By Tom Mullins and Ron Diner
As every pub-crawler knows, when the bartender shouts “last call”, the right thing to do is straighten up and make good decisions - even when your dizzy, less responsible buddies are pressuring you to do the opposite.
July 18th is the date for the definitive St. Petersburg city council vote on the controversial Rays/Hines transaction, and thus the last call for sanity on the milestone issue. Of the eight city council members, it only takes four “NO” votes to reject the deal, and three members have already seen the light and bravely signaled their opposition. It is now time for at least one more of the five council members to gather their courage, acknowledge how flawed and unpopular the deal is, and rescue the city from a transaction poised to injure St. Petersburg for decades. The remaining five council members are Ed Montanari, Gina Driscoll, Brandi Gabbard, Deborah Figgs-Sanders and Copley Gerdes.
A lot has happened lately. We believe the above five officials might benefit from an updated list of the reasons why “NO” is the only way to go:
Follow the Money… as it Leaves Your Pockets.
If the Rays/Hines deal is approved, the taxpayer subsidies and other costs to the city total $1.6 billion, equal to $6,000 of value from every man, woman and child in St. Petersburg. Money that would otherwise be available for essential city services and the salaries of cops, firemen and other city employees who deliver those services. This $6,000 per citizen transfer of value to the for-profit Rays/Hines is so egregious and embarrassing it has attracted national media and think-tank scrutiny.
Location, Location, Location.
The new Rays stadium is proposed for the same location that has produced abysmal game attendance for over 20 years (consistently bottom 5 of the MLB in home game attendance). This despite St. Pete's phenomenal growth in the last few years, and increased population density in the neighborhoods surrounding stadium.
Baseball in this location also failed to drive economic opportunities for South St. Pete residents, despite promises to the contrary. It is naïve to think a new smaller stadium will somehow do better. Almost any other commercial use of the proposed 22 stadium acres will produce more career-track jobs for local Black residents than pro baseball.
With its baseball games, music concerts and other uses, the stadium will produce traffic congestion, noise and potential fan misbehavior on over 100 nights per year in the new Gas Plant neighborhood. The Rays/Hines say this will help attract prestige office tenants and affluent new residents to the expensive buildings they are developing next door to the stadium. Seriously?
Helping South St. Pete… Stay Poor.
Mayor Ken Welch’s interest in helping his struggling South St. Pete constituents is no doubt sincere, but he has a funny way of showing it.
As currently proposed, the Rays/Hines deal should probably be re-named “The Great St. Petersburg Reverse Reparations Scheme” for the way it transfers wealth from ordinary taxpayers and Black residents of the city to the tiny group of white individuals who own the Rays/Hines entities and already possess spectacular wealth.
Who Needs Beaches?
Pinellas County collected $98 million in “bed taxes” last year from county hotels and rental properties. This is the county’s primary fund for sustaining area tourism levels, and it is also used for beach re-nourishment, red tide mitigation and other tourism infrastructure that hundreds of area businesses depend on.
Pinellas county has 35 miles of Gulf beaches, and 21 miles are presently classified as “critically eroded”.
If the Rays/Hines deal gets approved, that fund will be raided for $20 million every year for the next 30 years to pay interest and principal on Rays stadium debt instead of being used to sustain tourism and beaches.
Voters? What Voters?
The city’s attempt to ram the Rays/Hines deal through without any direct voter consent are red flags for sure. Professional polling confirms that the Rays/Hines deal is opposed by a solid majority of St. Petersburg voters when polling questions include mention of the cost of the deal; and affirms that the more people learn the more likely they are to oppose it.
The city has also taken two other unusual anti-voter steps on the issue:
There will be no referendum that would allow voters to decide the fate of the Rays/Hines deal at the ballot box, and
The city has exploited a clever loophole that allows St. Petersburg to borrow, with interest almost $700 million for stadium construction and infrastructure without customary voter approval.
Council? What Council?
The mayor’s office is disrespecting the role of the city council, and that creates further red flags. Rays/Hines is arguably the single biggest economic decision in city council history, and yet the council is working on a rushed timeframe, without a current appraisal of the site’s valuation, no independent financial advisor, no analyses comparing the Rays/Hines deal to alternative development concepts, incomplete documentation, no city or county initiatives to secure alternate stadium sites, and no real debate over the unprecedented zoning and development density proposed for the non-baseball parts of the site.
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To Our Readers
Help! Vocal public opposition to the Rays/Hines deal has been seen since late 2023, yet the Rays have been unresponsive and offered the city no meaningful improvements in the deal economics.
The July 18 city council vote is only days away. Now is the time to speak up. Send the city council a short email telling them to Slow Down the Process - Vote NO on July 18!
*As published in the Tampa Times on July 16
Here are the reasons we continue to oppose the deal. The City Council votes this week, but it’s not too late.
