EDITORIAL: Mayor Fumbled I-Bowl Bailout
Shreveport Times (excerpt)

We like the Independence Bowl. Great games. National media attention.

Taxpayers even ponied up millions to renovate Independence Stadium, a debt that will continue to be paid into the next decade.

What Shreveporters didn't sign up for was a secret cash payment of a half million dollars to bail out a floundering I-Bowl committee that was being stiffed by its sponsor, PetroSun. Mayor Cedric Glover said he was protecting the "interest of the city," that going public with the $500,000 loan last spring might have jeopardized the chances for PetroSun making good on its $800,000 debt.

Sorry, but that excuse doesn't work. Perhaps the mayor didn't need City Council permission to move around dollars already appropriated for his administrative budget. But helping the I-Bowl make ends meet likely isn't what taxpayers envisioned as an emergency. Consider that the I-Bowl had been nagging PetroSun for months to get them to honor the Arizona company's $2.45 million, three-year commitment.