_BiB_ Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 The Mayor has to get a $400 million bond through the city council to fund the stadium, or no baseball. The minority centric city council, who for the most part doesn't like the Mayor are drawing the battle lines. They say they don't want baseball, they want more low income housing a a free public hospital. Looks like he has 1/4 to 1/3 of the council on his side. This could get interesting. Washingtom might not be the lock folks think it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 The Mayor has to get a $400 million bond through the city council to fund the stadium, or no baseball. The minority centric city council, who for the most part doesn't like the Mayor are drawing the battle lines. They say they don't want baseball, they want more low income housing a a free public hospital. Looks like he has 1/4 to 1/3 of the council on his side. This could get interesting. Washingtom might not be the lock folks think it is. 50494[/snapback] One of the reasons the announcement was made yesterday (as opposed to, say, November) was so the current sitting city council had a chance to vote on the stadium funding. As it stands now, there's a decent chance of the funding measure passing: a slim majority of the council supports the measure, albiet some only in principle until they see the funding details. Come November, if they haven't passed it, it won't be passed: three councilmen are expected to lose their seats to strongly anti-baseball challengers who'll kill the bill. So if they want it funded, they have to do it quickly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_BiB_ Posted September 30, 2004 Author Share Posted September 30, 2004 I'd really enjoy watching some baseball that wasn't the Orioles. The Braves would be in town a few times per year. That could be fun. I know there's a lot of DC folks posting or lurking here. DC is pretty screwed up, ain't it? This has got to be the biggest welfare mecca in the nation. Williams has gotten some great development done downtown. And he gets bashed constantly for it. 3/4 of the city wants any revenues basically mailed to their post office boxes. More money for schools? What a joke. Money isn't going to fix DC schools, management will. They have plenty of money. They squander it. If it doesn't go into a "social program", DC doesn't want it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmac17 Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 More money for schools? What a joke. Money isn't going to fix DC schools, management will. I've had a few experiences with the DC schools in the past year, and I couldn't agree more. A perfect example of "as long as I don't piss anybody off I'll keep my job, so I should probably do nothing".... As for the stadium - isn't the timeline so tight that if angelos starts even a bs lawsuit it will delay things enough to ruin everything? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erynthered Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 They could always play in Puerto Rico if funding does'nt come through. IIRC, All the MLB owners own the Expo's. So I would suspect they have other plans if the team does'nt get a stadium deal in DC. What they are is anybody guess. BTW, if they do get funding, and build a stadium. DC will be armed by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_BiB_ Posted September 30, 2004 Author Share Posted September 30, 2004 I've had a few experiences with the DC schools in the past year, and I couldn't agree more. A perfect example of "as long as I don't piss anybody off I'll keep my job, so I should probably do nothing"....As for the stadium - isn't the timeline so tight that if angelos starts even a bs lawsuit it will delay things enough to ruin everything? 50686[/snapback] I think that's already been solved. Angelo has been given a majority interest in the new corp. I don't think the Orioles are going to lose that much base anyway. As tom points out, the Stadium issues need to be solved soon. This stadium is going to cost a lot more than $400 million by the time all the deals for votes are struck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 I've had a few experiences with the DC schools in the past year, and I couldn't agree more. A perfect example of "as long as I don't piss anybody off I'll keep my job, so I should probably do nothing"....As for the stadium - isn't the timeline so tight that if angelos starts even a bs lawsuit it will delay things enough to ruin everything? 50686[/snapback] Actually, the timeline for building the stadium isn't that tight. The timeline for approving the funding is extremely tight. And once the funding's approved, given that a good portion of the planning for the Anacostia Waterfront has already been done, construction should go relatively quickly - the keyword being relatively, as in "relative to how glacially slow it would be otherwise". Angelos is largely taken care of. They in essence bought him off: promised him a new regional cable sports channel on which he can market the Orioles, and promised him a floor the sale price of his team, should he choose to sell it (i.e. if he ends up selling the Orioles someday for $100M less than what the league promised him, the league will make up the $100M.) The key right now, though, is ramming the $400M stadium funding bill through the council before all the pro-baseball council members are voted off in five weeks. I don't know, but I would imagine that the agreement with the league is somehow contingent on the funding being made available. I know some people who are active on both the DC Sports Commission and in DC politics...I'll see if I can't get some more details on some of this...though I doubt anyone will ever know the details of Angelos' deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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