Our View: For $75K, we’re unhappy with Amgen Tour’s quick visit
Modesto is bringing the Amgen Tour of California racers back to town. They just won’t be on their bicycles.
Some of the best bicycle racers in the world will be arriving by car at several Modesto hotels just as the sun is setting May 18, then hastily departing by car before the sun rises May 19.
If you’re lucky, you might see one or two walking into their lodgings. But don’t cheer too loudly; these guys will be tired, having pedaled 133 miles from Morro Bay to Monterey (not counting the two-hour drive to Modesto). Shhh. Then they’ll arise before dawn to shuttle to Lodi, where the next stage begins.
Many people are excited about the Amgen Tour’s return to Modesto, but not in a good way.
The city thoroughly embraced the riders from 2008 to 2011 as Modesto first hosted a starting line and then, eventually, a finish. It was exciting. But this feels more like a one-night stand with a jilted paramour. The tour is telling us, in essence, “We want to spend the night, but this doesn’t mean we’re back together. Oh, and can you buy me dinner?”
The city has promised to find $75,000, somehow, to subsidize the overnight visit for riders and their teams (usually four to six members). Based on room count, that’s around $215 per person.
For that amount, we get an advertisement on the tour broadcast, two reserved seats in the chase vehicle from Lodi to Lake Tahoe and other assorted goodies.
Usually, the city that hosts the finish line provides the rooms. But the riders couldn’t stay in Monterey overnight and make it to Lodi the next morning in time for the start. So the tour needed a pit stop. So it thought of its old pal Modesto, where 30,000 people came downtown for a celebration of all things cycling. Everyone knows, we’d love to have them back.
But it’s entirely likely the city will spend more on the race than starting-line host cities such as Lodi, Thousand Oaks and Morro Bay. A racing promoter, who didn’t want to be named, was shocked tour officials would ask for such a large commitment from a non-host city. Maybe it’s considered a down payment.
Tour officials say the $75,000 proves Modesto’s commitment, and it will count in determining next year’s host cities. Count? For $75,000, we expect a solid-gold promise, not a “maybe.”
The City Council approved this expenditure 4-3 on Tuesday. Considering problems retaining police officers, fixing roads and maintaining sewers, we wonder how helping the tour could have risen so high on the city’s priority list. Kristi Ah You, Mani Grewal and Bill Zoslocki saw the problems with this expenditure and voted against it.
If the rest of the council wonders why Modesto’s residents no longer trust government to be wise stewards of our tax dollars, they should look at what they got for their $75,000: a late-night visit, quick goodbye and a promise of “I’ll call you later.” Not a good way to kiss off $75,000.
This story was originally published February 5, 2016 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Our View: For $75K, we’re unhappy with Amgen Tour’s quick visit."