Stadium only in St. Petersburg, city says

The city of St. Petersburg has made its position on any potential stadium clear: It's only happening within the city limits. City attorney John Wolfe sent a letter to A Baseball Community attorney Charlie Harris Monday saying the city would only approve a stadium project within the city of St. Petersburg. (Wolfe also made clear the city has not taken a position whether or not to support a new stadium even within St. Petersburg).

Wolfe says the Rays are bound by an agreement to play Major League Baseball in the city until 2027.

"Needless to say, the city would not even consider an amendment to the agreement for a venue outside of the city," Wolfe wrote.

-- Aaron Sharockman, Times Staff Writer

Comments

[Scaramouche]

So here in Byzantium-by-the-Bay,anybody know whether this is just positioning by our Fearless Soon To Be Former Mayor and Certain City Council Members? A "negotiating ploy?" Typical muddleheading?

And are we the taxpayers obligated to pay the Rays owners a billion or so bucks to keep them from claiming "impossibility" or "oppression" or some other "equitable-remedy" legal
(sic) reason why they should be allowed to skate on a contract that they would have killed to enforce if it were much more in their interest?

[Adam]

Scaramouche, someone can't get out of a contract simply by claiming that getting out of the contract was "impossible" or by claiming that the other party's enforcing the contract is "oppressive." You don't need to worry about that. The Rays (like any party to a contract) have two basic choices: perform under the contract or breach and pay damages.

However, if the city did something to make it impossible for the Rays to perform under the contract, then the Rays would have an "impossibility" defense against any claim by the city that the Rays breached the contract. But this is not what's going on here.

[Paul]

Actually, I don't see anything new going on at all here. Its a contract. An attorney wrote a memo to another attorney pointing out that the stadium has to be in St Pete. And once again, the City (mayor) can't pick a side. No news, mostly because this is a back room deal unfolding, to avoid a vote by the public. Don't want those pesky voters knowing what's happening you know. Sunshine law be dammed. Its being kept hushed til after the November 09 elections. Just look what they did last time around... no news, until literally the day after the Council elections. Hey, its another beautiful day in St Pete politics.

[Andy]

No chance the Rays would ever claim impossibility as this would require them to open their books for public view. That hasn't in baseball in decades.

[Bobby Fenton]

Folks, by the time this new stadium comes to pass, it'll be at least 2013 or so, and the amount of money by that time which will be required to buy their way out of the lease won't be that much. This was discussed already.

I'm sure the Rays would be more than happy to stay in St. Pete if they can work it out, but if St. Pete keeps screwing around and making things difficult, then they can easily build it in Tampa or somewhere else altogether. The notion that they must stay at the Trop until 2027 if there's no new stadium is as shortsighted as it gets. Please.

[Thejeffg]

Agree with Bobby Fenton. Especially that now there is a precedent with Supersonics saying Peace to Seattle and trucking off to OKC. If the City does keep this silliness up combined with lack of support from taxpayers, why should the Rays stay in St. Pete?

I'm pretty sure that having foolishly built a crappy stadium a decade prior to the Ray's existance doesn't put the city on the moral high ground. Contracts with untennable provisions were made to be broken.

[Fiscal responsibility]

Actually, the City Attorney should immediately enjoin any and all of ABC's tortious interference with an existing business relationship/contract.

[Scaramouche]

Adam, as a reformed attorney I have to say that there are a number of "equitable defenses" to either specific enforcement of the lease and other agreements between the Rays Boys and Our Fair City, or public claims for damages for breach by the carpetbaggers. Impossibility is one of them, and while it's not a slam-dunk, there's grounds to make the claim. There's a host of others. So I do worry about it a bit.

And it's pretty clear that a number of clout-heavy people are still angling to screw the tax base of Pinellas County (including St. Pete) out of a billion or so bucks. Which I have to bet that with all that's going on in Bailoutland, has started, unfortunately, to sound like small change. Though not to teachers and public health people and police and fire and such. But hey, they just TAKE CARE of us -- aren't the Boys of Summer who ENTERTAIN us so much more valuable?

