Sports advocates target Goldwater

Consumer advocate Ralph Nader and his local sports advocacy group are calling for the resignation of Robert D. Goldwater, president of the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, citing mismanagement and wasteful spending.

Mr. Nader and the League of Fans, a 2-year-old District-based sports watchdog group, yesterday sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams asking him to engage in better management of the sports commission. The sports commission is an 11-member board appointed largely by the mayor and oversees Mr. Goldwater and his 58-member staff.

The group has hammered the Williams administration for its efforts to finance an estimated $338.7 million baseball stadium through gross receipts and other business-related taxes.

“We sent the letter yesterday morning and the baseball stadium is a big part of it,” said Shawn McCarthy, the group’s director.

“There hasn’t been a report to the people on how much they’ve spent trying to get a stadium, and it seems to be a giant waste of public money,” Mr. McCarthy said, referring to the commission’s lavish spending on wining and dining Major League Baseball executives to get the Montreal Expos to move to the District.

The group’s letter detailed for Mr. Williams a list of managerial missteps and misspent funds in an effort to build a new stadium. The letter also states the commission has “neglected to defend” Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Memorial Stadium, one of two facilities it controls. The other facility is the D.C. Armory.

“You gave the [sports commission] a mandate to turn D.C. into an entertainment complex by attracting high-profile events, such as the Olympic Games, the Grand Prix and Major League Baseball,” the group’s letter states.

“Your preference for attracting ‘world-class’ sporting events by dumping public funds into the laps of private businesses … no doubt added fuel to the [sports commissions] wasteful spending and arrogance toward heartfelt community dissent.”

Mr. Goldwater said yesterday he would not comment on any aspect of the letter.

Mr. Goldwater is the highest-paid employee in the D.C. government, earning $275,000 a year. He is a distant relative of Barry M. Goldwater, the late five-term senator from Arizona and Republican presidential candidate.

Mr. Williams’ spokeswoman Sharon Gang said the mayor was returning from Milwaukee yesterday and had not seen the letter. But Miss Gang did respond to the concerns the letter addressed.

“The mayor can appreciate the issues addressed by Mr. Nader. Many of the issues in the letter deal with concerns the mayor had before he appointed a blue-ribbon panel,” Miss Gang said.

She said the mayor disagrees with Mr. Nader’s assertions that his panel is nothing more than a collection of “business leaders and corporate welfare pushers.”

Mr. Nader first jumped into the District’s baseball debate last month.

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