Heard the local night clubs are fighting the city's plans to buy/condemn them so that the new stadium can be built near the Anacosta River area.

the "Rockies" thing not withstanding ...

The SENATORS name is NOT the legacy of the frigging Rangers - they weren't even the originals, for christ sake.

It's been done a couple times already, so let the 'spos be the Senators again, and let the Rangers keep their records - it's not like anyone will try to change Big Train Walter Johnson's plaque in Cooperstown to have a Youppi! on it.

This is true.

See, this wouldn't have been an issue if the team was moving to Northern VA... there's plenty of room out by Dulles for a stadium. ;) :p

Didn't someone important once own a substantial part of the Texas Rangers? Maybe he has some pull.

And now he lives in DC. How fitting.

I say good for DC-hey does anyone know if we can buy hats for the team yet?

I'm kind of sad about this. The Expos are my team, dammit.

So...looks like this might not happen now.

story on ESPN.com

DC issued quite a few bonds where the main purpose was the stadium. They were wavering for a while, but I doubt it won't get done.

-Rudey

About those bonds, would anything happen to D.C. if they did not proceed with the stadium?

They issued $147.25 million in bonds just now. They are not specific to stadium financing but are going into an account for capital improvements.

They don't have to use it for a stadium BUT it was sorta implied that they would be. The politics sorta were in play I guess.

They are backed by the District and also the special real property tax.

DC is interesting because they hadn't issued debt in a while since the Federales took over.

Anyway, something would happen if DC didn't pay back the bonds but not if they didn't build a stadium.

-Rudey

I don't think it's really so much about whether they have the money or not, it's that Council agreed to a deal 2 months ago and then just Tuesday an amendment was passed that renegs the deal and now the MLB is like "we're not doing this, we'll yank your team" and the Chairperson is all "no we want this new deal"

Dec. 17–23, 2004 Hometown politics in the nation's capital Vol. 8 No. 50

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On Nov. 30, the day the D.C. Council gave preliminary approval to financing a new baseball stadium, Mayor Anthony A. Williams was happy because two things that had "eluded" him were finally within his grasp. The first, of course, was returning baseball to the nation's capital. "And the other thing...I think I have the best working relationship with the council since I've been mayor," remarked Williams to the local press corps.

The mayor went on to praise the council's leader, Chairman Linda W. Cropp. "Like everyone in this city, I love Chairman Cropp and I respect Linda Cropp deeply," Williams swooned. "I gotta say, she does a brilliant job with the council."

By very late Tuesday evening, Williams wasn't happy at all. The two things that he thought were within his grasp now seemed more out of reach than ever. As the ballpark-financing package neared a final vote that night, Cropp declared that her support for baseball was contingent on 50 percent of stadium construction costs' being financed with private dollars. Her announcement put the mayor's deal with Major League Baseball in jeopardy. In essence, Cropp delivered Williams an ultimatum: Find $142 million or so in private money or you don't get your prized legacy.

And she convinced nine of her colleagues to support her demand.

If this is Williams' idea of a great working relationship, then the mayor might want to familiarize himself with the self-help section at Olsson's.

The mayor's lack of people skills are a given at this point. He's aloof not only to the public but to people he works most closely with. Still, Williams and his advisers say that Cropp's private-financing ultimatum came out of the blue. City Administrator Robert Bobb said Tuesday night that he learned of Cropp's proposal when she said it on the dais. "Based on our discussions, we felt we met all of the concerns that she had raised," Bobb told LL shortly after Cropp's announcement.

In the past two months, Cropp has repeated her mantra that she supports baseball but not at any cost. Cropp says she has reiterated her concerns to the mayor again and again. Given Williams' interpersonal shortcomings, it's easy to think he's been oblivious. Yet Cropp's bombshell-dropping, last-minute, surprise-attack approach to crafting public policy might point to some communications issues of her own:

• On Nov. 5, Cropp held a surprise press conference announcing her support for moving the ballpark to a site near RFK Memorial Stadium. She hadn't even informed some of her colleagues of the idea before she went to the press. "I don't think the executive branch took the concerns I raised seriously," Cropp said that day.