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Jeff G.,

Please get out of town with that "moral high ground" BS!!! Are you serious? Do you have any conscience. You suggest that despite dozens and dozens of studies by Economists of every stripe and persuasion that stadia DO NOT PAY for their investment with an 81 date schedule for a half billion dollar investment that we should indulge in this worst form of corporate welfare JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE A BASEBALL FAN. Futhermore after Kalt and his cronies just scammed New York taxpayers over grostesque amounts of money...with the economy in the toilet...with our nation losing jobs at RECORD RATES..the Yankees who spent over 200 million on payroll last year...not because they earned it but because they are able to scam gullible public like Jeff and Bobby out of tax dollars..are still able to spend over 160 million on Sabathia and millions more on Burnett and Texiera(sp). On top of this Citi which is now using our TAXPAYER DOLLARS TO STAY AFLOAT IN THE BAILOUT..has committed 400 million to the new Met's Stadium. Yes that's right boys and girls...our taxpayer bailout dollars are being used to fund a baseball stadium in New York so that the players can earn multi millions and the owners billions.
Please...if you must rob us blind Bobby and Jeff at least stop trying to blow smoke up our butts. So the Rays leave...good riddance if you are truly about morality!!!! To hear anybody connected with MLB...fans..players..owners..media..
talk about moral high ground is like getting lectured by Adolf Hitler on compassion. MLB may be many things but one things is certain...MORALITY never enters the equation with these greedy @$&*%'s.

[Mike]

"To hear anybody connected with MLB...fans..players..owners..media..
talk about moral high ground is like getting lectured by Adolf Hitler on compassion."

Wow. Hyperbole much?

[Austin]

I find it hilarious that St. Pete thinks that they are going to dictate anything that the Rays are going to do. If the Rays don't get what they want, they WILL move. If Tampa wants them enough, they will build a stadium and then pay any penalties that the Rays would incur upon moving, which as a Tampa resident is fine by me. Take the Rays out of St. Pete; I'll never have to visit that shell of a city again and I'll laugh while what's left of the city's dwindling economy crumbles...

[Paul]

I find it hilarious that anyone would want to just hand over 1/2 a billion dollars to the azz clown Rays owners to build a new stadium. Again, what's wrong with the Trop? Didn't the World Series just get played there? Seems like it works pretty good to me.

[Thomas]

Austin is just re-setting the tired old lines.

1- The Rays have no options to relocate. No community is going to be building a stadium in this economy.

2- For giggles, let's say Santa Claus put the Rays on his sleigh and took them some place else; Austin is insinuating that the Rays leaving would leave the St. Pete economy in ruin. Which is actually even more absurd than suggesting another city will put up public dough to build a stadium to begin with.

As P.T. Barnum once said: "There's an Austin born every minute"

[Bobby Fenton]

Guys like Thomas and atrulyconcerned citizen can be appalled by guys like Jeff and me all they want. No one is telling you how to feel. You guys don't care about having a baseball team and wanting it to play in the nicest ballpark that it can, one that is up to major league standards. You do not believe there is any benefit at all for the community to have a major league team. Although I disagree, those are all perfectly valid opinions.

But stop acting like everyone else feels that way and that the rest of us pro-stadiums are "suckers". I've said it before, we raise all kinds of hell over stuff like this, when taxpayer money gets blown on stuff much more trivial EVERY...SINGLE...DAY. You know how much garbage we'd find if we really examined where taxpayer money goes all acorss the board? At least this is something important that would really be a benefit.

You don't even directly notice it out of your pocketbook anyway, and at least a ballpark is something that I beleive the community, and yes, the team too, would benefit from. That's another tired act, the people who are so obsessed that the team is "making money of the taxpayers". What's wrong with them making money?

Too many stodgy people over there. I'm not rich by any means, but I'm pretty confident I'll still be able to eat and pay rent just fine even if some money gets spent on a ballpark, and the place I call home will be better off or it. That's worth it to me.

This place is getting built. In St. Pete, Tampa, or somewhere else all together, it's getting built, period.

