Finances are in; what a day

So we learned a lot yesterday. Or did we. The Tampa Bay released their plan to pay for a $450-million waterfront stadium. You can read our story here.

And here's some questions and answers related to the plan:

Does the Rays’ financing plan cover all of the stadium costs?
The Rays say yes, including improving and moving Bayshore Drive.

Who would pay for any cost overruns at the new stadium?
The Rays, but only if they oversee construction.

Would the Rays pay rent at a new stadium?
Lease terms have not been discussed. The team pays rent at Tropicana Field based on the number of tickets sold. The Rays said Thursday they expect a lease agreement for a new ballpark would include similar or better terms for the city.

What parking spaces do the Rays want to buy?
The team would pay the city upfront for 2,500 off-street parking spaces downtown that are now unused on game nights. The Rays would then sell those spaces to season ticket holders. Specific lots might include those at The Pier and in city parking garages downtown.

Would the Rays own those spaces?
No. They would simply purchase the ability to park in those spots on game nights. They then would resell those parking spaces to fans.

Does that cover the $55-million cost the team has attached to parking revenue?
No. The Rays say they will still need to find $20-million more. One possibility, they said, is a $1 per car surcharge for game-day parking.

What’s the city’s risk?
$75-million for construction. That risk, the Rays say, would be offset by taxes generated by redeveloping the Tropicana Field site.

What’s the county’s risk?
$100-million for construction. The Rays say that money also would be offset by the site’s redevelopment.

The city must have a referendum on the plan, but does the county?
No. The city’s referendum would deal with moving the stadium to the waterfront. It is not needed to approve the financing plan.

What is needed to approve the financing plan?
The Pinellas County Commission and City Council have to approve it. Pinellas County Commissioner Ken Welch attended Thursday’s presentation. The Rays said they want to meet with the commission as soon as next week.

So what's next? For the city, it's pouring over the numbers in more detail. For the Times, we're reaching out to four of the leading sports ecomonists or stadium experts to rate the financing plan. We should have that in the newspaper tomorrow. We're asking the experts, Andrew Zimbalist, Victor Matheson, Mark Rosentraub abd Neil deMause to rate the financing plan based off of the poll question a couple posts down.

We're planning to publish the online results along with a couple of good comments in Saturday's paper as well. If you have something worth saying about the financing plan (and can keep it to a few sentences) please post that here. It'd be even better if you were willing to attach your name and where you're from to your post.

I'll be back with last week's poll results in a bit. I know we more than 1,000 votes this week!

Comments

[get-smart]

-The Phone Call- 5/15/08 10:16pm
----------------------

SS - RRRRRingggggggg! Stu Here!

MK - Hi! Stu. It's me, Mikey.

SS - Hey! Mikey! how-ya doin'! How did the news conference go?

MK - It went Great! We did the shuffle on them.. we kept them hoppin' ...you know, so we can maintain control of the process. We moved the conference from the Trop to the Council Chambers in City Hall at a minute's notice.

SS - Yeah! That's what I like about you Mikey. You keep them guessing. Did you and Matt do your Bambi-eyes sincere shtick?

MK - Yes, We did Sir! and you would have been proud. I slapped together a slide-show presentation which took me about two hours to make. I used a bunch of old re-hashed garbage numbers. I showed them how it's not going to cost them anything if they sell off the Trop and give us choice downtown real estate
for our stadium. In fact, I told them that it was possible to actually come out ahead. Ha Ha! After the presentation they asked a few questions.

SS - Let me guess. You guys stonewalled them and they ate it up .. Right!

MK - Yes Sir! They did. For every question they asked, we Bambi-eyed them into submission and said, "Oh! we're still working on this ... Oh! We'll workshop that." What a laugh. FYI Sir, Matt and I are conducting private discussions with the mayor and council members. We'll fix it. Don't worry Sir.

SS - I'm not. You and Matt are doing a great job. So! How's the Florida weather?

MK - It's starting to get hot and muggy ... Thank God the Trop is air-conditioned. Ha ha ha haha!

SS - Ha ha haha! Keep up the good work. Bye Mikey and say Hi! to Matt for me. CLICK!

-

[Greg]

Rays financing? Since when is someone thats leasing(the Rays) allowed to use whatever money is going to be gained from a sale and developement of said property that isn't theirs? This money belongs to the taxpayers. In these tough economic times, of cuts here, cuts there, neighbors losing their homes, jobs, etc...don't ya think that any of this revenue if you do redevelope the Trop. could be used for better things? Are the people in government blind?

