{"id":190551,"date":"2026-03-13T19:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190551\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T19:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T19:09:14","slug":"tampa-bay-rays-ballpark-hinges-on-sales-tax-opposed-by-county-officials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190551\/","title":{"rendered":"Tampa Bay Rays ballpark hinges on sales tax opposed by county officials"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays ballpark proposal is built around using $467M from a sales tax most Hillsborough County commissioners have said \u201cshould be off-limits to new sports stadiums,\u201d according to Nicolas Villamil of the TAMPA BAY TIMES. Money from the Community Investment Tax, the county\u2019s half-cent sales tax that pays for roads, public buildings and upgrades to existing professional stadiums, \u201crepresents the biggest share of public money the team is seeking.\u201d Voters approved extending the Community Investment Tax by a \u201cnarrow margin\u201d two years ago after a fierce public debate in commission chambers over its potential uses. Commissioner Ken Hagan, who first introduced the tax as a potential funding source last month\u202fthrough a framework document prepared by his office, has said that talks \u201cwould fail without it.\u201d The sales tax has generated an average annual surplus of about $4.2M from 2004 to 2024. If the tax continues to produce at a comparable pace, Hillsborough would \u201chave to use money that was projected to go toward other projects.\u201d Most of the money raised by the tax is \u201cslated for an array of public safety and transportation initiatives that commissioners billed as essential in 2024.\u201d Commissioner Joshua Wostal said that he \u201cexpects a stadium deal vote to be scheduled for the next commission meeting, on April 1.\u201d If a county vote is scheduled for April 1, Wostal said that he will \u201cseek to delay it.\u201d He added that a vote of \u201csuch magnitude should not occur without allowing for sufficient public scrutiny\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 3\/13<\/a>).<\/p>\n

INSURANCE COVERAGE: In Tampa, Colleen Wright noted months before a pair of hurricanes wreaked havoc on the city, St. Petersburg \u201ctook a gamble on Tropicana Field\u2019s property insurance.\u201d The city lowered that policy\u2019s $100M coverage\u202fto $25M to save $275,000 on its annual premium. Now that the stadium has a new roof, city staff have \u201crecommended increasing the policy limit\u201d to $50M. It will cost the city an additional premium of $125,000 a year. Council members on a committee voted Thursday to send that increase to the full board for approval. City Risk Manager Blaise Mazzola mentioned that because of the age of the old roof, the Trop was \u201conly insured for what it was worth, not for the cost to replace it.\u201d However, with a new roof on the Trop, the city is \u201celigible for additional insurance proceeds should the stadium suffer damage in a future storm.\u201d Mazzola said that the $25M increase to the city\u2019s policy \u201cgives some \u2018buffer\u2019 if there is another claim\u201d (TAMPA BAY TIMES, 3\/13<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays ballpark proposal is built around using $467M from a sales tax most Hillsborough County commissioners have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145008,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3816,3817,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-190551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}