December 09, 2004
Membership has its patronage
When you're talking about a $614 million stadium, it's easily lose track of where some of those lesser millions are going. In the case of the planned Washington Nationals stadium, according to today's Washington Post, $3.7 million in city money will go to pay for MLB's chosen stadium consultant. The leading candidate: the International Facilities Group, a consulting firm run by Michael Reinsdorf. Totally coincidentally, Michael's dad is Jerry Reinsdorf, who owns the Chicago White Sox - and as head of baseball's relocation committee, was MLB's chief negotiator on the stadium deal.
Needless to say, D.C. councilmembers opposed to the stadium deal were not pleased to hear about this latest wrinkle. "That's absolutely worrying," said Adrian Fenty, noting that the city would already be on the hook for $6.1 million for its own project manager. "It just runs contrary to basic common sense. Why in the world would we pay for their consultants?" (Future historians will note this as the first and only time that "common sense" will be referenced with regard to the D.C. stadium deal.)
Meanwhile, a spokesperson for council chair Linda Cropp, who has gone from backing the stadium deal to opposing it to backing it to abstaining from last week's vote, said yesterday that "she certainly feels her concerns are being heard. Everybody seems to be heading in the same direction." Yesterday WTOP radio reported that D.C. officials weren't even going to meet with MLB before next Tuesday's final stadium vote; today the Washington Post reported D.C. sports commission chief Mark Tuohey as saying that discussions are "ongoing" and that he's "hopeful we'll come to some resolution that will be productive for Tuesday's vote."
Believe who you want, but I'd put my money on some sort of face-saving gesture that will enable Cropp to claim she got concessions, without actually costing MLB anything. Maybe if the stadium goes over budget, all Nationals fans will get 5% off all Larry Parrish matryoshka dolls at the MLB store.
