Rays to St. Pete: We Accept Your Offer

The Tampa Bay Rays will accept an offer from St. Pete councilmembers to attend a public presentation of a stadium proposal in Carillon, in the city's Northeast corner.

In a one-paragraph letter to councilmembers Thursday, Rays owner Stuart Sternberg wrote that "I anticipate that members of the Rays organization will attend." No meeting date has been set yet, but it is expected that members of the Pinellas County Commission will attend as well.

"Please understand," Sternberg's letter continues, "that our attendance is a courtesy to you, and it has no bearing on our long-standing position: We will consider any potential ballpark site in Tampa Bay, but only as part of a process that considers every ballpark site in Tampa Bay."

The St. Pete council sent a letter to the team last week following its methodical decision to listen, but not participate, in the stadium presentation.

And while Mayor Bill Foster had indicated the team would need to accept his offer to amend the use agreement to consider a site at Carillon, it may not be the case. Carillon, and much of the "Gateway" region, already fall within St. Petersburg city limits.

Foster, St. Pete Challenge Rays

They criticized the Tampa Bay Times, the Tampa Bay Rays, and Tampa Bay sports critics. But in the end, St. Petersburg city councilmembers voted to invite a developer to pitch his Gateway stadium concept at a future meeting.

The board, along with Mayor Bill Foster, also issued a challenge to the Rays to accept a 2010 offer that would allow consideration of possible stadium sites across Pinellas County, not just in the City of St. Pete.

The resolution, said St. Pete city attorney John Wolfe, would "protect the integrity of our use agreement."

Wolfe also criticized the Tampa Bay Times for pushing St. Petersburg to let the Rays break their contract. He said giving up leverage would "open the door for Rays to leave the region."

"We would love to have these discussions with our Major-Leauge partners," Foster said, "but that just hasn't been possible."

Continue reading here.

Pinellas Jumps Into Stadium Saga

Pinellas County commissioners voted Tuesday to invite the Tampa Bay Rays, St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, and the St. Petersburg City Council to a future meeting to discuss the ballclub's future plans. While not a party to the current use agreement between St. Pete and the Rays, Pinellas County is a stakeholder, paying off a portion of the stadium's bonds through tourist taxes.

Pinellas County - like Hillsborough County - had been respecting Foster's threat of legal action if any parties tried to interfere with the binding contract between St. Petersburg and the Rays. But just like Hillsborough commissioners decided, Pinellas commissioners figured the risk of legal action was low...especially if St. Petersburg is in on the discussion.

Read more from WTSP here.

You can also catch up on recent comments made by Rays' owner Stu Sternberg, including his encouragement over the Hillsborough developments and a call to local leaders to "step up to the plate" (my pun, not his).

Hillsborough Commissioner Out to Fulfill Campaign Promise

Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan tells the Tampa Bay Times that he's finally ready to take action on one of his campaign promises: keeping the Rays in Tampa Bay:

"I'm just beyond frustrated at the lack of progress regarding the Rays' long-term future in the Tampa Bay region," Hagan said. "For me, just sitting by idly and hoping issues will work themselves out is counterproductive."

In coming weeks, Hagan said he will ask county attorneys to opine on whether Hillsborough can engage in direct talks with the Rays about their future in the region despite the team's lease at Tropicana Field. If he gets a favorable response, he said he will reach out to the team to figure out what the Rays want and how local government can help.

Hagan went on to tell the Times that local governments lose a little bit of leverage every day because the cost for the Rays to break a contract gets smaller.

However, Hagan neglects to acknowledge leverage is also diminished every time an elected official suggests the team break its contract, as he is directly implying.

On the campaign trail in 2010, Hagan said "It's important to our community and our economy to have a plan...a vote for me is a vote for future sporting events (in Hillsborough County)." He made it clear he was prepared to bring the Rays to Tampa.

Additionally, every year that goes by without new stadium talks also means another year of Rays baseball in St. Petersburg, supposedly worth more than whatever buy-out might be proposed.

Also read: What Mayor Bill Foster is Thinking

Politicians like Hagan and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn have been calculated in describing circumstances that could lead to the Rays leaving Pinellas. And that means a possible 9-figure buyout on top of the $500-$600 million stadium cost.

So regardless of what the Hillsborough Commission decides, the county still can't afford to build a new stadium on its own and there isn't enough money in Tampa Bay to build a new stadium without public dollars, or else we wouldn't be having this conversaion.

