1.
The financial numbers are in on the Hillsboro Hops first season.
According to The Oregonian, the city brought in $460,303 while spending $296,340 on operations. That nets the city less than one quarter — $163,963 — of its $769,336 annual debt service on the new $15.55 million ballpark.
Vancouver, of course, had the first crack at luring the Hops, but balked at building a new stadium.
Critics of Vancouver’s plan will say the numbers justify their opposition to taking on new debt and taxing the public further. And they would be right.
Proponents will say it’s worth spending money for a “quality of life” product such as baseball. And they would be right too.
Whatever side Vancouverites stand on, not many are making the drive to Hillsboro. Three percent of those who attended a game last season traveled from Vancouver, the team says.
2.
A Boston-area high school has cancelled its remaining football games across all levels after racist graffiti was painted on the home of one of its players.The family of Isaac Phillips, a black player on Lunenburg Knights freshman team, says they were greeted Friday morning by racist graffiti that had been painted on the side of their house. “Knights don’t need n—–” it said.
“We have no tolerance for racism in any form, and we do everything we can to eliminate it from our schools and our community,” district superintendent Loxi Jo Calmes said Monday.
Good for the district for taking a hard line. Twenty years from now, no one would have remembered the results of the football game. The lesson taught by the cancellation, however, should last a lifetime.
