Politics

The man who runs the town between the stadiums

Published

3 months ago

June 14, 2026

ARLINGTON, Texas – In the run-up to the 2026 World Cup, politicians around the country have complained they’re being asked to foot the bill for transportation and security, while sky-high ticket prices make it impossible for locals to attend the matches.

You won’t hear that argument from Jim Ross, the mayor of Arlington, Texas. His city has spent hundreds of millions on professional sports stadiums over the last three decades — including the NFL venue that’s been renamed Dallas Stadium as it prepares for the World Cup’s busiest schedule.

Voters have approved the spending three times, twice for baseball stadiums and once for the football stadium.

The community of 400,000 has hosted a World Series, a Super Bowl, the final four of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and a Taylor Swift concert. If that’s not enough, there’s a Six Flags theme park and a water park near the stadiums.

Ross, a former Arlington police officer, spent part of his career providing security at baseball games. He later went to law school and was elected mayor in 2021 and 2026 as an independent (municipal elections in most of Texas are technically non-partisan). Ross said he became a soccer fan when his youngest daughter played the sport, watching FC Dallas in Major League Soccer.

He comes down squarely in favor of professional sports — and the hundreds of millions that the city has spent to subsidize them — arguing that AT&T Stadium alone provides $324 million in annual economic benefits to local businesses. And he’s not worried about the $8.5 million in World Cup-related expenses Arlington has racked up – he expects the state and federal governments will reimburse the city.

There are still critics. Game-day traffic around the stadiums can be a nightmare, and some residents question whether the city really really benefits from the public spending on sports venues.

And for fans, getting to the stadium can be a challenge. And Arlington is the largest city in the U.S. without a mass transit system, although the city sponsors a ride-share system.

The transportation agencies that serve Dallas and Fort Worth don’t extend into Arlington, but local officials cobbled together a system that will ferry fans to the stadium using a combination of a regional commuter rail and buses.

Driving to the games? Expect to pay hundreds of dollars for parking.

The first of six group-stage matches kicks off Sunday, with the Netherlands taking on Japan. Argentina, the defending World Cup champions, will play Austria on June 22 and Jordan on June 27.

Ross talked with Blue Light News about pros and cons of hosting professional sports, high ticket prices, transportation and other issues, along with his plans for the cup.

Does it irk you at all to have the stadium renamed for Dallas?

A: Listen, I love Dallas, they are great neighbors, but Arlington is my city, and we’re very proud of what we’ve done here in Arlington. Did I have a number of communications with FIFA about the naming of the stadium, and, and what it should be called, and shouldn’t be called – yeah.

The President of Mexico famously gave away her free ticket as a protest, the mayor of New York whooped and hollered about ticket prices, until FIFA put some relatively cheap tickets up for sale. Is that a concern for you, that regular folks are being priced out of the games?

It’s a concern for me that regular people are being priced out of games on all fronts. I mean, I’ll be candid, you, whether you go to a UFC fight, whether you go to a football game, baseball games, and all that stuff, it’s difficult.

I don’t set ticket prices for anything, anywhere. I certainly want everybody to have an opportunity to enjoy the games and to be a part of it, and I think there’s a number of avenues by which they can do that. (FIFA is giving away free tickets to veterans and first responders, and local charities have access to some tickets.)

Would you take the kind of risk that Mayor Monda Mamdani did — you know, jawboning and seeing if you could get lower price tickets for the fans here?

We’ve had discussions like that, with FIFA, not just ticket pricing.

If I had a city the size of New York, maybe we can get more people to listen to us on things. But we don’t, you know … we’re a smaller big city.

One of the other complaints that’s popped up around the country is, FIFA didn’t do cost sharing for security and other expenses this year. Has that been a problem for you?

We expect significant reimbursement from our federal and state partners on this, and there’s been money set aside to do just that. In fact, I was at the governor’s mansion last Monday with the mayor of Dallas, and when I was leaving there, Governor Abbott reassured me again. He was like, “Mayor, you call me if you need anything else from a public safety perspective, during the games.”

The other thing that’s popped up, you know, whether it’s the Olympics or the World Cup, and so forth, is whether big sporting events are a benefit for the host cities. Is it worth the city’s expense to have these stadiums out here and do these big events?

