Doug Hoffman’s bail-out?

The Watertown Daily Times is running a story about Doug Hoffman’s tenure as chief financial “controller” for the fabled 1980 Winter Olympics.

Those games are part of the North Country’s cultural landscape, and the Conservative Party candidate from Lake Placid has made his role back in the 1970s and early ’80s a big part of his campaign.

But according to Jude Seymour’s piece:

Three months after the games closed, the agency was $6 million in debt — an amount the Plattsburgh Press Republican once called “an enormous sum in 1980 for a village with such modest resources.” It owed an estimated 1,600 creditors.

The state bailed out the project — and continues to heavily subsidize Lake Placid’s tourism and sports industries three decade’s later.

That kind of taxpayer funded project (much of the funding for the Olympic venues has come in the form of earmarks) has been the target of Hoffman’s most passionate rhetoric.

Here’s what he told Seymour:

“I’m not ashamed of it,” he said. “The return on investment that the taxpayers got on the federal and state level is at least 30 fold, when you include the income tax, sales tax and business tax that has been generated since this investment. It’s been unmatched.”