Baseball’s imminent arrival in D.C. is practically preordained-the mayor and majority of the D.C. Council support it. Why would anyone oppose it?
“This is the most fiscally irresponsible project I’ve ever seen,” Councilmember Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) said in Tuesday’s council meeting. “Why are we enriching [Baseball Commissioner] Bud Selig?”
The heated seven-hour council meeting ended with the stadium plan, amended to cut $80 million in library and community funding, passing 6-4 with two abstentions. This is the largest step in the process thus far, but the final decision will come in mid-December.
D.C. Council dissenters Fenty and Georgetown graduate Councilmember David Catania (I-At Large) proposed a series of amendments to bring more control over the stadium to the District. Fenty noted that the city will have little power over its own stadium, controlling it only twelve days a year despite financing all the construction, while Catania focused on “memorializing” promises made by District Mayor Anthony Williams in his plan.
Stadium proponent Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) replied repeatedly that the amendments would break the contract the city negotiated with Major League Baseball- a contract that Evans himself helped create. Evans did not bother to hide his exasperation with Fenty and Catania’s protest amendments, throwing up his hands and at one point exclaiming, “Why am I here? What am I doing?”
Evans went on to suggest that Fenty and Catania were playing politics with the bill to earn personal credit, despite their protests that they were serving their constituents. Nonetheless, the Mayor’s office seems to share Evans’ exasperation with Fenty and Catania’s nitpicking.
“There were enough people that thought that this was a good plan,” Chris Bender, the Mayor’s spokesman complained. “You’re focusing on the wrong thing-you should be focusing on 3,500 jobs, tax revenue, a special tax district and revitalizing the Anacostia waterfront. It makes the 12 days pale in comparison.”
However, with the loss of the immediate community funding, it seems that any development around the proposed stadium that could give tax revenue back to the community will not begin until the stadium is completed three years from now.
The bloated public financing plan was authorized for over $600 million, and questions still remain over the MLB contract and how much the community will benefit from the development. Catania and Fenty deserve credit for trying to improve the plan, even at the last second, and Evans should realize that the Council is more than a rubber stamp for the Mayor’s baseball legacy.