• On Nov. 9, Cropp delayed a vote on baseball to consider an undeveloped private financing scheme. That evening, Cropp told the local press corps that the mayor hadn't been hearing the public outcry about the stadium. "The mayor wasn't in town, probably," Cropp told reporters.

• On Dec. 14, in literally the 11th hour of debate on the ballpark-financing package, Cropp announced that she would support building a stadium only if 50 percent of construction costs came from private dollars. "I think this encourages the mayor more than anything else to seek private financing," Cropp declared on the dais, as the mayor sat in the audience.

Cropp's fly-by-night baseball proposals haven't been too successful so far. But given baseball's importance to the mayor and his legacy, Williams might want to review Getting to Yes anyway.


SHELTER IN PLACE
Last Friday afternoon, LL rode an elevator at the John A. Wilson Building with Adrian Madsen and a few friends. A uniformed security officer chaperoned the grunge-chic crowd, pressing the button for the fourth floor, which happened to be LL's destination. When the doors opened, Madsen informed the officer that he actually wanted to visit Ward 4 Councilmember Adrian M. Fenty's office, which is one floor higher.

Had Madsen come to complain about the ubiquity of his namesake on local TV?

The security officer informed Madsen and his friends that their trip had ended and that he would escort the posse to Room 412. The group quarreled a bit and then proceeded to exit the elevator and walk to the hearing room.

Madsen et al. and LL were visiting city hall for the same reason: to observe the people's business, as it would be conducted that day by the D.C. Council's Subcommittee on Human Rights, Latino Affairs, and Property Management, which is chaired by Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. The subcommittee had only one item on its agenda: the declaration of the Randall School as a surplus property. The legislative approval was necessary for the Williams administration to sell the building to the Corcoran Museum of Art, which had agreed to a $6.2 million sale price last year. The school building in Southwest had previously housed an arts center as well as a city-funded homeless shelter, which the executive branch shut down last month.

LL plopped down about 10 feet from Madsen and his friend David Benzaquen, who are both members of a homeless-advocacy group called Mayday DC, and waited for the proceedings to begin.

As it turned out, Madsen and Benzaquen sat in the hearing room's ejector seats: Protective Services officers approached the duo moments after Graham entered the room, insisted that the two had been issued a "barring notice" prohibiting them from being in our city hall, and physically removed them from the public chamber. Madsen and Benzaquen ended up in the D.C. Council's holding cell, otherwise known as the fourth-floor lunchroom, with four security officers standing watch outside the door. Reporters from Channel 4 and the Washington Post as well as many other local media outlets followed the scene out into the hallway.

Television cameras usually don't show up to record the bureaucratic minutiae of declaring a former D.C. public school a surplus property. The Randall School declaration, however, turned into political theater worthy of Aaron Spelling: lots and lots of drama with no substance and a very predictable ending.

Graham loves to create and star in D.C. political melodramas. And with the Randall School controversy, the Ward 1 drama queen had some very enthusiastic supporting actors. His subcommittee first considered the Randall surplus declaration on Nov. 29, a few days after members of Mayday DC squatted and "reopened" the shuttered Randall school building.

In an unusual move, Graham allowed members of the public to speak at that session. Speakers included a few members of Mayday DC, as well as more established homeless advocates. "Removing Randall from the inventory increases the possibility of people dying on the street this winter," said Mary Ann Luby, an advocate with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

When the proceedings began, Graham's remarks indicated he'd vote to declare Randall surplus. But by the time the speakers finished that day, Graham expressed doubts. The three-member subcommittee ended up tabling the legislation for two weeks, so Graham could perform "due diligence" and go on a "fact-finding" mission about the Randall issue.

