St. Pete City Council member Jim Kennedy doesn’t want to talk about his version of a compromise that would finally move a long-stagnant Tampa Bay Rays debate. According to the Tampa Bay Times, Kennedy said he’d give details “in time.”
Kennedy has long been an unwavering critic of a plan hatched by Mayor Rick Kriseman to allow the Major League Baseball team to look outside of St. Pete for alternative stadium sites. The problem is, the team has an ironclad lease to play ball at Tropicana Field through 2027 and it explicitly prohibits the team from considering other locations.
Two Pinellas county commissioners, Janet Long and Ken Welch, confirmed to the Tampa Bay Times Wednesday that Kennedy, and fellow hold-out Steve Kornell, had discussed with them ways a deal may be more palatable.
The Commission recently put pressure on City Council to move forward with a deal by dangling the portion of county bed tax funding previously used to pay off debt on Tropicana Field.
The Atlanta Braves are exploring the possibility of constructing a massive Spring Training facility at the county’s former landfill, Toytown. The Braves could ask for more than $10 million from the county for the more than 200 =-acre facility. That would use up any funding available to help the Rays construct a new ballpark in St. Pete or Pinellas County.
The bottom line, the Commission’s conundrum sent a proverbial “bake or get out of the kitchen” sort of message.
But Kennedy told reporter Charlie Frago he had hoped those conversations would be confidential.
Kennedy may get a chance to voice his ideas next week when City Council chair Charlie Gerdes plans to take up his own version of a Rays deal.
That plan includes a $1.4 million fee paid to the city each year following a decision to vacate Tropicana Field before the lease expires until they actually leave. After that the Rays would have to pay $2.5 million to the city each year until the lease’s 2027 expiration date.
If City Council approves that plan, or a modified version thereof, it would still be up to the Rays whether or not to sign off on it.