I’ll give you an example of just having AT&T (AT&T Stadium, the NFL venue where the Cup games will be held). AT&T gives an economic benefit to the city of Arlington of $324 million a year. That’s not the city of Arlington’s cash register ringing, that’s every small business around, their cash register ringing.

Another thing that’s been a problem around the country is transportation to the stadiums. Arlington is, famously, the biggest city in the country without a mass transit system.

A: Arlington doesn’t have a transit problem as much as North Texas has a transit problem.The problem is the transit authorities were developed to address transportation within certain regions, but not necessarily throughout the (whole) North Texas region.

The Dallas system moves people in and out of downtown Dallas, and the Fort Worth system moves them in and out of downtown Fort Worth?

Exactly right.

You worked the stadiums as a police officer – what did you learn about crowd control from that experience?

Crowds feed off of each other. Yeah, you know, if you take a small issue … and you handle it in a horrifically aggressive manner, you can spark a much bigger issue.

I think understanding crowds and the controlling of crowds is an art and a skill that takes highly trained people. I would argue that Arlington PD probably does it better than most, because we have more experience in it than almost any city around.

The Rangers won the World Series (in 2023), and we had over 700,000 people hit the streets in Arlington, and about 10 arrests were made with 700,000 people on the streets. I think that speaks volumes for how our PD handled the crowds.

Does having an international crowd change the dynamics at all?

The Netherlands have a tradition of doing a fan march, and that’s where they bring tens of 1000s of fans, and they march to the stadium. Not all of those fans will necessarily have tickets to get in, but that’s part of their tradition and their celebration, and all that.

So we’ve had to coordinate with the Netherlands and work with them on doing the fan march, talking to them about what is involved in that, and helping them understand here’s what the laws are here in Texas.

I’m probably going to go out there for the Netherlands fan march and participate with it, because culturally speaking, this is so important for Arlington.

And will they be waiving the open container laws during the fan march?

Ah, don’t get me lying.

Politics

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

Published

2 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Stephen A. Smith on Trump, Democrats and the politics of chaos

lead image

Politics

Elon Musk unleashes first wave of spending on key races in the midterms

Published

4 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Elon Musk’s super PAC disclosed its first independent expenditures of the 2026 general election in a filing released late Wednesday, detailing roughly $800,000 across key House and Senate races.

Musk’s America PAC targeted several key Senate contests, including races in Texas, Maine, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan and Alaska.

The largest amount went to Texas — over $247,000 — where Republicans are expected to deploy a wave of party resources to bolster Attorney General Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico.

Musk’s super PAC also put nearly $90,000 into eight House races:

Rep. Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin; Rep. Mike Lawler in New York; Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia; Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in New Jersey; Rep. Scott Perry in Pennsylvania; Rep. Rob Bresnahan in Pennsylvania; Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania; and Scott Singer in Florida.

The independent expenditures — Musk’s first of the general election — were disclosed days after he met with Speaker Mike Johnson in Texas last week.

Republicans already hold a significant fundraising advantage over Democrats, buoyed by President Donald Trump’s roughly $400 million in his MAGA Inc. super PAC. Trump is under growing pressure from Republicans to tap into that money as the midterms near. A major investment from Musk would further widen the GOP’s financial edge heading into November.

Musk has reportedly considered spending at least $100 million for the GOP through America PAC to help Republicans in this year’s midterms, but the full scope of that effort remains unclear.

A spokesperson for America PAC declined to comment.

Musk spent roughly $290 million to support Trump and the GOP during the 2024 cycle, predominantly through his super PAC, making him the largest individual donor to any political committee that cycle, before he took on a major role in the White House’s DOGE effort.

Politics

These mayors live along Lake America’s shores. But they won’t be calling it that.

Published

7 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Robert Corradino has never lived anywhere but Oswego, New York. As the only commercial port city on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, everything bears the lake’s name — the streets, the convention center, the historic fort.

And in his first term as mayor, Corradino — a Republican who said he previously voted for President Donald Trump — said he worries that a distant political feud is threatening to erase part of his city’s history.

In the days following Trump’s executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America, Corradino and other mayors in upstate New York said Trump’s decision is “regrettable” and could upset voters in the region — and even further impact an economy so closely tied to the U.S.’s relationship with Canada.

“The water is part of our identity,” Corradino said. “Not only our identity, but the economy and the history of the lake is tied to the city.”