Instead, the stadium saga continues to be a political football, much to the dismay of local business and community leaders.

"When the cities start fighting with each other, it just drives us up the wall,"
one influential leader told the Tampa Tribune in January.

The most encouraging "way out" of this saga remains the work of the private business groups researching regional financing options. Stay tuned for their updates this summer.

Many Tampa Residents OK with St. Pete Stadium

A new St. Petersburg Times/Bay News 9 poll indicates a majority Tampa Bay residents still prefer the Rays play in St. Petersburg and/or Pinellas County, rather than move to Tampa.

Times writer Stephen Nohlgren reports:

About 55 percent of Tampa Bay area residents overall prefer Major League Baseball to remain at Tropicana Field or at a mid-Pinellas location in the Gateway area.

Part of that sentiment stems from fans like Gulfport resident Christina Ramires, a disabled widow who likes the short drive to the Trop. "We always go two or three times a year when they offer discount tickets to school kids,'' she said.

But support for the Trop also stems from Hillsborough residents like Michael Fall of Apollo Beach, who thinks "the Rays should stay put. I don't think they deserve a new stadium."

About 30 percent of respondents favor a Hillsborough site...The 508 people polled were divided evenly between Hillsborough and Pinellas residents.

Want further evidence that average residents shouldn't be trusted with important decisions? Nohlgren reports, of Hillsborough County residents, "about 27 percent favor the fairgrounds at Interstate 4 and U.S. Highway 301, compared with 17 percent who like downtown and 5 percent who prefer the West Shore area."

However, research has shown a fairgrounds site wouldn't be much more accessible to Tampa Bay's population than the current Downtown St. Petersburg site. And it wouldn't have the redevelopment potential a Downtown Tampa site would have, either.

Times Continues to Rip Foster; Sternberg Gets Free Pass

Just two weeks after it's last over-the-top criticism of Mayor Bill Foster, the St. Petersburg Times Editorial Board unleashed another attack this weekend, calling Foster "The Minor League Mayor":

To his credit, Foster offered last year to allow the Rays to look within St. Petersburg and just outside the city limits for potential stadium sites. Since then, it's been all strikeouts and errors. Rays owner Stuart Sternberg reasonably wants to look at the entire market, including Tampa. Foster has refused, alternately snubbing and encouraging business leaders, discouraging public officials from talking, and threatening legal action. The mayor has generally treated the Rays as a courtroom adversary rather than a significant business that contributes to the civic and economic life of the entire region.

In its effort to encourage a regional discussion for a future Rays home, the Times is merely diminishing St. Pete's leverage in negotiations and encouraging a Tampa vs. St. Pete war.

While they acknowledge Foster has offered a compromise, they give a free pass to Sternberg for ignoring it. The reason the Rays don't want to bother exploring sites in Pinellas is because they've already studied them....and every other potential site in Tampa Bay.

The Rays want a region-wide search so they can trumpet Tampa as a better location for a park and really increase the pressure on Foster. Which is exactly the reason why Foster doesn't want to let them (publically) explore Tampa.

The editorial continues:

While he is understandably frustrated, Sternberg should come off the sidelines. Allowing the Rays to study potential stadium sites in both Pinellas and Hillsborough counties for a limited time is worth something. Sternberg should make a reasonable offer to St. Petersburg after the season and ask the City Council to vote on it or make a counteroffer. He also should open the Rays' financial books to confirm that the franchise is not making mountains of money.

The Times has suggested Sternberg should open the team's books and make a "reasonable offer" to St. Pete before. But he won't. So the question is, will the Times continue to give him the benefit of the doubt or will it criticize him the way they criticize Foster's negotiating tactics?

Mayor Foster's Secret "Detailed Plan"

Mayor Bill Foster's comment to city council Thursday that he has a "detailed plan" to keep the Rays is nothing more than miscalculated politicking.

Foster, who wants city council to stop diminishing the city's leverage in the stadium saga by suggesting possible concessions to the Rays, said he had a "plan" so council would stop pressuring him in public. Foster has been briefing council members individually on the issue, even though the Rays haven't spoken to him in months.

The St. Petersburg Times reports:

"I am very content with the communication with the administration,'' Kennedy said. "If the Rays are interested in having discussions they should call the mayor.''

