Keep it clean! Please

I wanted to point everyone to the comment policy on the lefthand side of the blog. In particular, note that impersonating someone is a no-no. We've had people (ON BOTH SIDES) guilty of this offense. I'm OK with sarcasm; I'm not OK with passing out people's home phone numbers or the like.

With that out of the way, back to the news of the day.

I just got off the phone a little while ago with Rays senior vice president Michael Kalt. In particular, I asked him about the council deadline to submit a financial proposal by March 16. I got a big "no comment" back. A little over 14 days. The clock is ticking.

Comments

[Edgar Rivera]

I am for building a new stadium for the team. Tropicana Field is not a baseball friendly ballpark. Nice outside and inside is dull. Besides, the Rays are much successful outdoors. 6-0 in Orlando. Even though I don't live in Florida, I want to see my favorite team that plays in a open air stadium that will attract the fans. Tropicana Field blows!! lot of empty seats by the upper deck and poorly structure.

[GetRDone]

Aaron - What did you and the Times expect? This blog (and most blogs for that matter) foments hate and un-civil discourse. Did you really think that there would be intelligent conversation about the pros and cons of the stadium? Or a relentless and dogged pursuit of the truth? You all should have known better... unless it was your goal just to get a lot of traffic on this blog. In which case, carry on. Blogs are by nature the faceless fall of discourse. You can call anyone anything you want and spew unsubstantiated truthiness without repercussion. It should be an insult to journalists - although writers may not mind.

[Jon McPhee]

I like the way Mr. Kalt gets such dignified treatment from everyone. Always "senior vice president." Anyone remember how long he has had that slot? Or how long he spent in the other cities where he was brought in to "persuade" the locals to buy the owners of their particular Boys of Summer a brand new stadium? G'wan back to December of last year, and enjoy the laudatory prose at this spot:

www.sptimes.com/2007/12/30/Southpinellas/Michael_Kalt__He_deal.shtml

I've been upbraided for calling the Rays Boys "carpetbaggers," but I think there's a really nice fit between this set and that word. One hopes Mr. Kalt (again, that’s the German word for “cold”) is not going to be too successful at the kind of glad-handing and back-scratching and little secret promises to and side agreements with one group or another in the community, as he tries to gin up either a majority of veto holders (including us voting citizens) or a way around an informed referendum on the fundamental nature of this deal.

That is, and always will be, an attempt to take something like a billion dollars of public assets out of the public coffers and place a large chunk of it into the already deep pockets of the folks who brought this steely-eyed deal-slinger into Dodge City.

All the stuff about a huge anticipatory tax base increases and a great flow of wealth and people into our cramped downtown is just so much smoke and mirrors. From what we have been shown of this Big Deal, the flow of wealth would be very much OUT of the community, not into it. Despite what some believe, gifting stadiums to over-ego'd baseball team owners is not "the way it is," especially as this city faces the reality of an economic of unknown duration and depth, shrinking resources, major cuts to the things that produce a safe and cultured and pleasant community.

Hey, I am not an urban planner. But if the City Fathers and Mothers are hell-bent on developing public property into taxable space by taxing and spending and borrowing against the City's (and now County's) future, there must be some folks out there who have ideas for development that aren't destruction of a present asset, however dirty its ashtrays may be, conversion of an existing landmark into an attractive nuisance, and further embroidering the Golden Parachutes of another MLB "jump team." Maybe those ideas would have an actual snowball’s chance in Southwest Florida of actually benefiting the whole community and generating some real, stay-at-home wealth and business.

I have this weird notion that winning baseball teams are made up of players with goodly portions of raw physical and mental talents, pride of person and association, and the will to work hard all the time. Remember the last scenes in "Hoosiers?" Where Gene Hackman's character had his players measure the distance to the hoop in the gigantic arena where the state champs would be decided? Even in that huge venue, it was the same ten feet as the rims in their little high school gym. The baseball-playing part of the Rays organization will win or lose games and series on the basis of those assets, whether they play in the Trop, or Al Lang the way it is now, or any other venue.

We should hope that the pieces of this deal, including the inevitable trap doors and hidden passageways and spiked pits and deadfalls in the labyrinth of documentation and “agreements” become evident before the pen hits the signature line and the gold-plated spade rolls over that first scoop of dirt.

[John is a Hater]

John, since you are so good at criticizing, what are some of your great ideas for how to create jobs, increase tax revenues, and grow the City of St. Pete. Would love to hear them.

[John Needs to Get A Clue]

John, just because a baseball team plays hard, doesn't mean it will be successful on the field or in creating benefits to the community. Like it or not, teams need money to invest in their payroll and thus become better. Poor facilities like the Trop, consisntely rated the worst in baseball and expensive to maintain, prevent teh team from putting the best possible product on the field. Anyone who has been to Camden, Fenway, PNC, etc knows what a well-designed urban ballpark can do for the vitality of a city.

[John]

I really do not understand the problem.

The Rays win, the Trop sells out. The Red Sox come to play, the Trop sells out. Winners bring in fans. They have an unbelievably good deal on the rent and naming rights - almost a free ride and that's not good enough. They want a $450 MILLION free ride! 60 acres around the Trop can be developed. All that's required is a parking garage (or two) for 7,000 cars. That's it. Everybody wins. The Rays win ball games, they sell more tickets. The city wins because now the new development tax dollars go to the city for much-needed services that are now being cut back. The fans win because they get A/C and parking and easy access.

Same number of jobs, same growth, same everything except NO RISK to taxpayers. Hopefully we learned something from the $85 MILLION Trop deal that's costing over $300 MILLION!

Once the Rays finish up their remaining 20 years, they can stay or leave - maybe by then they will like St. Pete so much they will buy some land and build themselves a stadium.

This approach allows all parties a win - the people keep their waterfront and manatees, the fans stay comfortable and the city takes no risk - NO RISK. And they get all that tax revenue for city services like police and fire protection.

All that talk about baseball should be outside and vitality and how great we will look on TV is pure speculation and guesswork - in other words, RISK. The Rays knew what they were getting when they signed the lease - now they want out? That's not very nice. They still have 20 more years!

[Kyle]

Fenway is a dump. Yet it is sold out every game.

[Jon McPeePee]

sorry for the rant guys

I've just got a jealous streak a country-mile wide for anyone that makes a lot of money. They must be doing something wrong. Maybe we're not taxing them enough?

[reader]

the unfortunate thing about these times blogs is that they don't hold people accountable. you can post under any name you like; hence people are more able to post nasty things. until the times gets around to upgrading its blogs, this will continue to be a problem. i hope they get around to resolving it quickly. one method you might consider, which the washington post's site has used, is making people sign up for an account with a password. it's not perfect but it's got to be better than this. we've seen in almost all these times blogs that people in the comments sections can be very childish and immature. the times has not done much to fix the problem ever since it upgraded to type pad.

[mrclean]

So I guess this is Kalt's way of trying to stop a free exchange of ideas. If you don't like this one go to your precious Post - Idiot

[Fred Smith]

March 16 for the plan to the city? Do you think you might mean May 16? Good lord, no wonder newspapers are dying.

[taylor]

these blogs would be much more worthwhile if comments were restricted to those who are willing to sign up for a commenting account.