Garber Prods MLS Dynamo, Houston To Resolve Stadium Issue
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Luck Says Dynamo Will Continue To
Negotiate For Funding On New Venue |
Houston Mayor Bill White yesterday complained that the MLS Dynamo "had tried to 'pressure' him'' in private negotiations between the city and the franchise about a "partnership to build a new stadium downtown," according to Stiles & Fallas of the HOUSTON CHRONICLE. White at a City Hall news conference said that "one of the team's owners recently showed him a letter from [MLS] urging a quick resolution to the negotiations." The letter, dated April 4, was written by MLS Commissioner Don Garber to Dynamo owners AEG Chair Philip Anschutz, Brener Int'l Group Chair & CEO Gabriel Brener and Golden Boy Promotions President Oscar De La Hoya. The letter "hints at the possibility of moving the team from Houston if a stadium deal is not reached with the city." Garber, in the letter, said, "It is inconceivable that MLS will allow the team to continue playing as a secondary tenant in a college football facility, particularly after the league moved the team due to the challenges at San Jose State. While another relocation would be equally traumatic, we both must consider our options to ensure that the team has a path to economic success." White was "blunt in his response to reporters" saying, "I've gotten a little bit of a reputation, probably deserved, that I don't respond well to threats." Dynamo officials, during a subsequent news conference "to publicly assuage the mayor's concerns," revealed that the price tag on a new stadium "had climbed to $105[M], up from the [$80-90M] previously estimated." Dynamo President & GM Oliver Luck: "We have made our position very clear to the mayor that we are looking for some public support for that building, and we will do the right thing, which is to continue to negotiate with the city to try to identify any potential revenue streams that may eventually bridge the gap we're now facing" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 4/17). View Garber's letter in two parts, page 1 and page 2.
REAX: The HOUSTON CHRONICLE's Bernardo Fallas writes Garber "should have known better." Fallas: "[Garber] should have realized 'private' letters, like the one he sent to the Dynamo's ownership ... tend to make themselves public at the most inopportune times, especially when they happen to be tailored in near-perfect fashion to recipients' agendas. ... Perhaps Garber forgot Houston, having survived the uprooting of the Oilers after the 1996 season, doesn't take to talk of relocation lightly. Neither does a team that less than 2 1/2 years ago called the California Bay Area home and itself the San Jose Earthquakes." More Fallas: "The worst part is Garber would have made just as compelling of an argument without bringing up the threat of relocation" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 4/17).
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