Foster concurred that public meetings make for an awkward forum.

"We can't play this poker hand in the sunshine, without weakening our position,'' he said. "When the time comes, when they are ready to come to the table, it will be publicly discussed and be in the sunshine. We can't do anything to weaken our position, which is why I'm willing to come to you individually.''

Since I've already explained What Mayor Bill Foster is Thinking, it makes sense that his "plan" is nothing more than to stop letting the issue play itself out in public. Foster doesn't like that the Rays have essentially issued an ultimatim: let us out of the use agreement or we'll continue the public pressure.

Of course, the Rays are thinking the more the issue plays itself out in the papers, the more pressure put on Foster to make concessions. The team has communicated with local business groups interested in fostering regional stadium efforts.

And although it will take years, the Rays are hoping the pressure on St. Pete will eventually help turn the tides so multiple counties can get behind an affordable financing plan for a new venue.

Times Editorial Board Cranks Up Pressure on Mayor Foster

The St. Petersburg Times Editorial Board will print its "Five questions for the mayor on Rays" tomorrow morning and join Councilwoman Leslie Curran in pressuring Bill Foster to break his silent stalemate with the franchise. But to assume the fault belongs solely on the shoulders of the mayor is only one of the board's poor assumptions.

When the City Council discusses the issue today, here are five questions council members should ask the mayor:

1 Why do you fear allowing the Rays to evaluate potential stadium sites in Tampa?
Despite the Rays' lack of interest in a new stadium in downtown St. Petersburg, the city has a number of assets: the long-term stadium lease, publicly owned land, interstate access and a revenue stream of public money that could be redirected from Tropicana Field to help pay for a new stadium. Let's see how that stacks up to what the Rays might find in Tampa, whose assets include a broader business base and possibly shorter driving times for more fans.

Mayor Foster, as I've written before, is afraid of a Tampa vs. St. Pete competition. To allow the two cities to compete against each other means one side could overextend itself again in order to make the Rays happy. He sees it as his job to protect St. Pete's interests, and that means avoiding a Tampa vs. St. Pete war.

2 What could St. Petersburg receive in return for allowing a broader search of stadium sites?
Allowing the Rays to look in Hills­borough is worth something. Reasonable negotiators could agree on fair compensation that would allow the Rays to look only in Pinellas and Hillsborough for a limited time, and the city still has the long-term lease.

This point is valid; if St. Pete could get a payment in exchange for allowing the Rays to explore Tampa, Foster might jump at the chance. But I'm not sure the Rays would.

3 How does refusing to allow the Rays to look at possible stadium sites in Hillsborough benefit the city's negotiating position?
Every year that goes by, the less that is owed on the bonds that paid for the Trop and the less time that remains on the stadium lease, which expires in 2027. The city's leverage decreases as the clock ticks, and it becomes less expensive for the Rays to buy their way out or for a future owner to move the team and fight in court.

But, the Times fails to acknowledge, every year that goes by also means another year of Rays baseball in St. Petersburg, supposedly worth more than whatever buy-out might be proposed.

4 What are the long-term time lines and financial considerations?
Studying stadium sites, identifying revenue options and building public support takes time. A stadium is not going to be built soon, but Tampa Bay should be poised to move when the economy recovers.

St. Petersburg should study all of its options. The Tropicana Field site was attractive to developers when the Rays proposed their ill-fated waterfront stadium, and it will be again when the economy revives. Compare the cost of building a stadium and the economic impact of Major League Baseball in the city to saving the money a new stadium would cost, selling the Trop site to private developers, revitalizing that portion of the city and bringing spring training back to St. Petersburg. The more information, the better informed the decisions.

I guess the question is, "what's there to study?" If the Rays maintain location is the big reason people aren't coming to The Trop, why bother conducting studies that would suggest another Pinellas location would be better? Especially since any regional search would yield what's a forgone conclusion: Tampa is a better location for the stadium. It would crush Foster's leverage in the negotiation.

5 If the Rays do not want a new stadium in St. Petersburg, would you rather residents drive to Tampa to see their favorite players or fly to Charlotte?

Not only do I believe the Rays want to stay in Tampa Bay, where they've built considerable equity, but I don't think Charlotte is anywhere close to being in a position to lure a new team. All Charlotte represents right now - and the Times falls into the trap perfectly - is a city MLB would like to use to "blackmail" Tampa Bay, just as they did eith Tampa Bay for so many years.