Less than two weeks later, on Dec. 9, Graham abruptly adjourned another legislative markup, after Mayday DC activists took over the microphone. Graham announced that he was "unable to conduct the meeting" and adjourned without taking a vote.

Soon after, two women affiliated with Mayday DC perched themselves for more than five hours on a fifth-floor ledge that overlooks the Wilson Building atrium, to protest the shutting down of Randall as a shelter. They unfurled a two-story banner that read "Randall Is Shelter Not Surplus." D.C. police and firefighters responded.

The next afternoon, as Graham's subcommittee again convened, approximately a dozen security officers patrolled the Wilson Building's fourth and fifth floors.

Before the hearing even started, LL and the rest of the Fourth Estate ended up camped out outside the lunchroom, in a standoff with security guards as Madsen and Benzaquen were held inside.

"Go back and attend the meeting," an officer with the name tag J. Strickland instructed LL as well as Washington Post reporter Yolanda Woodlee.

"I'm going to stand here where the news is," announced Woodlee, after requesting to enter the lunchroom to "get a drink of water." "I'm a reporter."

While the TV cameras retreated to the hearing room, LL and Woodlee tried to peer through the glass door. "What are they being retained for?" Woodlee asked. Strickland, as well as "Pistol Expert" C. Cox, N.F. Gasser, and R.I. Webb, identified by their name tags, gave Woodlee and LL the silent treatment.

Woodlee eventually returned to the hearing room to record the subcommittee's business. Phyllis Jones, secretary to the Council, had arrived to monitor the situation. LL questioned Jones about the removal of Madsen and Benzaquen. "That was their decision," explained Jones, referring to the Protective Services officers. "If there is no barring notice, [Madsen and Benzaquen] are free to go back in."

"Shouldn't that be determined before removal?" LL asked.

At that point, Strickland made his own declaration of surplus property: that the hallway outside the lunchroom needed to be closed to public access. "You are in the way," Strickland told LL. He and another officer then grabbed LL's arms and physically removed LL from that part of the hallway and placed LL on the other side of a door about 10 yards away as Jones looked on.

"It's his call," Jones informed LL. "You're in the way."

Earlier that week, the D.C. Council had engaged in a debate about a bill that would regulate how the Metropolitan Police Department responded to free-speech demonstrations. Pushed by Committee on the Judiciary Chair Kathy Patterson, the bill sets up procedures for how the police respond to protests in city streets and parks. The bill came in response to the September 2002 Pershing Park arrests, in which police pre-emptively encircled and arrested people gathered in the Pennsylvania Avenue park during the World Bank protests.

On second reading, Patterson might want to extend First Amendment protections to those who attend D.C. Council hearings and craft some regulations regarding Protective Services.

After some investigation, security officers determined that Madsen and Benzaquen had no barring notice against them. Other protesters were quarantined in the lunchroom after actually being disruptive during the hearing.

Madsen and Benzaquen eventually returned to the council chamber to find Graham et al. on the verge of declaring Randall a surplus property. The vote ended up 2-to-1, with Graham voting yes.

"I think we have had a process here that I'm proud of," Graham told the audience after the bill had been approved.


POLITICAL POTPOURRI
• On Dec. 9, outgoing At-Large Councilmember Harold Brazil highlighted his valuable leadership skills. At a hearing on mayoral nominees to the National Capital Revitalization Corp.'s board, Brazil instructed colleague Graham on the fine art of management, urging him to expedite the proceedings. "Just trying to facilitate here," Brazil gently chided.

"Yes, you're a good facilitator, Mr. Chairman," laughed Graham.

"Thank you, I'll teach you sometime," Brazil responded.

LL offers the next 30 seconds of the transcript verbatim:

Graham: "Yes, I want to follow in your footsteps."

Brazil: "You should."

Graham: "Yeah, out the door!"

Brazil: "Grow up! Now wait a minute."

Graham: "Could I have my question answered, Mr. Brazil?"

Brazil: "I am the chairman of this committee. I don't particularly like that you insulted me."

