The Tampa Bay Times has requested that citizens in the community submit letters to the editor so that they can learn more about you think. This is a powerful way to share your thoughts and potentially reach the thousands of local readership of the Times.

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Read the questions from the Times and send them your opinion at:

What do you think of the Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal? Here's your chance to tell us. 

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Some of our supporters are sending us the letters they submitted. Read some here:

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Dear Tampa Bay Times Editor:

 

If we say no to Rays Hines, in four years the city, at no cost, would own the entire 85-acre Historic Gas Plant District. The city could obtain a new development plan from a disinterested urban planning group, not Rays Hines. The city can provide "Intentional Equity" and negotiate deals for 1200 affordable housing units and nearby retail space in the district, as readily as Rays Hines at a small fraction of the cost of this bad deal.

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The Rays Hines deal, with its land purchase price of $105 million, gives Rays Hines hundreds of millions of dollars of present value plus all future appreciation in value of the Historic Gas Plant site. Rays Hines would only be purchasing 44 net acres of development "pads." That is $2.4 million per acre. In December 2023, 0.77 acres of improved land at 155 17th Street South sold for $9.05 million ($11.75 million per acre). Assuming the net acre yield from 85 gross acres is 60 net acres, this recent sale implies a present value of the city's 85 acres to be $705 million -- a $600 million gift to Rays Hines.

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The city doesn't need Rays Hines. Development has already crossed 16th Street. Saying NO avoids taking on $417.5 million bond debt and $700 million of debt service payments - a continuing burden on us even if Rays Hines fails to perform. Betting $1.3 billion in public funds for a second swing at baseball would be an unjustifiable, reckless play.  

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Dear Tampa Bay Times Editor:

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"As a St. Pete homeowner in a water adjacent neighborhood, I was shocked that our current city leadership a) immediately threw out the expensive hard work and decisions of the previous administration and restarted the RFP process b) are willing to help fund a private enterprise with $600M of taxpayers money with no tangible benefit to the majority of them and c) that the City Council is not seriously discussing the analysis recently published by No Home Run, which indicates real costs to tax payers as $2.4 billion.  We do not need, nor can we afford, a stadium for a team who cannot fill the current one, even during play-offs.   We need storm water hardening, affordable housing, infrastructure upgrades and support for our un-housed, just for a start.  I encourage my fellow 'Burgers to read up on the true costs and then write your Council representative to demand transparent, serious discussion and citizen vote on this transformative project."

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