DELAYED! Kriseman, Rays Push Stadium Decision Off One Week to Secure Votes

Every St. Pete insider knew Mayor Kriseman's controversial plan to let the Rays explore stadium sites across the bay in Tampa would meet some resistance in City Council.  Especially with former mayor Bill Foster lobbying councilmembers to vote "no" over concerns of weakening the city's ironclad contract.

Yesterday, we broke the news of several councilmembers leaning toward "no" votes...which led me to tweet this:

Mayor @Kriseman will be working councilmembers for votes over next 48hrs; if he doesn't have 5 of 8, he may push #Rays item to next week.
— Shadow of Stadium (@StadiumShadow) December 10, 2014

It also led Rays executives to lobby councilmembers today on the deal:

Members of @RaysBaseball are meeting with @StPeteFL council members trying to secure a Yes vote tomorrow #Wtsp pic.twitter.com/U21GHcEcZR
— Kendra Conlon (@KendraWTSP) December 10, 2014

But sure enough, as the Tampa Bay Times first reported, tomorrow's vote has been delayed a week so Kriseman "can make sure that council had time to get comfortable" with the MOU.

Hooray!  Eight more days of speculation and giant headlines!

UPDATE: The Times editorial board has a quick response to the delay {link to site}, once again taking the opportunity to slam former mayor Bill Foster.  It's anything but their first time.  But they also seemed to put council on notice that a vote against the agreement may be a consequential shot across the bow of the editorial board too.