City Council timeline; a refresher

There seemingly has been a lot of confusion surrounding the process of putting the stadium question on a citywide referendum. Pinellas County Commissioners on Tuesday even sounded unsure of what needed to happen, and when.

So, here's the schedule, as laid out by the city:

* On June 5, the City Council will be asked to authorize the City Attorney to draft potential ballot language. The council will be able to set the general parameters of a referendum, but it will not have to come up with specific ballot language. The City Attorney then must advertise the potential referendum and schedule two public hearings.

* Because the referendum requires an ordinance to be passed, there must be two public hearings. The first is scheduled for July 17. Usually, local governments roll over the ordinance to the second public hearing. That doesn't have to happen, though.

* The second public hearing is Aug. 7. This only occurs if a majority of council members approved both authorizing the City Attorney to draft ballot language and pass the referendum ordinance on first hearing. If council members approve the ordinance on second public hearing, we have a referendum.

* But, the City Council can still meet up until Aug. 14, and decide to pull the referendum off the November ballot, the city says.

The St. Petersburg Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday characterized the real "decision" date as Aug. 7, as has Mayor Rick Baker (when he talked about parking commitments to the Times last month). Members of St. Pete Protect Our Wallets and Waterfronts, the anti-stadium group, have talked about the June 5 date as being critical, arguing that the process becomes harder to stop the further along it goes.

It's unclear what council members, the people who will make the distinction, believe.

Comments

[Colorado Snowbird]

Thank you for the timeline Aaron. This BLOG is a fantastic vehicle for community discussion.

[Thomas]

Is there a time line for when the Rays will answer real questions about their proposal?

- When will they clarify the Parking Revenue Contribution.

- Will they guarantee the gap between the estimates of new revenues from the Trop redevelopement based on the city's analysis.

- Will they actually pay for using the Al Lang site that is public property.

- Will they publish the lease term sheet for the new stadium including revenue splits with the city - if they intend to split revenues with the city at all.

[Colorado Snowbird]

You haven't been paying attention Thomas. The Rays will answer these questions when it is time.

[Thomas]

Ok, I'll bite - "When is it time?"

I would ration that the time was when they made the proposal.

[josh]

"Members of St. Pete Protect Our Wallets and Waterfronts, the anti-stadium group, have talked about the June 5 date as being critical, arguing that the process becomes harder to stop the further along it goes."

Yea, they want to kill this before it even goes to a vote. So much for allowing US to decide

[H.L.Menchen]

The Rays are not answering questions because they have no clue as to the answers. The stock answers at City Council's meeting were "we don't know" and "we're working on that". Folks, this stadium scheme is publicly financed! That means we pay for it. All the propaganda projections are simply shooting the moon and have no basis in fact. The bottom line is the Rays are sticking us citizens with a half billion dollar plus bill and our officials are too gutless to challenge it.

[A real city supporter]

H. L Menchen you are absolutely correct. Perfect in fact.

This entire stadium deal is going to be paid for by the citizens of St. Petersburg. 100% of it.

No one to date has shown us the first dollar which is being paid by these New Yorky carpetbaggers.

[homer]

real city supporter:

thank you for your refreshing outlook! i have been waiting for someone to mention the fact that the $150m that the rays will be paying directly toward the new ballpark will be coming from people from NEW YORK! everyone knows that new york was built using money and recovered pirate treasure stolen from st. petersburg during the civil war, meaning that $150m is really ours!

[Rick K]

LMHO @ Homer.

I've seen your posts in a number of threads. Good work.

Please don't be discouraged because many will not get the satire.

[Scott]

Are your people serious?