[Chuck]

Probably they're just lying - it's what rich people do.

Watch any episode of COPS and you'll have your proof.

Oh wait...

[Don Mott]

Hi Aaron, I heard no mention of them covering all of the costs for relocating Bayshore but I will take your word for it since your more into this than I am. One of the many questions I have is how can their predicted parking numbers work? Presuming they can even secure the 2,500 spots it will take a long time and a lot of money per spot to reach $35 million. Did they guarantee that they will pay $35 million for them? And a $1 dollar surcharge will take a long time to make up the other $20 million. Once again they left many unanswered questions.

[Make a Deal]

get-smart, I am embarrassed that we have so many like you that belittle the efforts of Matt Silverman, Michael Kalt and Stu Sternberg.
Our residents have called them carpet bagers and liken them to Satan.
They are trying to make a bottom ranked team into a top ranked team. Financially and on the field.
It takes a lot of planning and investing while hoping for a return.
I want them to be successful here in St. Pete. But if we run them off then they will be successful somewhere else.
Matt Silverman and Michael Kalt are so good they got the Yankees to tear down the landmark stadium.

[Don Mott]

Make a Deal, They are doing what investment bankers do. Maximizing profits while reducing expenditures. To believe otherwise is foolish.

[Chris Jenkins]

Make a Deal, you are completely ignoring capitalism 101: To those who take the greatest risk go the greatest rewards.

Putting the risk on the city, while drawing the monetary rewards, is not capitalism, it's feudalism, and last I checked, that wasn't the American way.

[Christine Ackerman]

It's a matter of dollars and cents. If you think building a new ballpark is going to bring people in, your crazy. I don't go now, and I won't go to a new park. I and my friends work at Publix, we make about 7.50/hour. How far do you think that pay gets us each week when every cost keeps going up, and up? We go to the beach, it's free...we park for free, we only pay for gas to and from, being that I live in Largo, that amounts to about $2, if that. Thats about all we can afford. Until Pinellas County starts having some decent paying employers were we all can get jobs. Maybe we can afford to go to a game or two.

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

In commercial real estate many items go into analysis abbreviated by their letters. N.O.I. Net operating income
P.G.I. - Projected Gross Income...I.R.R. Internal rate of return...you get the idea. But the letters that bring smiles to any brokers face are the P.F.A.'S That stands for Plucked From Air. The Rays so called financial plan is so loaded with Plucked From Air numbers that it is absolutely ludicrous to even call this a true financial analysis. The trouble for the Rays Kool aid drinkers is that they don't want to face the TRUTH. They accept PROJECTIONS as FACTS. How would you feel if I as a broker sold you an investment property and told you it needed $135,000 worth of additional investment to become market ready. Then you had to actually spend $242,000 to bring your investment to market condition. Would you respect my judgement on my next offer to you?
Well Ray's Kool aid drinkers read how accurate Mr. Kalts proposals turn out.
He was Mayor Bloombergs right hand man in the New York Stadium deals. Now let's give everyone a primer in PROPOSALS VERSUS FACT...
Infrastructure alone...something that has yet to even be factored into the Rays proposal...I guess we're supposed to ignore those costs..Infrastructure cost for New York City's TAXPAYERS..
2004 PROJECTION 135 MILLION
2008 FACT 242 MILLION
Mr Kalt's team missed their PROJECTIONS by a whopping 79%. Are you really prepared to accept the projections of man who was wrong by 79% as fact? What part of this are you not understanding Aaron. Projections versus factual experience. I understand after reading your first article that Michael wooed you with a few beers down on Central Avenue...but really..how about some OBJECTIVE journalism here...at least share this fact...Michael Kalt's Yankee stadium...the jewel on his resume..
PROJECTIONS FOR INFRASTRUCTURE ALONE
135 MILLION...FACT 242 MILLION. Isn't it relevant to look at this history of the man making the projections. This is all PUBLIC RECORD in NEW YORK. Here is a hyperlink to document.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0813,
as-new-yankee-and-met-stadiums-go-up-so-
costs-and-disruption,389221,1.html
Aaron if you will simply follow the TRUE story of Michael Kalt I will gladly match you with free beer for every beer he bought you. PLEASE JUST PRESENT SOME FACTS TO GO ALONG WITH ALL THESE PROJECTIONS WHICH THE RAYS KOOL AID DRINKERS TAKE AS FACT!!!

