Today, the St. Petersburg City Council deadlocked on a 4-4 vote to have their attorney study a proposal that would allow the Rays permission to speak to officials in Tampa about a possible new ballpark. Because it needed a majority, the measure failed.
The proposal was offered by Councilman Charlie Gerdes, who said his intention was to break up the current stalemate between the city and Rays management.
"How do we break the stalemate? We need a vibrant and engaged relationship where we think about the future," he said. Gerdes denied that his move was an invitation to allow the Rays to leave. He said it simply allowed them to look.
The plan would have let the Rays investigate new stadium sites in either Hillsborough or Pinellas counties in exchange for an annual fee of about $1.42 million, which is roughly equal to the city's annual operating subsidy on Tropicana Field.
This article appears in Feb 7-13, 2013.