reached a memorandum of understanding<\/a> with Hillsborough County and the city of Tampa to build the $2.3 billion ballpark on Hillsborough College\u2019s Dale Mabry campus.<\/p>\nThe 30-page MOU lays out where that money could come from, but Hillsborough\u00a0Commissioner Joshua Wostal told Spectrum News key questions remain unanswered.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no understanding. County staff has no understanding to the memorandum of understanding,\u201d said Wostal.<\/p>\n
His big question revolves around the $2.3 billion price tag. He said the Rays haven\u2019t provided a breakdown of how they came to that figure.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Ed Hooper, R-Palm Harbor, has said local agreements have to be in place before the state will release $150 million for the project.<\/p>\n
Wostal said that\u2019s why he thinks commissioners are being asked to vote on the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing it solely to release that much money. I don\u2019t know how anybody could characterize anything other than fraud,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The MOU does call for Community Investment Tax (CIT) dollars to be used among other funding sources. Hillsborough\u2019s contribution from those funds would be capped at $360 million, while Tampa\u2019s could go up to $80 million.<\/p>\n
The agreement is non-binding, and Commissioner Ken Hagan told WDAE\u2019s \u201cThe Drive w\/TKras\u201d there are still issues to work out. But he called the MOU a positive step forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a complex deal. There are so many moving parts. Our first and guiding principle moving forward, most important, has been \u2018protect the taxpayer\u2019. We\u2019re not raising taxes. We\u2019re not raising fees,\u201d Hagan said.<\/p>\n
According to Hagan, one of the details that needs to be finalized is how capital repairs will be handled during the life of the stadium, as far as the Rays assuming most or all of that responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team has given a June 1 deadline for the county and city to approve final agreements. Hagan said he understands the urgency when it comes to state funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat being said, there\u2019s no way in hell that gets done by June 1, and we\u2019ve told them that. They understand that, may not like that, but it\u2019s significant that we can get an MOU done by May 20,\u201d said Hagan.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when commissioners are expected to vote on the agreement. Hagan said he\u2019s confident it will pass.<\/p>\n
Rays CEO Ken Babby said in a statement he\u2019s grateful for the commitment and partnership parties demonstrated during negotiations.<\/p>\n
He said in part, \u201cThe Rays respectfully but resolutely encourage Hillsborough County and the City of Tampa to approve the MOU and make possible a Forever Home for our community\u2019s Tampa Bay Rays, breathe new life into the Dale Mabry Campus of Hillsborough College, and create a new privately financed neighborhood that will be an inviting and inclusive destination to work, live, learn, and play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 $976 million, that\u2019s the amount of public funding called for to build a new stadium…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[563,556,5,19859,4,169,557,297,10202,62892,185,317,295,2550,68,2551,2549],"class_list":["post-699252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa-bay-rays","tag-app-professional-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-baseball","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-professional-baseball","tag-rays","tag-rays-stadium","tag-sarah-blazonis","tag-sports","tag-sports-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampabay","tag-tampabayrays"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116576338810356741","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}