[Paul the first]

I am wondering whether or not the developer who built Bayfront Towers had all the facts at his disposal when he decided to go ahead or perhaps, did he make projections that he could sell the units? that there would be a market for the building?that he could get the prices he needed? you get the idea. There are no guarantees in life;nothing of real consequence has ever happened without some view of the future (a PROJECTION?) and because we can't know the future, there will always be some risk. [Is it possible that the naysayers can resist the temptation to trot out the old Churchill quote about history??]If we had listened to the POWW of the day, we probably never would have filled in the portion of the Bay in 1918 to create the land on which Al Lang Field now sits.

[get-smart]

atrulyconcernedcitizen - You are too analytical. Kalt's mission is to get the stadium proposal past the city wide referendum vote. That is it. The numbers that he used, as you would say, were "Plucked From Air." These garbage numbers are used as the basis for the city council, mayor and city planners to rationalize the referendum. I am sure they all looked into building a new waterfront stadium without a referendum.

It is very difficult to sway opinions. Kalt knows this and so does the city leaders. Not one council member voiced an opinion. Not one council member stood up and said "I do not want to destroy our beautiful downtown waterfront for the aggrandizement of these greedy Goldman Sachs investment bankers," not one, not even on principle. They promised last year that Al Lang was being transferred to the park system. It never happened. Gee! I wonder who was hiding in the coat room with a "Fist-Full of Dollars?" I guess it was the "Bad and the Ugly," because to the taxpayers, no "Good" is going to come from this.

To: -Paul the first- and I know you're no Pope.

Get Real!

--

[Paul]

Get Real, I was kind of wondering the same thing... why hasn't any Council member stood up and challenged this, if even just on principle? They seem to ask an easy/generalized question or two and then get an 'ohh, ok' look on their face. I'm sure if I were a Council person, I would too be intimidated by the all powerful Wall Street gang, even with their 'deer in the headlights, bambie faced expressions' (what is with that?! i have had girl scouts sell me cookies with a more confident expression than Kalt and fake'o sidekick Silverman). However, if I were on Council, I'd definately put my fist to the desk and say, 'This is pure greed, everyone knows it... we have lied and continue lying to the citizens.'

Our Council and Mayor are going to let this go to vote, because they are afraid of destroying their own careers... ala' revenge from MLB and the Rays owners. You don't think if one of them stood up and honestly, genuinely opposed this waterfront mess, that they wouldn't be kissing their political career goodbye? They are betting the citizens will vote this down and thus their careers will be saved from vengance by the Rays and MLB. They are wimps. They certainly see the red yard signs, they certainly have heard the hundreds of people appear before them (St Pete citizens) and they certainly know what they said about adding Al Lang to the park system.

I call BS on our Mayor and Council for being afraid of Kalt, Silverman and the Rays.

The City, the majority of the Council and the Mayor are cowards.

Just look, they hid this from us until the day after the Council elections, that alone is proof positive to me that our Mayor and City are intimidated and we need some leadership with a backbone.

... expect for Karl Nurse. He came on later, so I can't say for certain he fits my description above.

Posting on this non-sense since November '07 -- Paul

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Paul,

While I agree with your sentiments, and yes Karl Nurse was at least courageous enough to ask some probing questions...we must give total respect to Herb Polson. He has pointed out the absurdity of this proposal from the beginning. Perhaps it his many years working with the city that enables him to see clearly. The reality is however Polson and Nurse are the only ones so far to demonstrate any "testicular fortitude" to use the new political buzzword. As for Pope Paul...the one consuming the Rays kool aid...ABC/ESPN research shows(and they should be biased IN FAVOR OF BASEBALL since they earn hundreds of millions from it) that less than half our population calls themselves baseball fans. Books, think tanks as diverse as Brookings Institute..Cato Institute and and numerous independent "scientific" studies show there is NO FINANCIAL benefit from major league baseball for the community that builds the stadium.
Which leaves you to your last lame argument as to why we should do this...all the development of Tropicana..Again and what part of this do you not understand...the lease contains air rights that enable to city to develop the site already!!!! The Rays cannot stop it. Can the Rays leave...yes and then we'd get all the money and while I feel sorry for the half of the population which enjoys a baseball game(that includes me btw) it's is incredibly unfair to ask half the population to subsidize the other halfs entertainment. Considering MLB has enough money to pay AROD 300 million Derek Jeter 250Million..locally Kazmir 10 Mil for four years..Pena 8 mill for four years..Crawford will make even more beginning next year. It is simply obscene for these rich people to ask for Corporate welfare. These people have NO CONSCIENCE. What part of actual fact do you not understand.

