Who will the council pick? Hines or Archstone

Archstone has to be a heavy, heavy favorite, but stranger things have happened.

The City Council is expected to start their weekly meeting in a few minutes, and the Tropicana Field RFP question is pretty high up on the agenda. We know the folks from Archstone will be in the audience. We expect Hines will be represented here, too.

Keep checking back to see what happens.

UPDATE (3:05 p.m.) --- The meeting is just starting. Council member Jeff Danner is reading a proclamation recognizing St. Pete Pride. (For St. Petersburg regulars, the Pride proclamation is one of the very few, if only proclamation in the city that Mayor Rick Baker does not sign).

UPDATE (3:15 p.m.) -- Trop discussion just now getting underway. The city's lead negotiator, Rick Mussett, is on vacation. So economic development director Dave Goodwin is taking the mic. Mayor Rick Baker just also walked in.

UPDATE (3:35 p.m.) -- Council members are now launching into their questions for staff.

UPDATE (3:55 p.m.) -- City Council member Karl Nurse, praising the Archstone selection, and comparing it the failed developers of Bay Plaza: "The strength of Archstone group is like 25 times, 50 times stronger than the Bay Plaza group."

UPDATE (4:20 p.m.) -- The meeting, no offense, is turning into a pretty boring event. A camerawoman with channel 10 is sleeping the front row.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.) -- Council selects Archstone-Madison 5-1. Herb Polson voted 'yes.' It was Leslie Curran who voted 'no.'

(City Council chairman Jamie Bennett is away on vacation, so vice chairman Jeff Danner is running the meeting).

-- Aaron Sharockman, Times Staff Writer

First reading of referendum ordinance moved back one week

The city will push back the first reading of the stadium referendum ordinance from July 17 to July 24, senior city development administrator Rick Mussett told Ballpark Frankness this afternoon.

The change does not affect the second reading, which would still happen Aug. 7, or the prospects of a November citywide vote, Mussett said.

It was made so that the Pinellas County Commission can consider its part of the financing package -- $100-million from a tourism tax --before City Council members would have to take a vote on holding a citywide referendum. The county's vote on the financing plan is scheduled July 22.

You write the caption

 

FYI: July 17 meeting is a first reading, not public hearing

The July 17 City Council meeting is not a public hearing, but simply a first reading. The public will not be allowed to speak. The public will be allowed to speak before the Aug. 7 second hearing (if there is one).

Council votes 7-1 to move Rays' plans forward

Councilman Herb Polson and Mayor Rick Baker talk after City Council voted 7-1 to proceed with the proposed referendum for a new waterfront stadium. Polson was the only one who voted no. [Martha Rial, Times]

The City Council just voted 7-1 to move the Rays stadium plan forward. Herb Polson is the lone no. A second vote is scheduled July 17.

The council is in session. They have a few other unrelated legal items to tackle before taking up the stadium issue. We'll be back here once the talk turns to the stadium.

UPDATE: While we wait, here's a lay of the land real quick. Norm Brown, president of the local NAACP branch is here, as is chamber CEO John Long. For the Rays, Matt Silverman and Michael lead a six-to-seven person contingent. Barbara Heck is here representing CONA. Will Michaels (St. Pete Preservation) is here. As are Hal Freedman and Hamilton Hanson from POWW.

UPDATES: Here we go. Leslie Curran starts by asking Matt Silverman to postpone the stadium question. Silverman says, politely, no. City administrator Rick Mussett is now taking the podium to go through details of the process.

City internal services administrator Mike Connors just gave a report at the environmental conditions at Tropicana Field. He estimated the maximum clean-up costs would not exceed $94,000 (excluding soft costs). "If it’s that modest, it might be something we do and get done with," council member Karl Nurse, whether or not the Rays' plan moves forward.

The talk is now turning to financing. City economic development official Joe Zeoli is now going through the Hines and Archstone-Madison redevelopment proposals. Neither proposal, right now, includes a sales price that would cover all of the existing debt at Tropicana Field. The Archstone proposal is $2.3-million -to-$3.135-million short. The Hines proposal is short between $4-million-to-$5.8-million. The city is still negotiating with the devevelopers on a purchase price.

"I believe we're in striking distance of accomplishing that objective," Zeoli said about paying off the Tropicana Field debt.

* The council is now doing it's 'we're mad and frustrated by the process speech.' They're taking some of the frustration out on the Rays and some of their frustration out on city staff. Mayor Rick Baker said Herb Polson was barking. Polson responded, "If I choose to bark, you will hear it." Leslie Curran just called the Rays bull-headed.

* Danner moved approval of moving forward; Newton seconds... It's Jamie Bennett's turn to talk. I think we're going to have a 7-1 vote.

7-1 it is. Polson alone voting no.

Waiting to begin

The council chamber is still pretty empty. Talking with a few folks early this afternoon, most think that the vote may be anticlimactic, with the council essentially agreeing to move the process along. We'll see.

Viewer's guide: Today's meeting

Check out our viewer's guide for today's meeting here.

Times ed board: Nurse muddies waters

Karl Nurse, who was appointed to the St. Petersburg City Council less than two months ago, has wasted no time becoming a divisive force. On the eve of an important council vote — one that could help determine Major League Baseball's future in the city — Nurse has insulted his more experienced colleagues by trying to undermine their debate today on a ballot question proposed by the Tampa Bay Rays to build a new waterfront stadium.

The council is to take a vote to start the procedures to schedule a November referendum so voters could decide if a $450-million stadium should be built on the site of Al Lang Field. As part of that plan, the Tropicana Field site would be sold for residential and retail development and returned to the tax rolls. This is just the first step in a multistep referendum process, and it is a reasonable move to enable negotiations to continue to progress over the summer. Council members have until August to make a final decision on putting the stadium question on the November ballot, and there is no reason to prematurely end the discussion now.

Now Nurse wants to muddy the waters and confuse voters. He said he would introduce a competing, and potentially conflicting, referendum question today. Nurse is acting at the urging of former council member Virginia Littrell, a vehement stadium opponent who lost her 2005 re-election bid. She wants to rezone the Al Lang site, which has been used for baseball for decades, and restrict development on it.

Read the rest of the blistering editorial here.

City Council chair Jamie Bennett says he'll vote to move the process along on Thursday

Council chair Jamie Bennett just told Ballpark Frankess that he'll vote to move the stadium referendum process along on Thursday, though he also sounded interested in supporting the proposed Nurse/POWW alternative.

"At this point, I could give it a try," Bennett said. "If that’s what people want to vote for, let’s give them the opportunity to vote for that too."

Bennett said he was aware the dueling referendums could produce confusion, and indicated that a single question outlining both positions may be best.

FWIW: Council member Bill Dudley also is on record saying he supports a referendum on the Rays' plan. No other council member has made their position known (though most expect Herb Polson to vote No on the Rays' question tomorrow).

Thursday's stadium meeting will start at 1:15 p.m.

This just in from City Hall: Though Thursday's council meeting begins at 8:30 a.m., the City Clerk has set the time for the baseball discussion to begin at 1:15 p.m. (It will not begin before 1:15 p.m.) Also, because it's a report item on the City Council agenda, people will not be allowed to speak -- unless the council specifically allows it.

After three public hearings already, and something like 850 people weighing in, I'm expecting the council will proceed without reopening public debate.