This afternoon in Tampa, the ABC group (A Baseball Coalition) formed by former St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Baker in 2008 to study potential sites for a future home for the Tampa Bay Rays, gave what organizers say will be their last formal presentation for awhile, speaking before the Hillsborough County Commission.
The group has given similar PowerPoint presentations before other government bodies in Pinellas County, and were asked earlier this year by BOCC Chair Ken Hagan to do so likewise in Tampa. Craig Sher and Alan Bomstein took turns going over their summary (that can be accessed at the ABC website). The two men said that a new ballpark will cost somewhere between $500-$600 million, and most facilities have been built with both private and public dollars, with the majority (70%) coming from taxes of some sort.
The ABC Coalition alienated city leaders in St. Petersburg when their report concluded that three of the five potential best sites for a park were in Hillsborough County, and two of the best were in the Westshore area and downtown in Tampa. They never went before the St. Pete City Council.
In Tampa, nearly all the Commissioners who spoke went out of their way to insist that the County had no intention of poaching the team from St. Petersburg, and certainly not with any taxpayer subsidies. Hagan said that though he has said the latter frequently, "there are still some out there that cannot understand that."
Every other commissioner echoed Hagan's comments on the possibility of public financing for a ballpark, such as Mark Sharpe, who said "I don't want to in any way give any indication that I'm supporting funding a new stadium when we're working on emergency services and basic core services."