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Paul,

Your comments about the Bayfront Tower development simply reinforce my point with documentation about Kalt's dismal record with projections!!!
Yes the developer of Bayfront Tower had to make projections and then had to go to the bank with his numbers to secure financing. I can assure you the Bank or lenders looked at the record and if the developer had been 79% off or over 100 million dollars on his prior project there would be NO BAYFRONT TOWERS!!! WE the citizens are the lenders. Why don't you try to explain how boy wonder..Michael Kalt could make a 79% 100+million dollar mistake in his OWN HOMETOWN when he worked on the city's economic development staff for years. Why don't you try to answer facts with some facts of your own. Why should taxpayers accept this HUGE risk when facts show the last time they took on an 85 million dollar dome it's over 300 million and rising. The Rays haven't even come up with accurate PROJECTIONS yet. Why should anyone have a problem with postponing the referendum until 2009? The Rays obviously don't have their act together yet? Is one year going to ruin them financially? Give us some FACTS as to why this has to proceed in 08 instead of 09.

[Don Mott]

The "experts" in todays paper seem to mimic some of the things we opponents have been saying all along. Imagine that.

[Jon McPhee]

Don, not altogether. But then they are working only with the same smoke and mirrors the City Council seems happy with, and not going into all the external spreadsheet details that might have a prayer of letting the public know what is really going on.

Most of Pinellas will buy the misleading material published in the Times today, supposedly a set of disinterested reports actually breathing life into the Big Deal by, like the polls offered in these blogs, slanting the question asked, limiting the data to be considered, and cutting the text the "experts" had to speak from to a few hundred words.

These "analyses" were just to "double check the Rays' math," based on "the same detais the Rays released Thursday at a meeting with the City Council, along with a story published by the Times about the plan." If you parse through all the "analyses," two of them just parrot the Rays numbers.

I especially like the remark by Andrew Zimbalist that "This is capitalism and any project carries risks." Not any capitalism that I ever read about, Andrew, except the type practiced in the Third Reich, where you had a welfare state for business so complete that the usual welfare recipients were forced to work to death in the German war machine's factories. This is pure and simple a subsidy to greedy men who have the wherewithal to buy their own d--n stadium but want to leverage a liking for baseball into a mandate to gift them hundreds of millions of dollars of public wealth. At least a couple of these folks pointed out that what the City and County are supposed to do is sell large public assets and simply give the proceeds to the sports team owners. That's just plain wrong.

I read that the San Francisco stadium that is used to argue that it's ok to use public waterfront (and was built in a run-down port and dock part of the City) was in fact built with PRIVATE money, and somehow is doing at or near the top of its class in terms of returns to its owners. What was that remark about truth, posted by one of the stadium proponents I think? "Truth is not just the facts, but an absence of deceit."

Too bad the Times' analysts were not tasked to do a really full analysis of the credits and debits in this accounting legerdemain. But then all we are all supposed to focus on is the Rays' statements of who pays what and gets what. Details at eleven, right?

It's likely another waste of time and electrons, but not everyone will take the time to go to the link here, borrowed from a Ballpark blog post, and read the article. So here it is and it's at least interesting.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/28992.html

"On the same day the Florida Marlins paraded through Miami to celebrate their second World Series championship in six years, politicians from Miami-Dade County swallowed the young baseball team's corporate welfare bait.

"County Mayor Alex Penelas and Manager George Burgess announced they were offering a whopping $73 million in bed tax revenue, plus a parcel of free land, to help build a new $325 million baseball-only retractable-roof stadium that the lucrative franchise desperately wants. (The Marlins' owners are unwilling to shell out more than $137 million for the venue.)

"Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, who as owner of the wretched Milwaukee Brewers wheedled more than $600 million from Wisconsin taxpayers to build the two-year-old Miller Park, immediately issued a statement that he was "extremely pleased and excited that the Florida Marlins have been able to transform their success, both on and off the field, to...significant movement toward the possibility of building a new ballpark in South Florida."

