March 31, 2003
Cities ante up for Expos
As the baseball season opens, details are slowly starting to trickle out about the stadium proposals being offered by Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Northern Virginia in an attempt to become the new home of the Montreal Expos:
- D.C. officials have proposed spending about $275 million in public money toward a $430 million stadium, using a combination of stadium sales taxes, player salary taxes, and a city business tax. It's unclear which would be new taxes and which a diversion of existing tax revenue; deputy mayor for economic development Eric W. Price has refused to reveal the plan's details, saying: "If we negotiate in public, we undermine our proposal."
- Portland stadium boosters have promised to fund $300 million of a $350 million stadium with city and state money, to be raised via taxes on player salaries, plus - maybe - hotel taxes, ticket taxes, and the sale of seat licenses.
- Northern Virginia, meanwhile, has promised to finance $285 million of a $400 million stadium-shopping mall complex, to be raised by a complex series of new and existing taxes: sales and income taxes at the stadium (including a special tax on the salaries of players and team officials), a ticket tax, rent payments on the retail space at the stadium, and a new regional hotel tax.
None of the plans have been approved by local governments yet (or in the case of D.C., the U.S. Congress, which controls the district's purse strings). MLB has said it hopes to pick a new home for the Expos by July, but hasn't ruled out keeping the team in Montreal next year while holding out for filthier lucre.
Meanwhile, even as government officials announced the stadium plans, protestors demonstrated against them: In Virginia, demonstrators picketed a Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority news conference, while supporters of the D.C. library system rallied carrying signs reading "Books Not Baseball."
