Whether the new arena gets built or not, that's just an absolutely ignorant Austin-ite comment. It's like saying the money came out of the cookie jar and not the sock drawer. Who is the City, and who is the County? It's US. The only difference is that running it through the County spreads the cost out over a few more people. But the money still comes out of the same bucket. There is no autonomous government with its own money. And City or County, they were/are all elected by the citizens. Drones like you love to say, "The people are all for this", but the people voted for other people who are against it. Your arena is going to get built, because the people who will benefit the most financially can afford the most effective PR campaign.
When they decided to build that stupid statue of Me at Olympia, I tried to tell them to spend the money on light donkey carts instead. But do you little hairless monkeys listen? Noooo, they just increased the tax on hydromel and papyrus and built it anyway. Now it's one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Except it's...you know...gone. For the record, when you increase the tax on mead, people keep drinking. When you increase the tax on papyrus, they quit writing and reading as much, and you wind up like Austin, with people screaming to defund the Scythian archers.