Sunday's column on Saturday! If stadium is such a deal, put it in writing

Here's my Sunday column about the Tampa Bay Rays' financing proposal for their stadium. The tone might dismay some of my friends because it focuses solely on what to me is the key question -- the claim that this deal practically "pays for itself" by generating higher property taxes, instead of putting the taxpayers on the hook for the life of the new stadium debt.

If the Rays or the developer are willing to back this up in a contract, then I glibly promise to help "lay the cornerstone" and "shoo away the manatees" at the waterfront stadium site. But since both the developer and the Rays insist that such a guarantee is impossible, somehow I do not think I will have to live up to my promise.

But I would.

* * * * *

According to the Tampa Bay Rays’ pitch for a new stadium, the deal practically pays for itself.

True, the taxpayers would be on the hook for at least $175-million, or even more if you do the math differently (which I do).

But in theory, we would still come out ahead.

We would sell off the 85-acre site of Tropicana Field to developers. We would rake in lots of new property taxes on what was built there.

In just a few years, we would be taking in more new taxes than our payments on the stadium. Such a deal!

That’s the pitch.

Here is the problem. They won’t say it in writing.

Nowhere in this three-sided deal (city, developer, Rays) is there any guarantee that the taxpayers’ cost would be covered.

Maybe you think that it’s a good deal anyway — that’s a fair contention. After all, we would keep the same payment, get a new stadium and lots of other benefits to boot.

But that’s not the way this deal is being pitched. The pitch is that it pays for itself. So let’s consider that claim.

If the developer is really going to build all this neat-o stuff on Tropicana Field, hundreds of millions of dollars worth added to the tax rolls, how come we can’t get any guarantee at all?

Both the developers and the Rays executives say, whenever I ask this question, that I just don’t understand how the business world works.

Yes, that’s it. I’m sitting here in West Rubonia, wearing my bib overalls and picking my teeth with straw, and I do not know how business works.

So, forgive me for being a small-town yahoo when I do not properly ooh and aah over Hines or any other developer.

I don’t care what else they have built. I don’t care if they’ve built the Sydney Opera House, the International Space Station and the Great Wall of China.

We still should get a guarantee. By X year, there will be X dollars in property-tax benefit from this deal, or else an equivalent cash payment, guaranteed to cover the public’s share of the stadium debt.

My friends and neighbors on both sides of this issue can fight over all the rest of the topics — the best use of the waterfront, the environmental stuff, the traffic, the parking, the noise, the heat.

Me, I can be had on the money question.

I’ll help lay the cornerstone. I’ll help shoo away the manatees and dredge up the bay. I’ll help direct the traffic jams, and tend to the heatstroke victims. I’ll even answer the calls to the noise-complaint hotline from Bayfront Tower.

All for this price:

An ironclad guarantee that the property-tax revenue, or an equivalent required payment from somebody, always covers the public’s share of the debt.

If what the Rays and the developers claim is true, this shouldn’t be a problem — heck, it shouldn’t even be a close call. It should be like dickering over floor mats once we’ve agreed to buy the car.

For sure, Mayor Rick Baker and the City Council still must protect the citizens in a lot of other ways. There have to be all kinds of contingencies and assurances in the contracts.

But if I were one of those elected officials, this would be both the starting point and the ending point.
The Rays say this deal will pay for itself.

You know what? I believe them. I am on their side. All I want is this little extra thing, these floor mats for the car.

Otherwise, no sale.

Comments

For 450-million, Pinellas could buy the Rays, put a retractable roof on the Trop, and send the NY boys a’packin!

[Don Mott]

Howard as you know I have several issues with the proposed stadium but they all evolve around taxpayers money. As three out of four of the "experts" in today's paper pointed out we should have concerns. The Rays numbers don't work and or they make grand pie in the sky promises that if not met will be borne on the back of taxpayers. I think if they truly wanted what is right for MLB in St. Petersburg they could have done a much better job, but of course that would have required guarantees that they know they don't want to meet. Since they have plenty of financial experience but turned in such a broad and open ended proposal makes one very skeptical. I can't wait for the results of future workshops regarding the $55 million they say will be generated from parking. They're going to have to do some serious number maneuvering to make that work, albeit without guarantees I'm sure. I also hope that council members dig more into the other costs such as the environmental issues on both sites, infrastructure etc. My feeling is the council will put it to referendum to appease both sides and the Rays and then they do not have to get serious about the issues while possibly offending some voters. I may be wrong.

