Martin Austermuhle
Photo by BrianMKA.
For years, members of the D.C. Council have feuded over access to one of two luxury suites they have access to at the Verizon Center. But for the sake of the city’s sanity and its bottom line, the D.C. GOP wants those tickets auctioned off.
In a letter sent today to D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown, GOP Chairman Bob Kabel asked that the tickets be sold on eBay and the proceeds from the sale directed to the city’s coffers.
“Use next week to prepare an EBay account and sell each and every ticket that otherwise would be a free perk. If some Councilmembers want to raise taxes, it’s only fair they share a small sacrifice and sell these tickets for the public’s good. District residents deserve to be spared of the nonsense that seems to engulf our DC Councilmembers every year with luxury tickets. We hope you will use this opportunity to permanently end this absurd practice and help increase our city’s dwindling reserves,” Kabel wrote.
The legendary fights over the Verizon Center suites date back to 2008, when late owner Abe Pollin gave the mayor access to one suite as a thank you for $50 million the District put into renovations to the arena. After it was uncovered that former mayor Adrian Fenty was giving tickets away to senior aides and big-money contributors, councilmembers demanded their own suite — and got it. Complaints over how those tickets are distributed spilled over into early 2011, and it’s likely that they’ll come up again. (This is just the Verizon Center; there have also been squabbles over tickets to Nationals Park.)
Ironically enough, the D.C. GOP might well find a willing partner in Brown — in 2009, he was one of four councilmembers that advocated for an auction of their tickets to Nationals Park to help fund social services. If the auction actually happened, the District could expect between $100,000 and $175,000 for each Verizon Center suite. If both suites were auctioned off and fetched top dollar, the funds could cover, say, the $316,000 that’s needed to keep the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library open on Sundays for the next year.
Kabel’s letter, in full:
