When the Pinellas County Commission gave its approval to dedicating $312.5 million in tax money to a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium in July — part of a more than $1 billion package of public spending and tax and rent breaks — it was by a solid 5-2 margin, with only commissioners Chris Latvala and Dave Eggers voting no. Elections happen, though, and as you may have noticed the U.S. just held some, and there are now two new members of the Pinellas commission joining Latvala and Eggers on the “now hooooold on there!” side:
“We are in a new era right here,” said [Chris] Scherer, whose Indian Shores townhome flooded due to Hurricane Helene. “I mean, whatever was agreed to before needs to be looked at differently now, because we are dealing with a county where, you know, tens of thousands of homes have been destroyed, and our infrastructure that was inadequate to begin with has suffered a lot of damage.”
Scherer and fellow commission newbie Vince Nowicki still have a chance to weigh in on the Rays deal because while the spending was approved back in July, the bonds haven’t actually been issued, as the commission declined to do that last month amid upset that the team might temporarily relocate to outside the county following damage Tropicana Field suffered during Hurricane Milton. At the time it just appeared that a commission majority might demand that Rays owner Stu Sternberg commit to a temporary home within the county, but advanced mathematical analysis reveals that 4 is more than 3, so Latvala, Eggers, Scherer, and Nowicki could conceivably team up to torpedo the stadium deal altogether.
Is that likely? Latvala and Eggers were ready to kill the deal back in July, and Scherer’s statement sure sounds like he’s ready to do so as well, especially with the St. Petersburg area facing heavy recovery costs following Milton. Nowicki hasn’t made quite as direct a statement as Scherer against the stadium deal, but did tell the Tampa Bay Times that after Rays execs ran attack ads against him during the campaign and refused to meet with him, “I wouldn’t be very excited to give them $300 million. I think that’s pretty reasonable, right?”
The bonds are set to go back to the commission for a re-vote next Tuesday, one day after Scherer and Nowicki are sworn in, though the county has until March 31 to approve or deny the stadium financing. With only one vote needed to flip to approve the bonds, it’s going to be interesting to see whether the members of the new Gang of Four demand that Sternberg kick in more cash or merely commit to finding an interim home in Pinellas or both or something else — if nothing else, Nowicki probably has a better bet of getting his phone calls returned now.
Interesting and possibly hopeful development… although, hey, it’s never too early to start padding your re-election fund is it?
Sadly, yes…..
People are finding out the truth, that the rays aren’t “good community partners”, they’re businessmen trying to make money and are willing to “invest” in people who will help them and try to stop anyone who will hold them accountable
May the backbones of the county commissioners be strong.
The Rays attacked Nowicki during the campaign? Oops!
Like they said on The Wire:
If you come for the king, you best not miss.”
Hope I got the quote right. It was a long time ago…..
Brodie Brazille says it will cost $56 million to fix and they can’t use it for 2025 at all.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06HPgc9SeCs?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=640&h=360]
Yeah, that is the conclusion of the investigation commissioned by the city.
Read that earlier, thanks Aqib.
Well, cat meet pigeons…
That’s $25m to the county (which their insurers only cover a net $3m of) and $30+ to the Rays themselves…
The commissioners’ talk and behavior is also instructive in the sense that it highlights how different parts of *metro areas* in Florida see each other, let alone how different parts of the state of Florida see each other.
People outside of here have mostly been conditioned to think of Florida as this single massive monolith and monoculture, when in reality there are probably at least seven or eight different “Floridas” that are wildly different from each other, and which all hold varying degrees of disdain, scorn, and inferiority/superiority complexes toward each other. Miami is basically its own singular space relative to even Broward County immediately to its north, much less the rest of the state; there’s precious little love lost between Tampa and St Pete, let alone between Tampa Bay and Orlando (~90 minutes by car); all of North Florida is routinely lampooned by the rest of the state; the list goes on and on.
All of which is to say that it’s perfectly understandable why the Pinellas and Hillsborough counties wouldn’t work together to try and “save” the Rays from leaving the region. They’ve never seen each other as anything other than rivals, and that played right into Sternberg and co while they spent years trying to play them off against each other.