[Justin Elza]

They won't put it in writing partially because there's a good chance IT WON'T TURN OUT THAT WAY.

What happens if that area is built out but the businesses just don't bite and the housing market is still in the dumps? The rather than an asset being added to the taxrolls, you have a liability because the city still has to pay to maintain streets, have fire and police protection, yada yada.

Could actually be a big DRAIN.

All I could see at Thursday's meeting was a lot of smoke being blown, and of course, a lot of ASSES.

[Justin Elza]

They won't put it in writing partially because there's a good chance IT WON'T TURN OUT THAT WAY.

What happens if that area is built out but the businesses just don't bite and the housing market is still in the dumps? Then rather than an asset being added to the tax rolls, you have a liability because the city still has to pay to maintain streets, have fire and police protection, yada yada.

Could actually be a big DRAIN.

All I could see at Thursday's meeting was a lot of smoke being blown, and of course, a lot of ASSES.

[get-smart]

The Rainman Cometh

1 - Destruction of the downtown waterfront

2 - Environmental clean-up of the Trop

3 - Loss of property tax revenue do to lower condo values, foreclosures and general depopulation of St Pete due to the noise pollution, people pollution, auto pollution and higher taxes.

4 - (The Classic) Enriching greedy NY Goldman Sachs investment bankers who became wealthy by aiding and abetting the outsourcing of our American jobs to China.

For your reading enjoyment:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/28992.html

-

[guy]

A side note ~~
I told Ted Kennedy not to mess with those Clintons !!!!

[Don Mott]

Guy, that was wrong and in bad taste.

Howard says:

"I’ll help lay the cornerstone. I’ll help shoo away the manatees and dredge up the bay. I’ll help direct the traffic jams, and tend to the heatstroke victims. I’ll even answer the calls to the noise-complaint hotline from Bayfront Tower."

Howard, those comments were disingenuous and demeaning to those who have done deep research and volunteered to date 100's of hours in efforts that THEY think valuable. Plus, you're quite full of it regarding your "volunteering" for the Rays project in laying down hard core labor and effort as service to the citizens of St. Pete. You are not going to get your stadium....because this entire fiasco has stunk from the beginning (you said it at first, but you seem to have been persuaded to a different frame of thought). I suppose "smaller minds" than yours seem to understand the difference between general benefit and the "big sell".
I'm sorry that you have chosen this path of thinking. But you could at least have been respectful to others who do what they do because they care...you get paid.

Lorraine

[Steve]

OK, Lorraine, Howard works for the Times. Did you really expect a different outcome? Both the Times and the Rays make to much money off of advertizing for each other for it to have turned out any other way. Capital corporate greed. Money. The BIG payoff. The Times has been and will be a mouth piece for the Rays. I mean, come on, look at Aaron Shrockman. I mean, come on.

Besides, the Times and the Rays are already salivating over the naming rights. It will be called The Times Trash Talking Ex-Devil Rays Open air, Un-air-conditioned sweat box. And they will put huge spot lights on the huge new name to light it up 24/7. I bet the downtown condos will love that!

So, let the Times line up to pitch for the Rays. Let them. Fine.

When the election comes we will crush them all. The Times, crushed. The City Council, crushed. The Mayor, crushed. City Administration, crushed.
Kalt and the gang of New York carpetbaggers, crushed.

I predict the vote will be about 85% against this crappy stadium notion. I am looking forward to our celebration party.

And Lorraine, you are invited.

[Jon McPhee]

Don't count on the referendum on the fate of Al Lang either happening, or having any effect on the crushing progress of this Juggernaut if the Council ever does let it go forward.

I guess it's good that the four experts the Times lined up expressed a few concerns, even though they were working only with the limited data set of the Rays' projections to the City Council. The whole economic anaylsis is a whole lot more complex, as the works of these folks will attest. We might hope the Times would fund a broader inquiry than the sound bites in Saturday's paper. Maybe?

Most of Pinellas will buy the misleading and limited material published in the Times today, supposedly a set of disinterested reports actually mostly 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. None of them give the project lower than a one-bag rating, and one calls it a "triple."

