The following is a letter in The Journal News, written by Robert I. Rhodes, Chairman of “Preserve Ramapo”.

After 71 percent of the public rejected the guarantee of a $16.5 million bond for a baseball stadium, Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence first promised that no public funds would be used for construction. After first stripping all reserve funds from our town treasury he got around the rejection with a $25 million five-year note that did not require a referendum. We knew there was no way he could pay off this bond in just five years. Sure enough, he then refinanced with a long-term bond, evading our citizens’ refusal to guarantee the bond.

According to St. Lawrence, the cost of the stadium was supposed to be $20 million, not including the land cost. I predicted it would actually cost $60 million. This figure was later confirmed by the New York state comptroller.

In 2011, the first year of stadium operation, Ramapo received $768,912 in rent payments from Bottom 9 Baseball. The reported variable cost was $881,076. So officially, we lost over $112,000 on stadium operations.

We will be paying a few million dollars a year for this enormously costly stadium for the next 25 or 30 years.

Recently, St. Lawrence has been busy issuing tens of millions of dollars in new debt. He is bonding everything but the kitchen sink in order to hide the financial disaster that he has created. To add insult to injury, as far as we know, Bottom 9 has still not paid Ramapo for use of its $60 million stadium in 2012, and the 2013 season has just begun.

(YWN Monsey Newsroom)