Stadium Saga Re-Focuses on Money...and Logic

Times columnist John Romano makes a great point in this morning's paper: the stadium issue "all comes back to money."

The column echoes mine from November 2010, when I said the debate about stadium location was moot until they discovered a magical pot of money somewhere....or discussed a regional-funding effort.

While Romano has been way off-base at times on the stadium issue , he was also critical of Rays' manager Joe Maddon in 2010 the last time the skipper criticized the stadium.

Now, he fine-tunes his tone on the matter, bringing about some relevant points:

Catwalks, broken lights and ESPN blowhards have no business in the discussion of whether the Tampa Bay area needs to consider the construction of a new stadium.

When Rays manager Joe Maddon said Tuesday that Tropicana Field was improper for Major League Baseball after 14 seasons, it sounded almost as silly as St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster once saying the catwalks were the equivalent of Wrigley Field's ivy.

This isn't about artificial turf or low-hanging speakers or lightning strikes on national television. This is about money. And it is about the future of baseball in Tampa Bay. And it might even be about the city of St. Petersburg's reputation and its ultimate direction.

Romano goes on to say "Attendance and revenue streams at Tropicana Field are not sufficient for Major League Baseball's needs" - a point may take issue with since MLB hasn't provided any evidence of this.

But Romano hits the nails on the head when it comes to what's going on inside the head of Stu Sternberg: "Stu Sternberg (isn't) going broke...the Rays are (simply) making far less money than 90-95 percent of their baseball business partners."

The column continues by applauding Sternberg for saving the Rays franchise and making it a winner, but applauds St. Petersburg for building a stadium on the backs of taxpayers.

Romano says it comes down to the commissioner:

Bud Selig needs to acknowledge that MLB owes St. Petersburg a debt. We were his street corner tart for more than a decade, helping stadiums get built in other markets. Maybe that doesn't get us a lifetime pass, but MLB is flush with enough cash that it needs to take an active part in any new stadium discussions here.

But tougher questions about the stadium saga are posed by Field of Schemes' Neil deMause:

There's no doubt that Maddon and Silverman would love a new workplace — hey, who wouldn't? — but some of their complaints border on the bizarre: Rain is a "disruption to the game"? Rays players can't focus on baseball because they're worried that other cities are making fun of them? And, for that matter, how exactly is a shattered lightbulb — the first in nearly 14 seasons of games at the Trop — an indication that the whole place needs to be torn down (as opposed to, say, switching to sturdier light fixtures)?
...
The real question that should be asked, meanwhile, is if the Trop is really "improper for Major League Baseball," why so many teams threatened to move there in the '80s and '90s in order to extract new stadiums from their home cities (off the top of my head: the White Sox, Indians, Giants, Rangers, and at least two or three more that I'm forgetting); not to mention why MLB ultimately gave St. Petersburg an expansion franchise in 1998 despite knowing where their home park would be. Has the definition of "improper" really changed that much in 13 years? If rain is now an unacceptable distraction, I guess maybe...

Catwalk Controversy: 2011 Revival

Looks like we can look forward to another week's worth of Tropicana Field-bashing after 16 innings and nearly six hours of fun last night.

The game would have been shorter had a Sean Rodriguez pop-up not shattered a light hanging from the catwalk. NESN tweeted, "shards of hot glass are falling on Tropicana Field after the catwalk's struck again. Batboys are collecting the glass in their gloves."

My first thought is, "I wonder if it's the same bulb I shot in my 2010 story on the Trop's catwalks?"

But my next thought was how strange it is that the Tampa Bay region spends more time defending its stadium and its fan base than the team's management does.

I can't remember a time when the team's top brass has been over-complimentary of the region's fans and when it says anything about The Trop, it's obviously about the need to replace it. A little stadium promotion would go a long way toward making fans want to visit.

St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster, however, dons his marketing cap when it comes The Trop, comparing its quirks to the ivy at Wrigley Field or the Green Monster at Fenway Park.

And Pinellas Co. Commissioner Ken Welch took it a little more personal last night, tweeting, "Watching the Rays game - The ESPN commentators whining about the Trop got old a couple of hours (or years) ago..."

