Overtaxed Caddoans, get set to receive a sales pitch this week about a low-priority sports complex that won’t come close to paying for itself, whether measured tangibly or intangibly.

In three sessions, the parish will present an idea for a complex that will allow for a variety of indoor sports – including pickleball, on which last year it already blew $10 million for a dedicated facility on land owned by the Northwest Louisiana YMCA. Outdoor sports around it also remain a possibility.

Perhaps it could have used that $10 million, as it says the parish through debt issuance will cover only $60 million of a projected $70 million cost and apparently has its hat in hand for that remainder. As of yet, Caddo Parish commissioners haven’t decided where to put it, which they might want to do as voters will decide Nov. 3 whether to grant that debt request.

At a special meeting last week, the usual suspects showed up to laud spending other people’s money either to ease their occupational demands or to make themselves look relevant. A couple of tired points, one pecuniary and one not, were made: a complex could attract out-of-towners to tournaments that would boost tax collections and raise the good-old-nebulous “quality of life,” making people more likely to move to the area.

There’s no evidence the latter would happen in any meaningful way, and what data exists on the former – looking at various taxation regimes and even slotting in pie-in-the-sky athletic tourism projections – shows that costs to build, and even to operate, will far exceed any bounce from area visitors. It also would beggar revenues from local, some nongovernmental, providers. Aren’t there enough area schools, Y facilities, tennis centers, cheer/gymnastics venues, collegiate wrestling centers, for-profit operators, etc. already in the parish and across the river from it to serve at least local needs and even attract some area visitor competitions?

Maybe there’s some fantasy that such a complex could piggyback off of the growing youth travel ball mania in enticing tournaments there. Except that has the collateral effect of crowding out local participation and encourages shifting team participation away from the area in favor of hitting the road elsewhere on travel teams (for those families who can afford them in an area with a struggling economy and stagnant population change).

Recognize this for what it is. When (most; some didn’t vote for this) commissioners insist no tax increase would be necessary, they admit taxes are too high and they need someplace to spend the collections rather than return them to the people in the form of lower taxes. Ironically, the property tax funding parks and recreation and revenues generated from those activities didn’t even cover its spending last year, causing the parish to dip into other tax revenues to the tune of a half-million bucks to keep the special fund backing parks and recreation at a level equivalent to about one year’s spending.

That raid on tax collections will escalate by a few million dollars a year to prop up this complex if voters assent. It’s just another shoot-the-moon idea all too common around northwest Louisiana local governments that substitutes for genuine economic development efforts that begin with tax relief. Caddo voters don’t need to attend the informational sessions to know enough to defeat this boondoggle.