The back-and-forth over a proposed new home for the Tampa Bay Rays in Tampa continued Friday, as Mayor Jane Castor publicly criticized some city council members just one day after votes that raised new questions about the project’s future.<\/p>\n
In a post on social media Friday, Castor called Thursday’s votes “beyond frustrating” and said some council members appear “intent on killing the Rays plan even before negotiations are done.”<\/p>\n
Her comments came after both the Tampa City Council and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) took votes Thursday that complicated the path forward for the proposed stadium and surrounding development.<\/p>\n
While the votes did not kill the Rays’ proposal, they underscored growing concerns among several council members, who say they have not been included in negotiations over the project.<\/p>\n
The same seven elected officials serve as both the Tampa City Council and the CRA board, but they operate and vote separately.<\/p>\n
During Thursday’s CRA meeting, the board voted 5-2 to remove a discussion and possible vote on the stadium financing framework from its August agenda. Council member Bill Carlson argued there should be more public discussion before moving forward.<\/p>\n
“For the sake of the community there should be robust community conversations,” Carlson said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Council Chair Alan Clendenin disagreed.<\/p>\n
“But having this on the agenda facilitates that conversation. Removing it from the agenda doesn’t,” Clendenin shot back.<\/p>\n
Later Thursday, the Tampa City Council voted 4-3 against sending a proposed land-use amendment tied to the project to the state for review. Council member Lynn Hurtak said she opposed taking that procedural step because she had already made up her mind on the proposal.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s a waste of time to send it to the state if I’m just going to vote against it,” Hurtak said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Although the vote does not stop the project from moving forward, it highlighted the divide over how negotiations have unfolded.<\/p>\n
In a statement Friday, Clendenin defended his position, saying, “By refusing to transmit the amendment despite those recommendations, City Council cut short the review process without the benefit of state agency input.”<\/p>\n
He also noted during Thursday’s meeting that the vote was unprecedented.<\/p>\n
“First time probably in history we have not transmitted a future land use amendment,” Clendenin said Thursday.<\/p>\n
Friday also brought what could be an encouraging sign for negotiations.<\/p>\n
Carlson posted on social media that he had a productive conversation with Rays CEO Ken Babby and said Babby now plans to meet with all city council members.<\/p>\n
The memorandum of understanding approved earlier this summer was only intended to serve as a framework for negotiations.<\/p>\n
Based on conversations with people involved in the process, the financial plan has changed during negotiations, and the final agreement is expected to look significantly different from the original framework.<\/p>\n
The remaining questions are when the public will see that final proposal, and whether it can gain enough support from the Tampa City Council to move forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The back-and-forth over a proposed new home for the Tampa Bay Rays in Tampa continued Friday, as Mayor…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[52111,143846,77097,6931,2153,5756,2942,135,3815,610,137,136],"class_list":["post-351748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-bill-carlson","tag-chair-alan-clendenin","tag-city-council-members","tag-community-redevelopment-agency","tag-council-members","tag-jane-castor","tag-negotiations","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-rays","tag-tampa-city-council","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351748","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=351748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}