My picks for today

OK, so I said I would offer my picks for tomorrow. Here goes. Remember five of eight votes moves things along.

Nurse-- YES. Though he's kind of, sort of come out against the Rays' proposal, he seems okay with voters making the final judgment.
Newton--YES. My sense is he thinks the potential of the Tropicana redevelopment is worth continuing talks.
Danner--YES. He's pressing for answers to tough question. But I think he'll give the Rays and the city staff at least another month.
Polson--NO. He's made it pretty clear things are moving too fast. You think that'll change?
Kennedy--YES. No real sense of what he's going to do. But I think he goes along for the ride.
Dudley-- YES. This is easy. He's already said he'll vote yes.
Curran--NO. Another guess of sorts. Because she votes 7th tomorrow, I think she'll know her vote won't alter the outcome. It makes voting 'no' a little easier.
Bennett--YES. He let the cat out of the bag today.

By my count, I see it as a 6-2 vote. I'll probably be wrong...

Comments

[Will Ferrell]

Vote for the cowbell. I'd you build the cowbell, and love the cowbell, they WILL come. Am I right folks?

[Tommy Lee]

I fully support cowbell whenever I can.

[Will Ferrell]

Tommy Lee, your support of the cowbell is duly noted and appreciated. If we had more cowbell, maybe we could overcome our petty differences here and come together in cowbell peace and harmony.

GO COWBELL!!!

[Red Sign joke of the country.]

Go ahead take your red signs to the meeting a find some Rays PR girl to hit over the head with it. There's no way they are going to stop a vote.

I Know I know your going to vote no anyways...you don't have to repeat it.

[Will Ferrell]

Make Cowbell, not War!!!

[Kyle]

Red sign- Do you mean "vote no" just like miami? Where do the Marlins play?
Side note: Selig says Miami needs their own stadium too. He's been saying it for years.

[Saint Pete of the Future]

Old Timers - move away and take your negativity and red signs with you.

Let's vote for progression and optimisim!

We have a chance to take a huge step forward here.

[Kenneth]

There are plenty of young progressives that believe this is fiscally irresponsible. The Rays are winning and still can't fill the place up. You don't need an MBA to see that there's no market for a pro team in St. Pete. Start the bus (keys dangle).

[Sorry]

Marlins' ballpark deal has been aproved.

[Greg]

Right on Kenneth...I'm young and educated, and smart enough to know this should not happen. If they can't attract larger crowds at the Trop, which is indoor, air-conditioned, AND has plenty of parking, you have to be a moron to think it's going to be any better on the waterfront with no parking...and they numbers they pushed show they need sellouts at 80% of gamesto make it work--it can't happen, and then taxpayers will end up eating more of the costs.

[Pete]

I love baseball and enjoy going to the occasional Rays game, but attendance figures show that we are not a major league town. Many of the area's residents would rather rally around a confederate flag than attend a baseball game. Their biggest crowd was this past weekend, when there was a post-game country music concert. Perhaps the Rays can have 'southern heritage' night at the ballpark every night. Maybe they can fill the joint then!

[Tiki Hut]

Ask the Phillies/Threshers and Dunedin Blue Jays if a state of the art ballpark is worth while. Brighthouse sits on an ugly piece of property (nice view of U.S. 19), except for last year the Threshers have been awful, their tickets are more expensive, they charge for parking, they draw around 2k per game, while Dunedin (5-7 miles away) draws 800 or less from the exact same market. I live 1 mile from Dunedin Stadium (Knology) but if I go to minor league baseball, I'm going to Brighthouse. It is a no brainer.

Ask Cardinal fan (arguably the hottest place in the country in July and August) if the heat bothers them. You naysayers are a piece of work.

[get-smart]

Tiki Hut -

You are missing the point -

1 - No Waterfront Stadium Period!

2 - Build the stadium on the Trop site or Toytown - No Tax dollars Period.

3 - I will not let them hold me hostage because they threaten to move.

I will call their bluff. There is no city today that is going to hand over $500M to these Goldman Sachs criminals.

They destroyed the 90 year tradition of St Pete spring training. They are greedy beyond belief. They are criminals! And you support them! I know you got your excuses.

If they move to another city and they pay 100%, they will be put next to the airport by the interstate. Not on top of Big Sur overlooking the Pacific!

[Ray F]

get-smart,

Everytime somebody makes a good point, you repost the same 1-2-3 post.

You sure do have the cut and paste skill down. You sound like the shipdit that Ron&Ian had on their show that made a fool out of himself.

Everytime the "yays" made a point, he reverted back to his 1-2-3 quote.

...and the Goldman Sachs thing is getting old too. Please come up with something new. Or at least rearrange your points to make it look fresh.

[Paul]

Wonder how many Times subscribers will cancel their subscriptions today, what with that 'blistering editorial' spit roasting of Karl Nurse. ouch.

I'm pretty sure Polson will vote no and Bennett already said yes, so there's one for each side. This whole process is taking up too much time, and getting to be a distraction from running the City. If it got killed today, I'm sure we'd see a huge lawsuit opened up in no time.

[J]

Building on Toytown feasibility study:

You would rather increase the overall price tag by moving the stadium on top of a 50' deep landfill. You'll need to dig up all that garbage and make another landfill somewhere else or fill an existing one. If you try to keep any in place you'll have higher cost for structured pavement and it will still sag over time. There's no infrastructure in that area so sewer, water, and road extensions will all need to be added to the project. The size of the parking will be larger because there's no adjacent city. Let the county pawn that one off on a private developer. You don't want that risk.

Building on the parking lot of the current Trop site feasibility study:

Now you only get to sell of a small portion if any of the site so that thats 75 million off the table. You still need to remove all unsuitable soils but now there is no developer to negotiate with so that is now added to the stadium cost. The site still has a interstate blocking adjacent development to the south and west.

If you want to add a tremendous amount of cost to the project both of these ideas would work.

Lets keep the ideas flowing

(get smart I do believe you have repeated the Big Sur comment. It's too unique to forget)

[Watching our Vote]

Dudley....if he doesn't vote "NO",then he'll lose my support and I'll make it a mission to VOTE HIM OUT next election.
Mr.Dudley...we voted for you to represent the people...not to act independently. We the people are WATCHING OUR VOTE.

[Dr_Dug]

Hey Rayf...."and the Goldman Sachs thing is getting old too. Please come up with something new."
Your right, they need a new name that fits...thier now called ASSCLOWNS!
Those assclowns will never fool us into thinking this is good deal for St.Pete. And Selig...he's an assclown too!!

[Ray F]

Watching,

That sounds like a threat. I think you need to realize that he isn't voting for the stadium to be built, he's voting on whether to allow the residents to vote. Settle down.

[Ray F]

Dr_Dug,

That's fine. Call them what you want, but geez, anything but Goldman Sachs. Krikey, give that tired 3 lined nonsense a rest and start complaining about different points.

All my posts are different. If I had to cut and paste the same points over and over again, you'd think that I had no original thoughts in my bones (and what you think about me really affects how I conduct myself... since you're a Doctor)

It's worn out. Those points aren't convincing anyone.

[Chris Pinkerton]

The solution has already been discovered...www.movethedome.com. It's blissfully simple and fiscally responsible. ITS THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION.