April 06, 2010

Rays stadium coalition to open mouth; uncertain whether anything will come out

The ABC Coalition pushing for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium is scheduled to speak before the Hillsborough County Commission on May 19, which could mean a repeat of its appearance before the Pinellas County Commission last month, in which the city of St. Petersburg threatened to sue if the coalition said anything that could be construed as interfering with the team's lease on Tropicana Field.

St. Pete city attorney John Wolfe says he's set to take action if the coalition engages in "tortious interference," but wouldn't say where he'd draw the line. Whether he objects to the coalition's testimony "depends on what they say," Wolfe told the Tampa Tribune.

Meanwhile, WTSP-TV reporter Noah Pransky makes a good point on his "Shadow of the Stadium" blog about the media debate so far (and no, I'm not just calling it a good point because he links to this site):

And just as I predicted back in the ABC Coalition's infancy, columnists and editorial boards are jumping on municipalities to act. But where's the pressure on the Rays to come back to the table with ideas (or even a fair request) of their own? ...

The time is now for the Rays to step up to bat and contribute more than their disappointment to the process. And fellow journalists, instead of penning editorials that encourage elected officials to work with the Rays (since there's proof they ARE trying), maybe we should be pushing the Rays' officials to work with them.

Of course, if the Rays wanted to go public with their stadium campaign, they wouldn't have left it to the ABC Coalition (which consists mostly of local business leaders — picked, ironically, by the city of St. Pete, which is now threatening to sue them if they talk about stadiums anywhere but their city) to carry their water for them. But you'd think that local newspapers might consider it their business to point this out — or then again, maybe not.