Graham: "You interrupted my line of questioning."

Brazil: "You insulted the chairman!"

Graham: Harrumph!

Brazil: "If you want to get into this, it's four years of this coming from you, you know. I'm not going to sit here and be insulted by you. Do you have that right?"

Graham: "Mr. Brazil."

Brazil: "Do you have that right? Don't insult me again."

Graham: "Mr. Brazil."

Brazil: "Do you understand me? Don't do it again." —Elissa Silverman

hey Rudey, can you give me that link with the study about the effect of sport teams on the local economy?

The RPA has a study that is specific to the proposed football stadium on Manhattan's Far West Side.

Good reading.

its gonna be pretty interesting seeing them playing in Washington, it sucked that they had to be moved there leaving only one team in Canada but the NL East will still end up being the same as it has been

now where do they go? northern virginia?
DC is gone...

DC is not gone for good...they still have time - but not much. being that i live right there - this bums me out. though if they went to NOVA that would be fine with me too....stupid city council.

This puts MLB in an interesting position. It probably won't be long before Congress starts making noises about revoking its (MLB's) legal monopoly status again.

Found this interesting article on stadiums paid for by taxpayers. Warning, it is researched by a libetarian group, so it will be slanted.

Link to the Article

I didn't look at the study, but the stadium in Manhattan is a totally different scenario and most economists do find benefits to it.

As for stadiums in general Arya, look up Allen Sanderson on the internet. He is one of the better sports economists.

And for all the nay-sayers, DC is definitely still in the picture and, in my opinion, will build the stadium (financed 50% privately) and get the team.

-Rudey

This needs to be destroyed and is beyond ridiculous. Afterwards they should break up the USPS monopoly.

-Rudey

At least they don't own Major League Baseball like they do the Post Office. And at least parts of MLB make a profit.

They used to make noises about the NFL until those wonderful experiences with the other short lived pro football leagues (AFL, XFL, etc.)

But, you're right -- there are some things that you probably really can't just break up and expect the offshoots to thrive.

Most, if not all parts, of the MLB profit actually. The owners release very little to no info and the media spreads their lies of losing money. Because of this they can force you to pay higher taxes and build them a stadium and then lowball players on salaries. In actuality, a team should provide the owner with approximately 40% profits every year.

MLB has an exclusion, if I remember right, regarding monopolies across state lines. Others leagues can be considered a monopoly but don't enjoy that aspect.

-Rudey

A deal was approved...we're getting baseball. Huzzah!

Just to back this up . . . many teams run 'dummy' corporations to hide certain areas of profit, artificially lowering the books. Forbes magazine accounted for these in its infamous breakdown of baseball, and found that every team was making substantial dollars. Two of the more famous:

-The Cubs have a wholly-owned subsidiary, "Wrigley Premium", that deals exclusively in sales of premium seats to top games. Since the Cubs themselves can't charge more for certain games, they sell the tickets to the dummy company (at lower face value), then the dummy legally 'scalps' them to the consumer at mark-ups of between 100 and 1000%.

The cash goes directly to the Tribune Co., the owner of the Cubs, but does not have to be reported by MLB.

-The Angels, when they were crying poor, actually had three levels of dummy corporations to 'filter' out profits. Ticket sales, merchandizing, and players' salaries all went through three different companies. Since the reporting was done separately, the Angels could 'hide' everything except gate receipts. This allowed them to receive revenue-sharing dollars, even when they were in the 2nd-largest market.

This allowed baseball to pronounce that they wouldn't survive w/out those dollars, etc etc. Note that since Art Marrero has bought the team, the 'on the books' payroll has doubled with no crying about poverty.

HBS has a case study on this that we used in the class i took there last semester. i was quite surprised to read about some of the stuff that goes on and how the teams are able to hide things. it was a pretty interesting read.

Wow, that sounds like something the mafia would do.

Why? Every single corporation plays with their accounting. The MLB can hide what it wants as long as it loses its monopoly-exempt status.