Oswego, a city of 17,000, is split between Democrats and Republicans, Corradino said. However, the larger Oswego County is one of the reddest in the state and 61 percent of its voters went for Trump in the 2024 election.

Yet on Monday, several Oswego County legislators from both parties approved a resolution rejecting the new name, out of concern for the cost of the rebrand on taxpayers and businesses. The resolution said it does not intend to diminish the authority of the federal government, rather it aims to “recognize the longstanding historical and regional significance of the name Lake Ontario.”

Last Thursday night, at Oswego’s weekly summer concert series, Corradino said everyone he interacted with said they didn’t support the name change and they weren’t sure why it was happening. The general sentiment, he said, was frustration.

Asked about the issues Oswego residents actually care about, Corradino said his constituents are concerned about less immigration enforcement and the war with Iran.

“In general the consensus I see is it just seems like the country is heading in a direction that we’re not all happy about,” Corradino said.

The pushback is not isolated to Oswego. Hours after Trump signed the executive order, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who runs the only state that borders Lake Ontario, said in a post to social media, “New York won’t be calling it that.”

And there’s been mixed adaptation nationally — similar to when Trump dictated that the Gulf of Mexico now go by Gulf of America.

Signs mark the entrance to the Lake Ontario State Parkway on Aug. 25, 2026, in Rochester, N.Y.

On Saturday, Google Maps, which uses the U.S. Geographic Names Information System that comes from official government sources, officially changed the name. Map users on the American side will see “Lake America” while users in Canada will see “Lake Ontario.” For users outside of both the U.S. and Canada, they will see both names. Apple Maps followed suit, using the same naming approach as Google.

But MapQuest — the once-dominant mapping service of the 1990s and early 2000s — rocketed up app stores after refusing to use Lake America.

Long before the lake was renamed, Alex Morgia — a Democrat and mayor of Sackets Harbor, N.Y. — said his community has been grappling with the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Sackets Harbor, located along the eastern shores of Lake Ontario, is home to a number of Canadian residents. A village of 1,400 people, it was a major military outpost and naval command center during the War of 1812, when the U.S. clashed with British and Canadian forces.

Since 1971, the village has hosted the Can-Am festival to commemorate the village’s Canadian-American heritage.

The festival “reminds everyone that it’s not very nice to be at odds with your neighbor,” Morgia said. “Having good relationships with your international neighbors is important, particularly for people that live along the border on either side.”

Last year’s festival was the first time residents began making floats of maple leaves and Canadian flags to protest the Trump administration’s calls to make Canada the “51st state” and to remind Sackets Harbor residents that there were Canadian citizens among them, Morgia said.

This year, as Trump has continued to roll out tariffs against Canadian products, and relations with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney continued to worsen, Morgia joked that the theme for this year’s parade should’ve been “we’re sorry.”

The overall atmosphere at this year’s parade in July was “somber,” Morgia said.

“I kind of hoped that the Canadian issue had gone by the wayside, but you know [Trump] seems to bring it up when he needs to,” Morgia said.

Sackets Harbor is split between Democrats and Republicans, Morgia said. Jefferson County, which encompasses Sackets Harbor, overwhelmingly supported Trump in the 2024 election with 61 percent of its vote.

“It’s a three-hour drive to Montreal, a two-hour drive to Toronto and a six-hour drive to New York City,” Morgia said. “The biggest metropolitan cities near us are Canadian, and a lot of North Country businesses and people rely on the southern part of Canada. … I’m hopeful that voters will think about that at the polls in November and in 2028.”

In the village of Sodus Point, N.Y. — which is located along the southern border of the Great Lake — Republican Mayor Pat Nolan said he’s disappointed by the name-change as “Ontario” is rooted in the Indigenous history of the region.

The name Ontario, is largely believed to come from Iroquoian roots, meaning “beautiful lake” or “sparkling water,” according to the Canadian government. The Canadian province of Ontario, is named after the lake.

A village of 1,000 people, Sodus Point is located in Wayne County, where Trump received 61 percent of the vote in 2024. Nolan was elected in a write-in campaign last year.

“My hope is that, rather than allowing this decision to become another wedge that further divides people,” Nolan wrote in an email, “it can encourage a broader discussion about the history of this great body of water, the Indigenous people who first gave it its name and the generations of communities that have grown along its shores.”