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 pretty much 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 above and read the article. So here it is, entire.

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."

[Jon McPhee]

I just re-read the column, and I've got to say to Mr. Troxler, "That's it? All you see wrong with this SUV of a deal is that it needs some ironclad floormats?"

Just a couple of the items that come to mind: "Ironclad" guarantees simply aren't. As I recall you recognized earlier, this deal will likely be done through corporate shells with limited assets and the ability to disappear into bankruptcy faster than David Copperfield's elephant. The text of such "guarantees" can be simply "interpreted," ignored, or our Elected Officials who sign the deal can agree quietly, in mid-election-cycle on a Friday afternoon, to a "renovation" on our behalves that lets the "guarantors" off the hook.

And do you really think the Elected Leaders can play, nominally on our behalf, in the same league as the Rays and their green-eyeshade, sharkskin-suited minions? Going by past and present noises from them (or the lack thereof), it is not even clear that they have any interest in vigorously representing the overall public interest, being more interested, it seems, in "git 'er dun." What fiduciary responsibility? There's a brass plaque waiting to have our names engraved on it, and a Gold Painted Shovel and a pair of Really Big Scissors to Turn The First Clod and Cut The Ribbon. Hey, folks, this is not about sound bites and photo ops and all that, and the ego-satisfaction of scratching the backs of and rubbing elbows with and inhaling the cigar smoke of these Big Dealers.

Some folks have noted that the Rays, as renters, will pretty soon be in a position to walk away from even the "ironclad" Trop lease with most of their money intact, even if the City Parents do a "Just Say No To The Subsidized Crack Of The Bat."

And if this deal makes business sense at all, why does it require ANY public subsidy, whether it's giving up the proceeds of the sale of public land, in a down market, or transferring control of public parkland and waterfront essentially gratis, to people who can afford to buy their own stadium out of petty cash?

It's not like there's a flood tide of tax money or bonding capacity sloshing around Pinellas county. Public services are enduring major cuts as a result of the kind of wishful thinking that underlies this big whopper called "revitalization." People are being forced out of their homes of decades by the effects of recent tap dances of Go-Go booted speculators, who themselves are now whining for a bailout from their over-enthusiastic bubble-blowing via yet another subsidy of public money.

Once again, the business people of San Francisco built a grand outdoor ballpark (in an actually run-down commercial waterfront area, not in the heart of downtown) and apparently make a pile of money out of it. Other than transit infrastructure on the pubic pad (but with clear public benefits), they did not try to draw on the public treasury under the smokescreen of arguments about the sanctity of Major League Baseball's profits "for the sake of the game."

What's the problem with these supposed Masters Of The Universe-Really Smart Guys from Sub-Primeland, and the "developers" through their shells, acting like real capitalists, assuming the risks that are supposed to produce the profit rewards, and doing this Great Deal out of their own deep pockets? It's not like there are no sites for the Tampa Bay Rays to buy cheap (in this down market) and build their own stadium, and there's nothing to keep them from pooling their resources with other businesses who might want to take a flyer alongside the Big Dogs from the Big Apple, as apparently happened in The City By The Other Bay, out west.

There is no reason the limited public resources of this area should be tapped at all. That tapping pretty much would take care of the floor mat "negotiation" in your example by flattening out the taxpayers and debt obligors (same thing, of course) into freebie floormats, just to protect the expensive Italian shoes of our oh-so-delicate Big Ego, Cheap Barstid Team Owners.

[Steve]

Howard, you are supposed to see the entire picture, all of the facts, not just the financial slice. Why be so narrow in your analysis? Afraid you not intellectually up to it?

Steve, get back to your cubicle before I call Stu, you intelectual midget...

Howard... IT IS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY... OUR MONEY IN FACT!

Great Job!

[JudyToo]

I just hope that all of you will attend the public hearing Thursday at City Hall. The city council is allowing us one last chance to tell them what we think of the Rays scheme to fleece this community.

Last time the Rays bused in a bunch of union guys from Jacksonville and they milled around outside city hall all afternoon. With their white t-shirts of course, courtesy of the Rays.

Wonder how that went? "Hey guys, we'll give you a free t-shirt if you go down and hold up this banner for the old folks down in St. Pete. They won't notice that you are a bunch of hired hands from Jacksonville and after they go in to vent their anger at city council , you can sign up like you live here and vote in favor of our new stadium."

