Starting Monday: 5-day financing crash course

Hope everyone has a good weekend. We're up to 331 votes in our informal poll. Let's try to get a 1,000.

I wanted to let folks know that next week we're going to have five days of posts detailing the finances surrounding the Rays proposal. Hopefully, it'll be an easy guide to what money is at play in this deal.

On Monday, we'll start with a briefing on the debt remaining on Tropicana Field. Until then ...

Comments

[get-smart]

And Now There Are Two

Published Thursday, August 17, 2012 09:25 AM
-------------------------------------------
St.Petersburg - St Petersburg now has two stadiums. The City Council voted yesterday in a special session to scrap the re-development of the Tropicana Field site for now. After receiving three bids on the environmental clean-up of the Trop site, the Council decided that the clean-up was too costly for the city at this time. How this vote affects the financing of the new LaLang Stadium will be taken up in another special session next week.

The lowest bid was $125 million by the CleanSouth Co. The two other bidders were FirstDump Corp. at $128 million and Tidy Clean at $137 million. The contracts with the Rays and site developers states that the city will pickup all costs associated with the remediation of the Trop.

In addition, By rushing into the contracts back in 2009, the city signed away its right to generate income from the Trop parking lot on game days.

Councilmen Jackson said after the vote, "With that kindda ka-ching, I can getta lotta 'Bling.'" Councilwomen Needly remarked, "Our next option is to see if we can re-design the Trop into a multi-function arena and ballet center. One good thing about the Trop though, is you can't go wrong with one of their corn dogs."

By:Cub Reporter
FutureNews

[Don Mott]

Hi Aaron, I'll be interested to see what you post since the Rays haven't announced any finalized financial details yet.

[Jon McPhee]

Started taking a look at the several proposals for the Trop trashing and "revitalization," and the slim pickings of analysis the City has released so far on the Two Towers. We hope, Mr. Sharockman, that you will be able to interlineate all the little $1 million to $100 million costs and other liabilities that are hidden under the big line items in those summaries and documents. It seems to me, as a person who used to be involved in due-diligence and "fatal-flaw" analyses, that the City is doing damn-all little in identifying and protecting the public's interest. Looks more like a thin coat of glossy paint to cover the rotten stuff at the heart of all this.

Is anyone valuing the properties in question "on the ground," and what they presently bring in tax and private revenue, and adding the loss of that to the community's costs, or placing any "hedonic" value on things the way they are? The latter might highlight the gulf between the vast majority of taxpaying citizens, and the tax avoiders and developers and, dare I say it -- carpetbaggers -- who jigger things to increase the fiscal distance between themselves and the rest of us.

Such calculations are done to value properties destroyed in the search for public forests to cut down, or for property values damaged by siting landfills and airports and other nuisances. It would be a good education for people of this community to learn something about how the shadow politics and political economy actually work, and give them a prayer of voting their REAL interests instead of getting sucked in by false promises and fake wedge issues.

And the Times has given you some rope to follow this issue. Is there any way to fund a sort of accounting ombudsman, who can at least make sure all the credits and debits are in the accounting being peddled to us by the sneaks in the City government who are working the levers behind the curtain (and pulling fast ones like today's angst-du-jour, the grab for the developers' brass ring over on Tierra Verde)?

It's the usual trick Lucy Van Pelt pulls on Charlie Brown every stinking time: "You have to trust me, Charlie Brown -- I PROMISE I'll hold the football for you THIS time, not pull it away so you end up winded and hurting and flat on your back AGAIN."

[Ken]

I have no faith in Mr. Sharockman's ability to accurately analyze the finances involved considering the many inaccuracies that have generally graced his reporting on the subject to this point, and also considering the fact that neither the Rays nor the City have released any real numbers yet -- what could you possibly anlayze. It'll be more guesswork, I'm sure. And in the end I doubt it will matter much to stadium opponents anyway, since they uniformly refuse to listen to reason or facts. The parking studies was a perfect example. Opponents complained up and down when the proposal was first announced that there couldn't possibly be enough parking. They complained that the Rays had no answers for this problem. Then, the Rays paid for an extensive study by parking and traffic experts that answered those questions in the affirmative -- there is plenty of parking. Still refusing to listen to facts or reason, opponents discounted the experts' study by saying that it must be lies because the Rays paid for it. So the city hired its own expert. The city paid thousands of dollars to a new expert to duplicate the work that had already been done. That new expert came back with the same conclusion -- there is plenty of parking. Still opponents whined and whined and so the brilliant mayor ignored the expert he had just paid thousands of dollars to do a traffic and parking analysis and has now demanded a 3000 car garage be built in conjunction with any stadium buit downtown, even though there is already plenty of parking, even though there are several new garages already slated to be built over the next few years, and even though such a garage would mean using valuable downtown business district property for another ridiculous parking structure. St. Pete is becoming a downtown of garages. Take a walk around there some time and count them. It's ludicrous. And absolutely unnecessary. My biggest fear is that the mayor, council, and their bureaucrat minions are too dumb to keep up with the pros the Rays have working for them, and that the result will be that the Rays get fed up with their ineptitude and take their team and the $1billion in potential development (plus several hundred million in added tax revenues over the first 10 years of the development) somewhere else.

[Mandy]

Um...the Rays' parking study was rejected (3/4 mile vs. 1/2 mile, etc) not by the mayor but by those who prepared the City Staff report for him (the experts you referred to).

And if they take their team somewhere else, SO WHAT?? We'll be just fine. St. Pete rocks!

We need a new mayor, not a new stadium.

If you don't like the way St. Pete is, why don't you relocate as well?