Sorry Ken, the talk isn't going anywhere. It's not like Stu Sternberg will try to convince anyone to embrace the park's pesky "quirks" the way the Red Sox front office did when the region was lamenting Fenway Park's tiny seats, poor sightlines, and illegally-close foul poles in the late 1990s.

Buckhorn Echoes What Foster Said Two Years Ago

Times writer Richard Danielson details another episode of Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn talking stadium:

Seems like every week Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is thinking out loud about the future of the Tampa Bay Rays in ways that raise people's eyebrows.

Buckhorn said in a radio interview Tuesday that he believes the team will leave St. Petersburg.
...
If the Rays do leave St. Petersburg, Buckhorn said, and not for the first time, he thinks the best place for them to land would be downtown Tampa.

But asked whether he thinks the Rays will move to Tampa, Buckhorn said, "No. It's my belief that at some point the Rays will leave St. Petersburg … and I absolutely want to be ready when that happens."

On Wednesday, Buckhorn said it's clear that playing at Tropicana Field doesn't work for the team.

Ironically, it's similar to what St. Pete's not-yet-elected mayor, Bill Foster, said two years ago.

Trib Column on Buckhorn Pitch Misses the Mark

Tribune columnist Joe O'Neill writes that Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn's ceremonial first pitch the other night was much more than a pitch. And he may be right...but he's also very wrong.

O'Neill says, "sooner than later, the Rays will unilaterally opt out of that (2027) Trop lease. It won't come cheap, but it's the cost of (un)doing business in the sports-franchise universe...the Rays will relocate to Tampa or they will move far away."

First of all, the Rays have a use agreement, not a lease. And they can't "opt out," only buy out.

But more importantly, it's wrong to assume all Pinellas locations are off the table.

Pinellas Co. still has the most available money and a Gateway/Toytown venue would still put the team more within reach of more fans.

O'Neill also asserts, "The water may be a 'big divide' when it comes to Trop attendees, but Tampa's mayor and key business interests have no problem bridging the bay."

I get his point, but if the businesses in Tampa supported the Rays in St. Pete, we wouldn't be having this discussion about the Rays moving.

What Mayor Bill Foster is Thinking

After a look inside the brain of Rays Principal Owner Stu Sternberg, it’s time to analyze what St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster is thinking as the Stadium Saga enters another stalemate summer.

With attendance at The Trop barely registering in the MLB rankings and the city threatening lawsuit over anyone or anything that threatens to interfere with their use agreement, Foster has taken it on the chin from the local papers:
- Times columnist John Romano implied a good leader would be open to the Rays’ demands.
- Tribune columnist Martin Fennelly said Foster had his head in the sand and deserves boos.
- Times columnist Sue Carlton said she hopes St. Pete and the Rays can just work it out.
- The Tribune editorial board called Foster “stubborn” and said he’s risking losing the Rays.
We’ve heard Foster say The Trop is a great facility. But that’s Foster the St. Pete Promoter talking. He doesn’t really think the Rays’ have a park that compares to Target Field, PNC Park, or Wrigley Field. But he will get offended if you suggest the park and the city are the reason you don’t go to games.

And even though Foster said on the campaign trail the Rays could leave St. Pete after 2016, he now says he’ll go to court to make sure they don’t break the contract. That’s Foster the Lawyer talking.

To Foster the Lawyer, the stadium situation is only a problem because the Rays said so. With no actual proof of financial struggles, nor proof of another city looking for a team, Foster remains content to hold his ground. All Sternberg has done so far is ask not-so-nicely for permission to explore breaking their contract.

It comes to down to preserving St. Pete’s equity in Major League Baseball. The city agreed to build a stadium in exchange for 30 years of baseball. Foster sees anything short of that benchmark unacceptable.

Is he willing to negotiate? Sure. Is he willing to accept financial restitution in exchange for early termination of the contract? Probably. But that hasn't been offered by the Rays.

What has been offered is a region-wide search for a better location and Foster already knows what that would yeild: a Tampa vs. St. Pete tug-of-war. When the Tribune suggests a Tampa stadium plan would do nothing to interfere with St. Pete's relationship, they're wrong. It takes away St. Pete's leverage.

And in a stalemate that will ultimately come down to a negotiation over hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies, Foster the Lawyer can't afford to lose any leverage.

While he would love to help the Rays build a new state-of-the-art park in Pinellas County, Foster sees many of the recent ballparks as public bailouts of private businesses that may not have even needed them.

