With speculation fire that Rick Baker could announce another run for St. Petersburg Mayor as soon as next week, one could assume he’d show some leg on his political future during an appearance Wednesday at the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club.
Well, you know what they say about assuming …
Instead of taking about his political future, Baker did what he’s done nonstop for the past two months: making the case for voters to support a referendum giving Bill Edwards — his boss — a 25-year lease at Al Lang Field
Edwards would then expand capacity of the venerable park, making it viable for the Tampa Bay Rowdies to join Major League Soccer, the leading soccer league in the U.S.
And while that might be interesting enough, if there was any doubt about the worthiness of the project, the fact is, there is scant organized opposition to an issue that involves no taxpayer money. Edwards and his investors are footing the $250,000 cost of the May 2 special election, as well as approximately $80 million for expansion of Al Lang from its current 7,000 seat capacity to 18,000.
For the record, Baker was asked three times (in one fashion or another) to discuss his potential candidacy for mayor, a job he held 2001-2009. All three times, he chose to initially act as if he hadn’t heard the question.
Instead, Baker went straight to referendum talking points, slyly acknowledging that, in fact, he had heard the question, but wasn’t about to offer anything quotable.
Finally, Baker conceded that any comment not related to the Rowdies would only come after next week’s election.
“Maybe we’ll have that discussion another time,” he said when asked how he would manage the city versus the incumbent, Rick Kriseman.
Otherwise, it was all Rowdies stadium talk, all the time.
Perhaps the most interesting questions pertained to the stability and trust in Edwards, the Treasure Island entrepreneur who turned BayWalk around and single-handedly boosted the Mahaffey Theater with his financial largesse.
And while he’s continued to spend his money on making the Rowdies a first-class organization, not all is perfect in his world. There’s that legal case about his now-defunct mortgage company, Mortgage Investors Corp., accused of cheating veterans and the public in refinancing VA loans.
“He feels there’s no merit to it and that he’s a veteran himself and he fought in Vietnam and was wounded in the hospital for two years,” Baker said. “He believes he’s going to prevail.”
But activist Vince Cocks wasn’t satisfied with that response. While Edwards said he could personally pay a judgment to the 42 investors suing him, Cocks asked how would such a result effect the city of St. Petersburg?
“Well, that’s based on speculation,” Baker responded, earlier saying there would need to be a succession plan put in place. He preferred to answer how it would affect the construction of the Al Lang expansion, which wouldn’t be an issue, as the bonding would already be in place.
“People are not going to go out there and get a construction company in there building a stadium without confirmation that there is funding available,” Baker said.
The former mayor began with the 10-minute presentation he’s given to community and neighborhood groups around the city over the past couple of months. Baker provided a monologue on how much the city has developed over the previous three decades, with the Rowdies and the significance of professional soccer on downtown, just the latest element in making the city a great place.
Even if the taxpayers approve the Al Lang expansion next week, construction will remain on hold until the team learns if its MLS bid is accepted, which Baker says probably won’t happen until this December.
Eleven franchises are vying for four slots in MLS.
The criteria to be chosen by the league: a $150 million buy-in to join; reside in a major media market (Tampa Bay is 11th in the nation; Baker noted the Top 10 markets already have an MLS franchise); community support (the Rowdies currently average over 5,000 fans a game) and a stadium with a seating capacity of 18,000, which is what next Tuesday’s vote will decide.