"Selig has ample reason to be extremely pleased. He has made an art form out of fleecing taxpayers for billions of dollars. Like any successful con, the commish has learned the power of looking straight into the cameras and repeating, over and over again, the same easily disproved lie: that the baseball industry is suffering terribly and needs public handouts just to stay afloat.

"Every year, Forbes publishes new estimates of baseball revenue that make a mockery out of Selig's claims of poverty. The magazine's valuations, on average, are $50 million higher than what the teams themselves report. The teams increased in value, on average, by 171 percent from 1992 to 2002, according to calculations by Forbes' Michael Ozanian.

"In fact, the industry's sustained boom is due in no small part to municipalities' foolish willingness to pay for the construction of fancy new stadiums, dish out various tax breaks, and generally act like landlords terrified that their lone tenant might find a better deal across the street.

"Public subsidies pad the bottom lines of team owners and boost player salaries while offering no real economic benefit to the cities involved," the economist Raymond Keating wrote in a widely cited 1999 Cato Institute [a pretty conservative bunch, who actually understand and like real capitalism -- Jon] report on the "costly relationship" between major league sports and government. "They provide another example of government action whereby the few and the influential benefit at the cost of the many."

"The Marlins in particular have perfected the gold-throated beg. The team's original owner, Blockbuster Video magnate Wayne Huizenga, convinced Miami-Dade to pay for nearly $30 million in road and utility upgrades around Pro Player Stadium before he brought baseball to South Florida. He also wangled an annual $2 million sales tax rebate for the next 30 years, which remains in effect for other business interests even though he's long since sold the team. Yet this wasn't enough -- he wanted a new publicly funded stadium, even though Pro Player, which also houses the Miami Dolphins, was built as recently as 1987 (with the help of $85 million in city-backed tax-exempt bonds).

"Like Selig, Huizenga pleaded poverty, he blatantly lied about his finances, and when the locals failed to reward his 1997 World Championship with the ballpark of his dreams, he engaged in what baseball economist Andrew Zimbalist has called "the most radical fire sale of players in baseball history," leading to a disastrous 54-108 record. He then sold the Marlins for a $65 million profit after just five years, in a deal that gave him incredibly favorable terms: 100 percent ownership of Pro Player, a hefty annual rent, and huge chunks of parking and concession receipts.

"Huizenga's emotional blackmail of sports-mad taxpayers has hardly been limited to baseball. In 1996 he convinced Broward County to cough up $185 million to build the National Car Rental Center for the Florida Panthers, his National Hockey League team. The county and the team were supposed to divvy up arena profits 20/80, but after the first five years the Panthers had pocketed $53.7 million and Broward just $331,206, according to columnist Michael Mayo of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"Worse, the arena's most recent audit, by Deloitte & Touche, warned that "certain factors exist that may indicate that [the Panthers] will be unable to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time." Broward could soon find itself owning, and servicing the debt on, an empty hockey arena.

"This is just a tiny part of the overall sports pork racket. As Keating estimated, "During the 20th century, more than $20 billion has been spent on major league ballparks, stadiums, and arenas. This includes a minimum of $14.7 billion in government subsidies that has gone to the four major league sports...including more than $5.2 billion just since 1989."

Further, "These numbers...exclude the billions of dollars in subsidies provided through the use of tax-free municipal bonds [which are paid off by TAXPAYERS, folks, WITH A LOT OF INTEREST OVER A LOT OF YEARS, and which eat away at the local government's bonding capacity to fund, oh, infrastruccture improvements, let's say -- Jon], interest paid on debt, lost property and other tax revenues not paid on facilities, taxpayer dollars placed at risk of being lost if the venture failed, direct government grants to teams, and the billions of dollars spent by taxpayers on minor league facilities."

"The money quote from baseball's most nauseating bit of self-mythology, the 1989 Kevin Costner vehicle Field of Dreams, was, "If you build it, they will come." Like much of the national pastime's lore, the truth is actually much closer to the opposite: Build a stadium with tax money, and they will eventually leave.

"The most recent example of this phenomenon was the October sale of the Triple-A Edmonton Trappers franchise to a Texas group headed by Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan. The team moved even though Canadian taxpayers paid for half the construction costs of the Trappers' Telus Field in 1995 -- and even though Edmonton held a 15-year lease.