[Jon McPhee]

Here we are, us dumb clucks driving taxis and staffing restaurants and retail stores and teaching and nursing the old and infirm and otherwise earning a pittance providing services to people who, like F. Scott Fitzgerald's characters, can 'retreat into the vast indifference of wealth.' We scramble to survive, as the economic screws tighten ever so inexorably, bleeding a steady stream of tax dollars (and "Pinellas pennies," too) into that trough out of which the few feed.

Whether it's the grab for Tierra Verde, or trashing a perfectly functional stadium left over from the last land grab and tax debacle for a "new, improved, luxury model," the beat and the beating up of those whose stupidly keep on keepin' on, goes on.

Enough of the gripe, though. A couple of thoughts on the Big Deal. When will the voters (assuming we are allowed to vote) get a clear picture of the accounting and the butcher's bill for this Thing? Impact fees for the Two Towers? Water demands? Spray water for "cooling" the high-spending multitude under the Sail? Rain water, runoff, traffic, garbage, police and fire protection? Where's the market studies that would support (or refute) the viability of trashing the Trop, for either of the surviving proposals? What are the corporate and cash links between the Rays and the proposed Trop developers? Given the demographic the Trop proposals are aimed at (25-45, single or DINK, retirees), one can see why neither developers nor likely occupants would give a hoot about stripping tax money away from schools and other non-security, non-"amenity" public services. That's just off the top of my head.

I hope Aaron will light up the rest of the potential fatal flaws and the real elements of this transaction, which are not the pretty pictures with the gin-clear streams and cat-tail ponds running through 72-degree open space while joyful consumers wander from shop to restaurant to park bench.

A big part of Sunday's Times was given over to stuff about the supposedly deadly plume of toxic crud seeping inexorably from the Raytheon plant that everyone used to think was such an asset to the area. As a former government and private-practice "Superfund" lawyer, who hasn't seen any of the data on this crud yet, I suspect there's way more smoke than fire here, and the usual opportunity for lawyers to file class actions based on the jury-determined value of being afraid that something bad might lurk under your home, diminishing your property's value, or that years from now you might develop cancer (whether from smoking, or whatever other unrelated cause.) I wonder if it's possible to sue the government here for similar "tort of fear" claims, as in "I'm afraid that the property taxes and debt used to fund these dazzlling great 'revitalization' projects will force me to go live in a trailer in Backwoods, Tennessee, and die from some illness that I can't afford health care for because of all the wealth I created being bled off by 'revitalization.'" Just asking.

One thing about "Superfund" cleanups, which are also "Big Deals:" To help the process come to an end point in the face of public opposition, the government makes the people responsible for the mess pay for "technical assistance grants" to the community. These let the public hire experts of their own, to advise them on what risks they actually face, and whether the cleanup activities, the "revitalization" if you will, makes sense and does not leave them with huge residual problems.

For reasons that anyone who follows government activites should understand, people affected by these activites do not trust either the government or the businesses proposing the deal.

Maybe something like that would be a good idea here. Just a thought.

[Thor]

Aaron, Thor asks you to use a lot of pictures, hopefuly simple ones so people like Puff Daddy Hal Kathy I'm going to stomp my feet until I'm Mayor Ford and Justin I want to stand for something understand. So far, they only thing they get is how to complain about a great idea. Hey Kathy, you probably hated the repeal of prohibition too, it was another sign of evil progress wasn't it? So Aaron, keep it simple, 1 + 1 = 2 kind of stuff. Thor looks forward to reading your prose. Thor has spoken, Thor is wise, Thor is brave, Thor is thinking of the year 2012 and opening day located across the street from One Beach Drive... ha ha ha.

[Paul]

Thor is a professional blogger, who likely lives out of state and is on the Ray's PR payroll. Look at the cowardice in throwing insults to prominent, upstanding citizens of our City. Zero opinion. All fluff.

So far, the informal poll shows about 75% of the people not wanting this project. That's about the result of the Albert Whitted airport vote outcome if I recall correctly.

Now we have the Mayor and the Semblers trying to rip off Tierra Verde. Where does this madness stop? When does our City actually do what's in the interest of its citizens instead of the elite few corporations who own a business here?

No hairy palmed action figures and more importantly no waterfront stadium.

[Chuck]

Why are you even going to bother with this experiment? This blog is nothing but a breeding ground for blind opposition to the stadium proposal. If you post anything favorable they'll just write you off as a Rays employee and if you write anything critical they'll badger you for not making it critical enough.

Jon,

You're posts are way too long and since I'm an uneducated hick, I "choose" not to read them.

Mandy,

So what if the Rays leave? Are you serious? See this is what I was talking about weeks ago that got all you kids in a frenzy. People like MANDY have a vendetta against organized athletics. Someone ask her how she feels about public money going into high school athletic programs. Are you prepared to hear her say "high school football is a waste of money"?

Sick person.

[Thor]

Oh yes, Paul, Thor is simply an out of town Carpetbagger. Yes, Thor was out of town while she was also enjoying a nice frozen beverage at Woody's at St Pete Beach. Would you like Thor to take you there and show you the ATM machine, since they don't take the credit cards you obviously don't have. Thor does not post insults at anyone she respects. She simply points out the facts about Puff Daddy Hal, Stomp my feet Kathy and wanna be Justin. It seems Ok for people to post insults about Thor. when Thor is nothing but a fine refined cultured lady who simply wants the best for the kind citezens of St Pete. Thor is out to show the lunacy of the poop group and the variety of their so called truth. Thor never knew the truth could change so much. Thor has spoken, Thor is wise, Thor is brave, Thor is thirsty for a frozen concoction.

[Thor]

did I mention that Thor is also a carpetmuncher?

Thor is Dyke ... here me ROAR