Or maybe, "We need you to act like you want this new stadium so when we get their money, you will be the first ones we call in to work on the job of tearing down Al Lang field."

Maybe they were using the same guys to go around the neighborhoods late at night and steal all those red signs - put a bounty on 'em, two signs gets you a dollar?

Anyway, this last hearing should be fun. We get to hear all about how much we need shopping and housing downtown on the Trop site, that there's no contamination there, how neat it will be to have a world class stadium on our waterfront, there's plenty of parking and no (zero) traffic issues, won't cost us a dime, schools get more money, no new taxes, how good we'll look on TV, all star game, asphalt into gold, blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah, I forgot, this is progress and baseball should be played outdoors, even in Florida in the good ol' summertime.

No matter what it costs, no matter what the risks are. Really fun stuff.

[Don Mott]

JudyToo, There actually are two more times the taxpayers get to tell them what they think. One is at referendum time, if it happens, and the other is when they come up for re-election, if it happens.

[Meyer]

As complicated as the financing is already, it would become even more complicated if those who lost their property to eminent domain for the assembling of the Florida Suncoast Dome (Tropicana Field) parcel should sue after the dome is sold and redeveloped. That may sound far fetched, but it happens.

Forty years ago, some people in Maryland thought it would be great to build a stretch of I-95 right through a declining working class neighborhood. A young community organizer named Barbara Mikulski led the fight stop the highway, and won.

Properties already taken by eminent domain and demolished to make way for the highway that never was became an empty field for years and years.

By the mid '80s, the waterfront area known as Canton was becoming one of the hottest areas in the city, and the property was sold to a developer who built dozens of luxury townhomes.

The original property owners sued, because the change in purpose of the land also changed what should have been used for determining the value of their homes. They won.

The situation could be eerily similar if Tropicana Field were sold for development and new taxes provided enough income to pay for a new ballpark. The original owners might sue and win, which would make the deal a huge loser for St. Pete.

[Dr. Frankenstein]

LOL. It was only a matter of time before Lorraine turned her wrath on Howard. Serves him right.

[get-smart]

Meyer - That is a good take. You never know. My concern is the waterfront stadium gets built. The owners sell the team and walk off with $100M. Hines decides not to develop the old Trop because of environmental costs and economy. Plus the Rays pay part of Hines cost to make the deal go through. The new Rays owners say that the Trop is not our deal. The new stadium sucks the life out of the downtown. It becomes unbearable to live downtown and many people move out and the city loses its tax base.

[Sabine]

Howard, I am disappointed. Yes, money is important, but not the only issue here. Given that, even the financing "plan" presented at the Matt & Mikey Show is all smoke and miirors. It's not brain surgery... here is a simple re-statement of their "plan"... please note especially the two (2) things amiss with the $70M sales proceeds component:

The $150M is prepaid rent for 35 years. The Rays aren't giving that money to the City, they are lending it to the City. They will be paid back each year for the next 35 by having their rent forgiven. It is, in effect, money the public has coming.

The $70M are public proceeds from the sale of public lands (the Trop site). By the way, did I miss the $70M bid?? In addition, the Rays' creative accounting has used these proceeds TWICE, to both pay off the old Trop debt and, AGAIN, as part of the $450M to build the new stadium. How can it be both?

The $100M from the County and $75M from the City, "extensions of taxes," are clearly public funds, and, in fact, are new taxes, once the existing taxes sunset.

The final $55M in parking revenues is so "creative," even Matt Silverman was unable to explain how that would work.

So, taxpayers are paying ALL the costs of a new stadium, and, even with new taxes, etc., the Rays are still $125M short ($55M mystery funds, plus $70M double-counted funds).

As John Romano said the other day, Stuart Sternberg "is an out-of-town businessman with no loyalties here." Why should we expect a fair accounting?

I think Lorraine is hot!

[Not a Fan fan]

The post, unsigned, at 12:38 PM is a Ray's paid blogger. They can not stand good argument and logic so they resort to name calling. Big deal.

In an election the Ray's and their paid bloggers will be smooshed, like ants under our feet.