"Keating made the obvious but infrequently stated point in a March 2000 article for USA Today magazine: "Another major downside to government-built and -owned ballparks is that clubs are transformed from owners to renters. It is always easier for a renter to move to get a better deal. So, government officials who advocate taxpayer-funded sports facilities to attract or keep a team virtually ensure that teams will continue issuing threats and moving."

"Here's a different approach: Tax-funded entities should immediately begin selling off all their sports venues. Why on earth should two-thirds of Major League Baseball parks be fully or partly owned by governments? San Francisco's glorious Pac Bell Park was the first privately financed stadium to be built since 1962; not coincidentally, it generates the most revenue in baseball. Private owners are far more likely to upgrade facilities, seek creative revenue-generating schemes, and stay put in their host cities.

"A fire sale of stadiums and arenas would bring some much-needed revenue for cash-strapped cities and counties, even in the long term (in the form of future sales and property taxes, which frequently go uncollected on municipally owned properties). The city of Los Angeles, for example, projects a $180 million deficit in the next fiscal year, yet it continues to co-own and operate the nearly vacant Memorial Coliseum and Sports Arena while failing to fill the two-foot potholes in the street in front of my house.

"Once cities get in the habit of disconnecting taxpayer monies from professional sports franchises, future subsidies will be all that much harder to justify, and the Bud Seligs of the world will have to go back to making money the old-fashioned way: by earning it."

[Thomas]

In my opinion, these items should be addressed completely prior to including this proposal on any ballot:

1- FINANCING PLAN

- Correct the public/private contributions to accurately reflect that the Rays commit $150M to the project and the other $300M comes from public, either via taxes or the proceeds of selling public property.

- Clarify if the Rays $150M is a contribution to construction or just an upfront lump sum rent payment.

- Clarify the Parking Revenue contribution.

- Validate the claims of public benefit. Start with the Sales Tax estimate of $104M over the next 35 years.

That would require $3M per year in sales taxes to meet that estimate.

Are they basing their estimate off of the full sales tax rate - including the state portion - or are they estimating based on only the city sales tax amount?

Assuming they erroneously estimated off the full sales tax rate and not just the city sales tax, it would still require over $42M in sales per year.

Of that $42M in sales activity, how much is actually new money as opposed to displaced sales taxes that would have been collect from other local retail outlets anyway (substitution effect).

- Will the Rays or the developers guarantee these estimates or are they just fabricated for PR purposes.

2- LEASE TERM SHEET

- What will the rent amount be? (Assuming the Rays "contribution" is not just the sum of their rent)

- How will naming rights and advertising revenues be distributed?

- Will suite sales and premium seating revenues be shared with the city?

- Are revenues from non-baseball events still collected by the team?

3- OMISSIONS

- The Al Lang site is also a publicly owned parcel. It is a premium waterfront location. Why is it just being given away for free?

- If the Al Lang site is redeveloped for a Rays stadium, will the Rays pay property taxes - or will it be a "city/county owned facility" to avoid them?

- What are the public costs associated with servicing a redevelopment of the Trop (new obligations for Police, Fire, Schools, et al.)?

These are the types of hard questions that the Rays should be required to answer if they are to get this "plan" onto the ballot.

They certainly are not addressed in that PowerPoint presentation the team tried to play off as the "finance details"

[Rick K]

I do not believe there is a single intelligent mature person who believes that this power point presentation represents the entirety of the Ray's explanation of financing for these two redevelopment plans.

I have no idea why the "anti's" insist on pretending.

Pretending on top of pretending.

Of course there will be more details and explanations forthcoming.

[Thomas]

Rick K:

You are contradicting yourself again:

"The Rays don't need to do ANYTHING, as far as I am concerned."

Posted by: Rick K | May 19, 2008 at 08:15 PM

"Of course there will be more details and explanations forthcoming."

Posted by: Rick K | May 20, 2008 at 03:14 PM

================

Beyond that, there is no "pretending" in my post, just a list of very basic questions.

This plan should go no further until these questions are answered.

I noticed you didnt even bother trying to answer them. You just went to a baseless attack about "anti's".

I assume this to mean you don't like direct questions about the plan.

[Thousands of little RED Signs]

This entire project is being paid for by public funds.

100% of it.

Rent, land, taxes. All the public.

$0.00 dollars from the Rays. Zero!

Wake up St. Pete