Your Turn, Feb. 28: Spending Money On UTSA Sports Facilities Is Weird. – San Antonio Express-News

How can anyone follow this guy? What is the justification?

Richard Caldwell, Boerne

UTSA sports costly

Re: “New use pushed for old state hospital,” Metro, Wednesday:

I noticed in an article by reporter Scott Huddleston that Bexar County has committed $8 million to build a field house adjacent to the soccer stadium at UTSA’s Park West campus to “provide amenities for NCAA Division I soccer and track and field programs.”

I’m reminded the soccer stadium Huddleston mentions was built with the help of $5.5 million from the city of San Antonio’s 2007 bond issue. And that reminded me the Park West campus was acquired and developed with the help of $15 million from a 2008 county venue tax. Then I remembered UTSA received $10 million from the 2017 bond issue to help build the “Roadrunner Athletics Center of Excellence,” a $40.4 million training facility for student athletes and offices for football coaches on the main campus that opened last year. Then I recalled $5 million has been earmarked in the 2022 bond issue (that voters will consider in May) to help UTSA build a volleyball and basketball practice facility on the main campus.

If my math is correct, that’s $43.5 million of local taxpayer money that has been, or will be, spent on UTSA athletic facilities in less than 20 years. Which causes me to wonder, is that normal? Do San Marcos and Hays County taxpayers, for example, foot the bill for Texas State University athletic facilities? Heck, what about Trinity, St. Mary’s, Our Lady of the Lake and Texas A&M University-San Antonio?

Maybe spending millions of taxpayer dollars on facilities for UTSA athletes — facilities that most taxpayers cannot use — is normal, but it seems weird to me.

Dave Pasley