And as much as he would prefer to negotiate in the mayor’s office rather than the court of public opinion, Foster has no problem playing the bad guy to the region to preserve the interests of his city. He's the mayor of St. Pete, not greater Tampa Bay.

When Foster says he's prepared for all of MLB's "tricks," he means he isn't going to buy the argument that a new stadium is a "need," rather than a "want."

Foster the St. Pete Promoter thinks if the Rays wanted to succeed in St. Pete in the first place, they'd promote their home instead of bash it. Foster the Lawyer thinks if the team wants a new stadium, it should come to the negotiating table to discuss compensation for terminating its contract early.

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Tampa/St. Pete Chambers' Coalition: What Does it Mean?

Thursday's announcement that business leaders on both sides of the Bay will discuss ideas on how to fund a stadium is a welcome chapter in the Stadium Saga; but it's not a surprising one. After all, the ABC Coalition - not coincidentally, a group of business leaders from both sides of the Bay - concluded a new coalition would be necessary in its final report from January 2010.  {Read the report here}:

The coalition found the Rays are right to assert the current stadium near Downtown St. Pete is too remote for most fans to frequently visit, and that Tampa Bay will need to band together to get a new stadium deal done.

"This is all one region," said Rays' Senior Vice President Michael Kalt. "We're committed to this process and this region, so I don't think anyone has any reason to worry, no matter if they're in St. Pete or Tampa or Pasco County."
...
Kalt did, however, repeat that he hoped leaders on both sides of Tampa Bay would put aside their differences and work together to keep the Rays in the area. It's an assertion echoed several times by members of the coalition.

"Baseball is regional, just like transit or education," said ABC Coalition member Craig Sher. "We need to take a regional approach...not just one city."

The news should also ease Stu Sternberg's frustrations at the region's uncooperative attitude, but it may not get him much closer to a stadium. With no taxing authority, the group of businessmen may be hard-pressed to do anything more than lobby for a multi-county tax and tax breaks for the project.

These are some very powerful business leaders determined to make things happen, but if funding a stadium was as simple as pooling their private dollars, we wouldn't be in the current stalemate.

Sternberg Owns Up to Mistake

Taking a break from his typical well-choreographed volleys in the Stadium Saga, Rays owner Stu Sternberg lobbed another controversial comment at Rays fans Thursday night - likely inadvertently.

Speaking at a roundtable of Tampa Bay's three major franchise owners, Sternberg said the one thing he learned about the area since buying the team five years ago was that "the water is a big divide."

The comment was a nod at the hesitance of Hillsborough County fans to cross the Howard Frankland Bridge for weekday games.

And while Sternberg went on to say, "we've learned about the driving habits of people, their willingness and ability to navigate bridges and so forth," the comments shouldn't be construed as a knock on Rays fans as much as it is an admission of a business mistake.

Sternberg and the majority of his front office come from the Northeast, where fans will routinely drive an hour or two to see the Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies play. Growing up just eight miles from Fenway Park, I still had to spend 60+ minutes getting to the game. And we thought nothing of it.

So understand Sternberg's frustrations that many Floridians won't drive more than 30 minutes - or cross a bridge - to see good baseball.

Two years ago, Rays VP Michael Kalt admitted to me the team underestimated the psychological barrier of the Howard Frankland Bridge.

"I think we need to be honest about what people's tolerances are to travel to go to sporting events," Kalt said in July 2009.

It seems for all their dilligence in getting the extra edge in places like the draft, the gate, the concession stand, and even in sports psychology, the Rays' made one big mistake when it came to consumer psychology.

Commissioner: Send Stadium Money to Pinellas Parks!

With the Rays itching for a new place to play and the debt on Tropicana Field expiring after 2015, Pinellas Co. Commissioner Norm Roche has an idea of what to do with the available bed tax money in 2016: put it toward a different kind of park.

Roche is currently looking into the legality of spending heavily-restricted tourist tax dollars on parks like Fort DeSoto. The Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) has suggested a $5-per-vehicle fee at the park to help deal with another year of budget shortfalls.

Click here to read more.

The Rays Stadium Saga: What's Next?

Another Rays season is off and running...but if the team doesn't right its ship on the field soon, Tampa Bay's attention could shift quickly to their off-the-field matters. Namely, their search for a new stadium.

