A discussion by Tampa City Council members about how the city will begin to implement the major stormwater improvements they voted on earlier this month led to a rolling commentary by council member Charlie Miranda that touched on the misplaced priorities of government, the sorry state of the presidential race, and mostly about his frustration with professional sports teams asking for a handout from the citizenry.
His five-minute-plus “editorial,” as he dubbed it, evolved after Councilman Harry Cohen called on city staff to return in a few weeks to discuss the process of how the city will begin the projects included in the $251 million plan to improve stormwater infrastructure in Tampa.
On Sept. 2, the Council voted 4-2 to pass the measure strongly advocated by Mayor Bob Buckhorn. Miranda and Frank Reddick voted against the measure.
Miranda said the real costs of the stormwater tax are likely more than $251 million, because that’s not counting the interest that will accrue.
“And that cost would be something close to $500 million on that item,” he said, adding that in the future, the city’s staff should calculate the interest when there’s such a big-ticket item so the public is made aware of the true costs. That led to him segueing into the recent sewage problems in St. Petersburg.
“You want to build another stadium in St. Pete and you don’t have a sewer system?” he asked. “That’s real smart.”
He then referred to the 1996 Community Investment Tax in Hillsborough County that has given money to schools, parks, and police departments over the past two decades, but was specifically created as a funding source for Raymond James Stadium, home of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Miranda fiercely opposed it then, and his anger toward such public subsidy hasn’t lessened in 20 years.
Referring to how wastewater and sewage systems were also included in the CIT, Miranda referred to funds the council had to fork out last December to help the team pay for two new end zone video boards that were more than four times the size of the current ones, as well as video boards on each of the four corners of the stadium. It also included a new sound system, new concessions, and a new concourse.
“They got $25 million in the original contract for improvements to NFL standards, whatever that is,” he said. “And they we gave them almost the size of this building the footprint to build a TV. A TV for people watching the games so they can have ‘an experience!’ That’s nice.
“So now you gotta go to a game and watch it on television,” he continued. “That’s even nicer. But it really wasn’t about that. It was about the revenue that came off that big TV that you and I would never see, and you and I may never know, but they are. So we keep talking about building a stadium here for baseball. You gotta be nuts. Who’s going to fund that? And it ain’t $500 million. That’s only the cost. It ain’t $600 million. And it ain’t $700 million. It’s over a billion. Because they don’t tell you about the interest. So you keep talking about the experience. And you keep talking about having a nice time. While your streets … traffic can’t move. Where your sewers are backed up.”
Miranda said he voted against the ’96 CIT “not because I wanted to, but because I had to.” He then went on a riff about how the city wouldn’t be able to handle another major storm. And then he lit into the idea of funding professional sports stadiums, specifically for the Tampa Bay Rays.
“I’m not against sports. Let them build their own damn stadiums. They got more money than you and! More money than the city, the school board, or the county has on a yearly basis to do what they want to do. Yet they want you and I to pay for it, and they will convince you to pay for it, because they want to give you a center somewhere.”
While there have been countless stories in the Tampa Bay media over the past decade about potential sites for a new Rays ballpark, rarely do those stories move over into where the approximately $600 million to pay for it will come from (The Tampa Bay Times on Thursday reported on how Hillsborough County is closing in on being able to raise their bed tax, which could be another potential source of funding). Rays owner Stu Sternberg in the past has said the Rays could commit as much as one-third to the total costs of a new park.
That led to a final Miranda take on the presidential election.
“Those are the things that are frustrating,” he continued. “Those are the things that why you see people saying — especially in national politics, we ain’t voting for somebody we like. We’re voting for somebody because we dislike the other one more. And that’s a shame what’s happening in the country.”
“Thank you for the editorial, sir,” Council Chairman Mike Suarez offered after Miranda had concluded.
