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July 23, 2010
St. Pete mayor's plan would only give Rays a little rope
The invaluable Noah Pransky has dug into St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster's offer to let the Tampa Bay Rays move outside city limits, and finds that it's not actually that much of a concession: There are only two new sites Foster would allow the Rays to consider, and both are barely beyond the city line.
That's not likely to make the Rays happy, since their goal looks to be to set up a bidding war among the cities and counties on either side of the bay, the better to find somebody, anybody, who has some cash to pay for a stadium.
Meanwhile, Pransky also reports that the Rays have given $50,000 to a group promoting light rail in Hillsborough County. If they get a rail line allowing Tampa fans to get to downtown St. Pete, does this mean we can forget about all this new stadium nonsense?