions are we to assume? Well, first, I guess it’s pretty clear there’s no formal business plan and the investors are hiding. That’s disturbing on a number of levels.

One of the first things that comes to mind is the Baseball will Lift the Region piece St. Lawrence wrote for the Journal. Who is vetting what the Supervisor says? Are the members of the Town Board comfortable with the gaping disparity between what St. Lawrence tells the paper and what they know to be true or false? Does their comfort with his lack of candor imply complicity? They will be asked to vote on this project, so if the project fails, the $25 million pain dropped on the taxpayers will have their handprints all over it also. Does it matter to them that what he says is sometimes patently false?

But besides the questions about credibility and public service, there’s still the crazy likelihood that this enterprise is going forward with no serious business plan and no public discussion of the financial consequences. Figures get gratuitously tossed around and we all have the assurance that the Supervisor expects the stadium to "break even" in its first years. How? The track record for new teams in the Can-Am League is in the books—it’s a 73% failure rate. So how will the taxpayers be protected from the proven history of this business group? Not one of the Independent League’s teams in New York State have succeeded here.

Before we look at a quick list of what was returned in our FOIL request, here’s a chart of what you might expect in a well worked out business plan. Most business plans include this kind of overall strategy, market analysis, proposed business model and financial analysis. In this sample version, the SWOT Analysis is a look at Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, and the PEST Analysis concerns Political, Economic, Social and Technological factors. (Business geeks are as bad as Tech Geeks with the acronyms they throw around.)

Now here’s what was returned by the Town Clerk when we asked for the business plan that the Supervisor insisted actually does exist:

Document One A three-page general description that’s a carelessly put together marketing piece, not the executive summary that you might expect at the beginning of a formal plan. There’s only one dollar figure mentioned: "Minor league baseball provides affordable family entertainment. A family of four can attend a game for around $50.00." Actually, this will not be Minor League baseball, because the Can-Am League has no affiliation with Minor League Organizations—it’s a step below American Minor League Baseball. The question: How many family trips like this will it take to break even in a season, is not asked nor answered.

In a section titled "A destination not merely a Sports Facility," there’s the claim that the facility will be used for other events besides baseball games. These include "charity events, Community Room Events—meetings, corporate training, special occasions, holiday celebrations—The list is endless!!!" To be honest, I have never seen triple exclamation points in a serious business plan, and I hope the holiday celebrations they are projecting don’t include Christmas in Center Field.

The section titled "Economic Benefits to the Town of Ramapo and Rockland County" offers non-specific blue-sky promises like: "Fans, players from both home and visiting teams, game officials etc. will come into Rockland County boosting our local economy—food, lodging, travel, etc." Actually, the players in this league are so poorly compensated that arrangements are made for them to stay in the homes of local residents during the season to cut back costs.

A section titled "The Can-Am League" misrepresents a number of facts. It explains that the Can-Am League was originally founded in 1936 but then neglects to mention that the league folded and was reformed years later in 2004. In the short time this modern version of the league has been around, 16 of its 22 teams have folded or left town.

And finally, there are two sections that offer a general description of the field and the facilities. Not a single mention of costs or expected incomes in either of these sections.

Document Two A nine-page repeat of the advertising platitudes with far fewer specifics but many more illustrations including three from Norman Rockwell on the cover page. No money figures at all get in the way of the reassurance that the stadium will be a "catalyst for economic development and job creation." No sobering facts like the original construction jobs will be temporary (not lasting a year according to the construction schedule) and the permanent service jobs will be seasonal and minimum-wage.

Document Three Next there are 8 color drawings of the proposed park, created by DLR Group of Overland Kansas. These are not technical drawings, and there is minimal labeling so if you were to look for the Community Room that will hold the meetings and corporate training center, you won’t see it. Further, there are no contractual or budgetary papers to indicate the status of DLR. There’s a four-page, stapled "Presentation 1" dated February 3, 2010 that seems to present DLR’s design concepts for the Ramapo Field.

Document Four The DLR design concepts pages have some numbers but they are contradictory. These pages can’t be a formal proposal because there are no conclusive offerings. For example, on the second page the following lines appear:

"16 month construction time frame—March 2010 to June 2011 Opening Day

$750,000 Scoreboard

Estimated cost: $17.5 million—not included underground clubhouse, blasting

Critical Path Issue—grading the site

Utilities

Field Installation by November 2011

Building of shell—December 1, 2011

Signage

Playing field pre-season March 1^st"

That’s the entire text—there are no words omitted. These are clearly notes, probably notes taken on "Presentation 1." The information makes no sense at times. For instance, how is June 2011 Opening Day when in Nov. and Dec. of 2011 construction will be continuing?

In the middle of the document there’s a section titled "Functional Aspects" and after 20 bulleted items are listed, the following lines appear: Estimated Cost—Range: $6,000 per seat $18 - $20 million. On the last page, after another list of bulleted items these figures are the bottom line: $19.5 - $20 Million.

Document Five The next document is the only complete, unambiguous one in the entire packet returned to us. It is an RFP (Request for Proposals) from the Ramapo Local Development Corporation. The 21-page document seeks a construction manager for the ballfield project and it specifically describes the scope of the work, the contractual obligations of both parties, the instructions for submitting your request to be considered, and even the criteria for final selection. Everything but, you guessed it, the money. Note: There were no contracts returned in the FOIL response, so the position is assumed to still be open. And the person in charge of receiving these RFPs? Christopher St. Lawrence.

Document Six The next document consists of a fax and an email, both with the level of detail you would have expected for budgetary issues elsewhere, but these documents itemize, instead, the amount of solid waste produced by each fan per game and the pounds of recycling. Phil Tisi got the numbers, apparently from the GM of the Greenville Drive, a South Carolina A Class team. Tisi needed the numbers for the Environmental Impact Study. The numbers by the way are 0.45 solid waste and 0.30 recyclables per fan, per game.

Document Seven There was also a 62-page detailed set of papers that described the operations of the Lakewood Blue Claws. The pages have excellent economic information on the A Class team from New Jersey including expenditures and receipts as well as contracts. The data is not very relevant though because this is for a team in a different league, different venue, and with a stadium twice the size of the proposed Ramapo stadium.

So how much will tickets cost? What revenues will be needed from the concession stands--how much will their operational costs run? Will the total cost be $18 or $19.5 or $20 million? Do those figures include the $8 million bonded indebtedness for the land already shouldered by the taxpayer? What kind of annual hit will the taxpayers take? What’s the contingency plan if the team does what every other Can-Am New York team has done—head for the exits after less than three years?

From the papers provided by the Town, it seems the only thing we might be certain of at this point is how much each fan will leave behind in the trash barrels and porcelain conveniences at the stadium. More than that, the public has no need to know. Mr. Oberman will let you know about your share of the future obligations in your next tax bill.

At a time when the Governor is threatening to furlough workers one day a week because the State is bankrupt, and state parks are all losing money, except those already shuttered, the economic environment could not be more wrong for this kind of venture. And to partner with a league that has the Can-Am track record in New York State (0 for 7), going in with your eyes completely shut is not wise. As part of the economic recovery in New York State, we need some new legislation. Any politician who wants to bet on the three-legged horse because the odds posted are such an amazing opportunity, that politician should have to bet with his own money. And that goes for the so-far unnamed investors.

We will look at the other side of this project—the destruction of a pristine wooded open space—in future articles.

Michael Castelluccio
www.PreserveRamapo.org 　
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