[Paul]

Uhh, Bobby, you sure about that? Us smart folks who realize the meaning of "when taxpayer money gets blown on stuff much more trivial" boils down to a half a billion dollars as not being your so called off the cuff nonchalant 'trivial', we stand up and do something about it. I hardly call hundreds of millions of dollars trivial. Are you sure you really mean that? Hundreds of millions of dollars...... means trivial to you??? I doubt it. So, go to the poww website, get your referendum forms, sign them and mail them in. Ahh that's right, you're in Tampa so your signature wouldn't count because you have to be a registered St Pete voter for your opinion to count on how the trivial half a billion St Pete dollars get spent.

We'll get this boondoggle, rake us over the coals, Baker and Lyash bend you over project, under control and nixed once and for all. At least our Mayor and City are being completely honest about their lack of backbone and caring for the citizens by saying they haven't decided whether they support a stadium or not... what great leadership. Can't wait til the 09 elections.

[Bobby Fenton]

Go back and read what I said. I said money gets blown on OTHER THINGS much more trivial all the time and no none raises any hell about it. This isn't trivial at all. That's my point. This is something of lasting value that I think would be a benefit to both sides of the bay no matter where it were to be.

And I maintain that if you think the Rays will be playing at Tropicana Field through 2027 you are absolutely out of your mind. And I'm right.

[enough of the nonsense]

Jim Kennedy, Jeff Danner, Bill Dudley, Wingay Newton, Herb Polson and Karl Nurse voted yes for Archstone Madison (acquired by the now bankrupt Lehman Bros) recommended by Rick Baker (after a year of secret dealings) to redevelop Tropicana Field. On the single most expensive issue to ever face the City JAMIE BENNETT DID NOT SHOW UP! Boot 'em all out of office.

[Thomas]

Fenton: you should probably separate the notion of wanting the Rays in St. Pete from wanting to pay for their stadium.

You can be a fan and still disapprove of public funding for a stadium. Enjoying MLB in St. Pete doesn't mean you automatically agree to pay for whatever the team claims it needs.

The most ironic part of the Rays demand for a new publicly funded stadium is that if they had actually gotten it, the first thing they would have done is raise ticket prices. Justify that one for me Bob... The public pays hundreds of millions of dollars to build the stadium and as a 'thank you' the Rays jack up the prices so the vast majority of the people who built the ballpark cannot even afford to go enjoy it.

Don't you see something wrong with that?

Anyway, the mess the Yankees have made with the corruption and lies for their new park is the final nail in the coffin for stadium subsidies for pro sports. Everyone is wise to the scam now. Bernie Madoff will be hosting Smart Money on CNN/FN before another community gets plundered by some snakeoil salesmen pitching the "benefits" of a new stadium for the home team.

So I maintain that if you think the Rays will be playing in a stadium anywhere built with public funds, you are absolutely out of your mind. And I'm right

[Scaramouche]

Thomas, you need to remember what MLB stadiums are for, per one of their very own: "Places for the rich to go to be seen, while the poor people stay home and watch television."

Let "the rich" buy their own dam' playgrounds. Let MLB franchises all follow the San Francisco AT&T Giants business model, and build their own stadium with their own money, and if they have to lease public property, let them pay market value lease rates.

Bobby, a lot of people are aware that "government" wastes a huge amount of money, a good part of it given to "privatizers" and special deals to campaing contributors and other chunks to folks with various kinds of clout. Us ordinary folks are busting our humps to earn the Real Wealth that the giant scam called "government" these days skim off with ever-increasing taxes. Who's got time to watch every little thing that happens? We are learning the limits of how far we can trust these folks who make it to those seats up on the dais or on either side of the aisle, like not very far.

You like baseball? You plugged into the business community? Youy know, the "people" who are going to "benefit" from this "lasting value?" Go round 'em up, hoss, and get 'em to chip in the billion bucks. Not all at once or up front, use their great business and investment acumen to "monetize" and "securitize" and all those other tricks that the Rays Boys would be doing to profit even more, over and on top of the billion-dollar gift of public money to make themselves even filthier rich.

And yes, maybe we are seeing that yes, "rich" can very well be "bad." Quit with the perpetual grabs at the plain folks' wallets, hey?