Arlington voters approve public money for new Texas Rangers park
![Taxpayer funding for a new stadium for the Texas Rangers won approval Tuesday.](https://cdn.statically.io/img/www.usatoday.com/gcdn/-mm-/8562e87e6c8927b99735f211d88913d99b609220/c=0-531-5177-3456/local/-/media/2016/11/09/USATODAY/USATODAY/636142497357827792-USATSI-9591285.jpg?width=660&height=373&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp)
ARLINGTON, Texas β Proponents of Arlington taxpayer funding for a $1 billion retractable-roof Texas Rangers stadium have won approval.
With 98% of the vote counted, voters approved by a 60-to-40-percent margin Tuesday the extension of a half-cent sales tax, 2% hotel-occupancy tax and 5% car-rental tax for a new home for the Major League Baseball team. That revenue now goes to defraying Arlington's $155 million debt on its share of the cost of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys' AT&T Stadium, which opened in 2009.
The vote also allows a 10% admission tax and a $3 parking tax for the Rangers' use, the same deal reached for the Cowboys.
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Although the Rangers hadn't publicly threatened to leave, a team representative held preliminary talks with Dallas officials about a covered stadium there.
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