[A real city supporter]

Howard, you distort the vote in oppostion to the proposed waterfront stadium by asking five questions, four of which dilute the opposition vote with one singular vote of support for the stadium supporters. This same tactic is being used by Aaron S. Go figure!!! This is the Times afterall. Give me a break you disingenuous Times paid for political assassin. You are a wolf posing in sheep's clothing. At least Aaron is almost being honest about being in the tank for the Rays. You pretend not to be but are in truth a Ray's fan. Admit it!

How about a simple vote for a change? Yes or no. Up or down letting only one vote per person in.

Let's see how that would go. No more deception please.

"No more deception please."

Tell that to the Rays, the Mayor, the BOCC, and the St. Pete City Council...

[averyluckyguy]

Could we talk about fairness here. Virtually all major INDEPENDENT economic studies have shown that baseball stadiums do not pay for themselves and do NOT boost local economies. Heaven forbid we open our eyes and see the specific example of that in our DOME district. ABC/ESPN regularly run polls that show that less than half(48% in the highest year...much less in others)of our populace identify themselves as baseball fans. We can see from attendance for a first place team that baseball is not exactly the hot ticket.
Let's be honest..the NFL is now America's pastime not baseball. Which leaves the supporters of a new stadium with one last straw to grasp...redevelopment of the Trop.
A. Our air lease rights give us permission to redevelop the Trop without moving the stadium. The developers told Councilwoman Leslie Curran they would still be interested even with the Dome in place. We'd have to split half of any profit with the team but the tax base would still be ours.
B. The team makes good on it's implicit threat to buy out their lease and departs town to blackmail and extort some other city with enough goobers to drink the Kool aid and say..Ughh Baseball Good! In that case we get to keep all the profit and get rid of the New York City Carpetbagging Investment bankers trying to steal our waterfront, the one thing that does make us truly distinct. Yes only 30 cities may have a baseball team..but we have the largest waterfront park system in the U.S. according to USF History professor Ray Arsenault. I know enjoying public park land is not the same as watching some steroid bloated freak pound baseballs into the bay...but some of us with class and intelligence are over watching players use cellphones to send pics of their firearm to the mother of one of their children...or hit umpires with bats...ahhh yes the promise of great publicity for our area and the wonderful role models.

I would vote YES... for Pinellas taxpayers to buy the team and reap the MLB benefits ourselves. For 450-million, we should OWN the team, not just finance it.

[I hUnT wHiNeRs]

I am going to laugh my happy @ss off when the stadium gets approved, built and something does happen that the city of st pete passes on to the tax payers

We'll have a nice stadium and the whiners will get stuck footing the bill!

poetic justice

ps) it's been at least 24 hours since stayin-stupid called someone a carpetbagger

[Kay]

Lorraine (and others) will all due respect, lighten up a little with Howard. I think much of what he said was more or less tongue in cheek and maybe we all should laugh more before we cry.
Howard, I get it that you are, right now, focusing solely on the financial aspect. I tend to think that this is because you know it just doesn't fly so why bother, really, with ALL the other (and there are numerous) issues. I see your point.
Let's all take a deep breath, keep on keeping on, and know that together we can stop this madness.
Kay

[A real city supporter]

This new stadium is being paid for 100% by the public. The Rays are putting zip, zero, nada into this deal.

Put it to a vote and watch this City speak loudly and clearly.

NO, NO, and NO to a new stadium.

[Walter]

The tax-payers, the Rays, and the developers will be PARTNERSHIP in this Stadium development. So All the TAX-PAYERS (city, county and state) should have a VOTE on the developments and share in the returns ($$$$$). Stop the give aways to the private business es without some return to the citiziens that paid for it with their tax-dollars. If my Sales Tax and/or Property Tax is used for this stadium or use to subs the city services of St. Petersburg, I demand to have a democratic vote on the stadium issue.
PLEASE DON’T CENSOR MY COMMENTS AGAIN BY THERE DELETION. For I did not violate any of your rules. I will continue to re-state my comments. If the St. Peterburg believes I violated any of their rule, I would request their reply to what rule.

[JOHN]

THE WHOLE TROUBLE WITH THE STADIUMN IS THE NAME, THIS IS ST.PETERSBURG NOT TAMPA. BEING A ST PETE NATIVE I RESENT IT BEING CALLED TAMPA. SO THERE GOES THE EMPTY SEATS.