Email Lane County Commissioners & City Councilors

If you have questions or concerns about using $100 million in public monies to fund the Ems stadium on county property, contact your County Commissioners and City Councilors. Feel free to use the following content for your email and make it your own.

Email Template #1

Don’t hijack tourism tax revenue

I am writing in opposition of allocating Transient Lodging Tax (TLT) funds to build or operate a baseball stadium for the Eugene Emeralds.

Generated by overnight visitors, this tax is intended to fund tourism promotion and tourism-related facilities. If we are going to use TLT funding for a facility, that facility must, by law, be either a conference center, convention center or visitor information center, or other improved real property that has a useful life of 10 or more years and has a substantial purpose of supporting tourism or accommodating tourist activities.

Tourists, as defined by Oregon statute, are people who travel 50 miles or more to visit our community and stay overnight for the purpose of business, pleasure, recreation or to participate in events. A baseball stadium will not draw a significant number of tourists to our area, and it will not generate the economic activity we so desperately need during the winter and shoulder seasons, when tourism is lowest. The majority of Ems fans live here.

Proponents claim that a new stadium will reap economic benefits, but studies conducted by economists and tourism experts have invalidated the idea that publicly funded baseball stadiums are financially profitable for anyone other than the teams’ owners.

I ask that you consider the long-term ramifications of allocating lodging tax dollars to a project that will not generate the tourism or economic activity for which the Transient Lodging Tax was intended.

Email Template #2

We need more transparency

For more than six months, Taxpayers for Transparency (TFT) has asked for public transparency related to the Eugene Emeralds’ request to build a new baseball stadium with taxpayer dollars on public property at the Lane County Fairgrounds.

Specifically, we have asked for information related to future maintenance, operating costs and the community’s return on investment if this project were to move forward. That information has yet to come to light. These details are essential and should be part of any decision-making process and be made available for public comment.

For a community that prides itself on public process and transparency, this proposed project has fallen short in all areas. As much as we all want to see the Ems remain in Eugene, I cannot support this project until we know more.

I ask that you make available all information related to the long-term costs and impacts of planning, building, maintaining and operating a new baseball stadium on publicly owned property, and detail our community’s estimated economic return on such an investment.

We rely on our elected officials to do their due diligence, make this information available and allow for public comment before making a decision of such magnitude.

Email Template #3

Let Ems’ owners pay for stadium

I’m writing to say that I do not support the spending of public tax dollars to build a baseball stadium for a for-profit company that has the means to build a stadium on its own.

Elmore Sports Group (ESG), which owns the Ems, is a conglomerate of baseball teams, professional hockey clubs and more, and one of the largest ownership groups in Minor League Baseball, with a track record of moving its teams around, having carried out three such moves in 2019.

In an effort to get taxpayers to pay for a new stadium, this multi-million-dollar company and its management have tugged at the heartstrings of local families, fans and elected officials who understandably do not want to lose their baseball team.

What we need to realize is that Elmore Sports Group owns the ballparks for most of its teams and has enough assets to build a stadium here without using public funds and still generate a profit.

Do we want to lose the Ems? No. We just want them to pay for their own stadium.

Our local government should not be building facilities for for-profit companies. Our community needs to invest in public facilities that encourage a healthy, active lifestyle and a robust economy. A year-round, indoor sports facility would support all of those things, for all of us.