JEFFERSON CITY – After two previous attempts failed, there is a plan to review spending related to the failed attempt to prevent the St. Louis Rams football team from moving to Los Angeles.
In an announcement Tuesday, State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick launched an investigation of the St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority to determine whether the $16.2 million used in the effort to develop an open-air riverfront stadium for the football team they were well spent.
And, he said, the audit will also review the management of the $790 million deal with the NFL after the Rams left, including whether failing to quickly place the money into interest-bearing accounts resulted in significant financial losses.
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“The Sports Authority is a public entity using public dollars and deserves to be held to the highest standard possible,” Fitzpatrick said.
The announcement comes as state officials may find themselves drawn into a similar scenario with Kansas trying to lure the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals across the state line with tax incentives.
At stake is the fight by state and local officials in 2015 to stop Rams owner Stan Kroenke from moving the team west by offering a new riverfront stadium to replace The Dome at America’s Center, which had been the home of the team since 1995.
Of the millions spent to retain the team, St. Louis-based architecture firm HOK earned the most, more than $10.5 million. The Dome authority’s attorneys, Blitz, Bardgett & Deutsch, billed nearly $900,000. Bond and financing attorneys at Thompson Coburn collected $760,000.
Most of the design work for the riverfront stadium was awarded without bidding and many of the contractors had political ties. Companies hired by the task force seeking to retain the Rams gave more than $200,000 to former Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and more than $300,000 to former St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay. Blitz’s company, for example, donated more than $10,000 to both of them.
Nixon joined one of the law firms, Dowd Bennett, after leaving office. As governor, Nixon had appointed former Anheuser-Busch executive Dave Peacock to work with attorney Bob Blitz to spearhead the stadium proposal.
The Rams settled a lawsuit in November 2021 in which lawyers pocketed more than $276.5 million, leaving about $512.6 million for local governments before it began earning interest.
Under the agreement that split the settlement, St. Louis received $280.5 million, St. Louis County $169.3 million and the RSA $70 million.
Fitzpatrick, a former state treasurer and chairman of the powerful House Budget Committee, twice backed efforts to hire a firm to review expenses related to the failed attempt to save the team.
However, in each case, no supplier came forward to bid on the job, despite the lure of a $100,000 payday.
In his 2022 run for state auditor, Fitzpatrick previewed Tuesday’s announcement and said that if a private firm cannot be found to conduct the review, the auditor’s office should investigate the matter.
“I have led efforts in the past to examine how these dollars were spent, but we have only been able to obtain minimal details about the expenditures. My hope is that our audit will finally give taxpayers a full picture of the how and why of the expenditures.” RSA’s decisions to spend more than $16 million in the failed attempt to keep the Rams,” Fitzpatrick said.
RSA CEO Marty Finn could not be reached for comment.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographers captured May 2024 in hundreds of images. These are just some of those photos. Edited by Jenna Jones.
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