December 07, 2005
D.C. council minority holds off stadium cap
The D.C. council voted 8-5 yesterday to establish a firm $535 million cap on city spending for a Washington Nationals baseball stadium ... and the measure failed. As "emergency declarations" that bypassed normal council channels, the twin bills proposed by councilmember David Catania needed nine votes, a two-thirds supermajority, to become law.
Amid reports that the total stadium tab could now be as high as $714 million, several legislators angrily complained that they had been, in councilmember Jim Graham's words, "hoodwinked" into approving a deal that allowed for only $535 million in bonds, but contained additional off-budget expenses for land and infrastructure. After lead baseball backer Jack Evans asserted, "If you vote in favor of this, you would stop the stadium project in its tracks," councilmember Kwame Brown retorted that there needs to be a figure above which D.C. will not spend: "Some will say that's stopping a stadium. I don't think so."
The true test for the Nats stadium plan will come on December 20, when the council is expected to vote on the team's lease with the city, which has yet to be publicly released. Of yesterday's eight-vote majority, seven have been vocal in their opposition to the plan: Brown, Catania, Graham, Adrian Fenty, Vincent Gray, Carol Schwartz, and Marion Barry. To get the lease approved, then, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams would have to flip one vote onto the pro-stadium side - the Washington Times yesterday speculated that either Brown or Schwartz could switch sides, though both were among the most adamant yesterday that rising stadium costs must be reigned in.
