The Braves' plan to move their Spring Training home to Pinellas County while "scooping up millions in tax dollars is pressuring officials to break a stalemate" between the Rays and the St. Petersburg City Council, according to Charlie Frago of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. For months, the City Council "has refused to provide the Rays permission to break the terms of its lease agreement at Tropicana Field and search for stadium sites elsewhere in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties." St. Petersburg Council Chair Charlie Gerdes said that he "wants to preserve a revenue source for a new stadium for the Rays." Gerdes on Thursday "scheduled a resolution for the Oct. 1 council meeting to ask Pinellas County commissioners and Tourist Development Council members to earmark" $6M of the county's bed tax for the Rays "until the team's quest for a new stadium is resolved." Gerdes' move "comes two days after the Braves plans with former baseball star Gary Sheffield and local developer Darryl LeClair were made public." On Thursday, some new details of the deal emerged; the proposal "includes a concept to spend" up to $10.5M in bed-tax revenues every year "to support spring training." In addition, the county "would be obligated to pay" another $1.3M each year "on marketing the site and for a negotiated number of county events" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 9/25). In Tampa, John Romano wrote if it is the desire of the St. Petersburg City Council that the Rays "remain in this market -- and specifically in Pinellas County -- the window of opportunity is growing smaller and smaller." Although there is "little danger that the Rays are going anywhere in the next half-dozen years, and that probably includes across the bay," the news this week of a proposed sports park being considered on the former Toytown landfill property "only heightens that urgency." When it comes to locations for a new Rays ballpark, there are "only a handful of possibilities that meet most of the necessary criteria." With downtown Tampa "potentially growing more unlikely because of planned construction, the bay area suddenly has a limited repertoire of land parcels" (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 9/24).