But despite three-plus years of exploration, negotiation, and intimidation, we don't appear any closer to a long-term solution to the team's problems than we did in 2008.

So what's next?

Contrary to the timeline I mapped out two years ago, I actually think things will remain civil for a while longer.

Given the economy, it would be in poor taste for the Rays or MLB to push the issue any harder right now. But they will eventually.

The next major piece of news will likely come from the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, a private group studying the difficult issue of stadium funding.

The group is decidedly pro-stadium and although it isn't advocating a preferred site right now, location won't matter as much as how they could possibly pool the $300 million in public revenue to get a deal done.

In an ideal world, multiple counties around Tampa Bay would contribute to a new stadium to lock up the team for decades to come. But cooperation has never been Tampa Bay's strongest characteristic and most residents balk at the idea of paying for a stadium in a different county.

I also expect the report to suggest a diverse range of public funding mechanisms from Tax-Increment Funding (TIFs) to Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs). These are easy pills for politicians to swallow since they don't immediately increase tax rates for most residents.

However, both TIFs and PILOTs are both taxes, and with an anti-tax climate permeating the state and anti-tax politicians holding most important county offices, even these mechanisms may not fly.

So while the Rays may hail the suggestion as innovative, local municipalities still may not "play ball" if they don't have to. And honestly, I don't expect St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster to open his city's wallet when they've already got the Rays under a fool-proof contract until 2027.

Which means 2011 may look a lot like 2010 in the Stadium Saga. A report comes out; the team and politicians go through their song-and-dance with the media; and nothing changes.

As I've said before, this process will likely play itself out over a number of years, not months. And it will undoubtedly get tense, if not ugly.

The lone bright spot for the Rays' efforts is new Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn has been a stadium advocate and may give them the power and/or leverage they need to get the ball rolling. How active he wants to be could determine how quickly the Stadium Saga plays out.

FC Tampa Bay Moves to St. Petersburg

Professional soccer team FC Tampa Bay, formerly known as the Rowdies, is moving to St. Petersburg. Mayor Bill Foster and team representatives will announce Wednesday morning that the franchise is leaving the confines of Tampa's Steinbrenner Field, where it enjoyed modest success, for St. Pete's Al Lang Field.

Al Lang remains popular in Tampa Bay, but the move will be an interesting experiment in a time where the Rays say they can't draw to Downtown St. Petersburg largely because of location.

For what it's worth, in my humble opinion, the ingress/egress at Tropicana Field is superior to any other venue in Tampa Bay, including Al Lang Field.

Vocal Minority Will Continue to Plague Rays

If you polled Tampa Bay taxpayers, I bet a majority would oppose spending tax dollars on a new Rays stadium right now. But the numbers would be close. And, depending on how the funding broke down, you may even be able to get a majority to support the idea.

But the small group of anti-tax advocates in Tampa Bay are getting louder by the day and will be very hard to overcome.

Example 1: At last night's Pinellas Commission meeting, where the board made the tough decision to extend the tourist tax at five cents until 2021 for tourist-related funding, a half-dozen residents yelled at the board for considering a handout to the Rays.

The only problem was that - while the bed tax extension kept the funding structure in place for a possible future stadium - yesterday's vote was specifically about reserving money for the new Dali Museum, beach renourishment, and tourism marketing.

Nevertheless, the continued overtures to a Rays stadium made several commissioners visually uncomfortable and no matter how many times commissioners and St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster reminded folks that a new stadium plan would require multiple future votes, the explosive issue could not be diffused.

Example 2: While I was doing our 11pm liveshot (it was a MARATHON meeting), I missed a confrontation between the Tea Partiers in the audience and Mayor Bill Foster. St. Petersburg Times writer David DeCamp explains:

But the night certainly created fireworks. At the end, Foster got nearly nose-to-nose with tax opponent Hamilton Hanson in a hallway. Hanson accused Foster of secretly engaging in talks with the Rays.

"It's not taking place, I'll tell you that straight to your face right now," Foster said before seeking an elevator.

Leaving the county building, several of the loud opponents cursed the Democratic process to me as well.

What this shows is that - after the 2008 stadium debacle - the stadium conspiracy theorists aren't going away. And, after the 2010 election, they feel more empowered than ever. Any effort to work toward a new Rays stadium won't have to just overcome monsterous funding issues, but also elected officials' fear in addressing the issue.