Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Times Doubles Down Support for Rays Sympathizers

While the Tampa Tribune changed its endorsement in a key St. Pete city council race, despite frustrations and disagreements on the issue of a Rays stadium...the Tampa Bay Times also made a shocking endorsement, choosing a full slate of stadium-supporters in an election filled with complicated issues that go far beyond baseball.

The Times doubled-down on its support of Mayor Kriseman's negotiated deal, endorsing no-name Philip Garrett in District 5 over heavily-favored incumbent Steve Kornell, a liberal councilman the paper has long-supported.  Acknowledging the endorsement was purely about baseball, the Times picked Garrett over "obstructionist" Kornell.

ALSO READ: Kornell will switch vote for $55 million

Other Times endorsements include incumbent Charlie Gerdes and embattled newcomer Lisa Wheeler-Brown.  Supporters of the Rays deal are hoping either Garrett or Wheeler-Brown can win and give Kriseman the fifth vote he needs to break the stadium stalemate and allow the Rays a chance to look at sites in Hillsborough County.

ALSO READ: In Trying to Advance Stadium Interests, Newspapers May Do Opposite

Just how surprising were the Times' endorsements?
Depends whom you ask, but here's one observer's reaction:


A brief history of Times editorials on the Stadium Saga:
The history goes further back than that, but for a good synopsis, watch my 2010 piece on newspapers cheerleading for new stadium projects.





FOLLOW: Shadow of the Stadium on Twitter
FOLLOW: Shadow of the Stadium on Facebook

3 comments:

  1. Ho hum... another 6 years before anything gets traction....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting very people are reporting that Lisa Wheeler-Brown was caught in several campaign lies.... she'd be perfect to get this stadium stalemate moving with all her lying


    http://www.saintpetersblog.com/archives/241406

    ReplyDelete
  3. In a single sentence regarding looking in Hillsborough, there is a reference to unquantified "enormous benefits" for the region and a casually quantified $1B for Trop redevelopment. This is the laziest cost-benefit analysis ever written.

    Shilling. So. Hard. The Times' business is inextricably linked to the Rays. This obvious nonsense is just self-preservation masked as journalism. In other words, nothing more than dogsh*t.

    ReplyDelete