The Preakness is today and trying to make the math add up.
The state has spent over half a billion rebuilding Pimlico. Before that they bought a $4.5M farm in Carroll County for the project, decided it wouldn't work, walked away. Tried to buy Laurel for $48.5M and the Senate had to pump the brakes because the numbers didn't add up. Now there's talk of another $85 million to buy the Preakness brand back from Churchill Downs.
Meanwhile the race itself is at Laurel today because Pimlico is still a construction zone. The cheap seats today were 90 bucks. The hospitality boxes start around $1,000 — that's where the legislators who voted for this are sitting, with the lobbyists who got them to do it, while the education system struggles.
So we paid for it. We can't get in. And the people we paid to vote for it are sitting in the boxes telling each other what a great investment it is for Maryland.
Am I missing something? I keep doing the math and it doesn't work out.