-Rudey

True dat. Fair play.

This is exactly the truth - the real issue, for baseball fans, shouldn't be that it happens, but rather that some teams suck at it and get plastered for it.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/ar...articleid=1492

This is a great article from BP - read it, and lament how your team might be getting hoodwinked by much smarter owners.

Kameny wants Council to relocate gay clubs
Leaders say District is cracking down on nightlife
By JOE CREA
Friday, December 31, 2004

In response to the slated displacement of six gay clubs in southeast Washington, local gay activist Frank Kameny plans to write a letter to the D.C. Council telling them they have a “moral obligation” to relocate the gay establishments that are scheduled to be put out of business to make room for the city’s new baseball stadium.

Kameny argues that the D.C. Council “exiled” gay clubs to the O Street SE area of Washington during the 1970s and are now obliged to relocate the businesses, possibly at the site of the recently demolished Washington Convention Center, 900 Ninth St. NW.

“They exiled us there [O Street] in an out of sight, out of mind philosophy and they have a moral obligation, regardless of whatever zoning officials say, to relocate the businesses,” said the longtime gay-rights activist who said he will send his letter to the Council next week.

The likely displacement of the O Street gay clubs, Ziegfeld’s and Secrets, the Follies Theater, the Glorious Health & Amusements, Club Bath and Heat, which opened this week and was previously named La Cage Aux Follies Bar & Nightclub, represents an extreme example of what some say is a crackdown by the District Council and others on D.C. nightlife.

Rest of article here: http://www.washblade.com/2004/12-31/...ews/kamaey.cfm

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6966989/

'Gay enterprise zone' pitched for D.C.
By Tim Lemke
Washington Business Journal
Updated: 7:00 p.m. ET Feb. 13, 2005

Gay activists and business owners want the D.C. Council to help find a spot in the city to relocate six sexually oriented businesses that likely will be displaced by the Washington Nationals' new baseball stadium.

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For the first time since the council approved plans for a ballpark along South Capitol Street in Southeast, gay activists will formally ask members of the council to play a role in finding new homes for businesses along O Street -- some of the most popular and controversial destinations for gays in the city.

Among their suggestions during a Feb. 28 panel discussion will be creation of a "gay enterprise zone" in the District. Councilmembers Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, and Kwame Brown, D-at large, are expected to attend.

The new ballpark is planned for land bordered by N Street to the north and South Capitol Street to the west. More than half of it is vacant, but the site includes a stretch of O Street that is occupied by six dance clubs, strip clubs and adult-movie theaters catering to gay customers. The businesses are owned by Robert Siegel, an ANC commissioner who operates businesses under the name Glorious Health and Amusements. He declined to comment on the future of his businesses, some of which the city would have to acquire to pave the way for the stadium.

At this point, however, neither Mayor Tony Williams' office nor the D.C. Office of Planning and Economic Development has reached out to any business owner in the area. They're waiting for a final land analysis from D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi.

Gay activists say closing the O Street businesses would effectively kill a popular gathering center in the District, and put at risk HIV awareness campaigns and other programs formed in the neighborhood.

In a letter to Williams, long-time gay activist Frank Kameny says the city has a "moral obligation" to help relocate all the businesses to a single site near a Metro station and with adequate parking.

"We are dealing with a gay community institution ... and that is the way that the D.C. government should deal with it -- the institution -- not them -- the businesses," Kameny writes. "The D.C. government has an obligation to provide for them collectively."

Activists say they want the council to craft one-time legislation that would supercede any regulations governing where the businesses can locate. Under current zoning, the affected O Street clubs would not be allowed to relocate within 300 feet of one another, or within 600 feet of a school, library or church. That's too restrictive, Kameny says.

Other activists -- including members of The Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, which is hosting the panel discussion -- are taking a less aggressive tone. Club President David Meadows says the meeting will be a simple "back-and-forth discussion about the future of these businesses."

Of equal concern to the future of the O Street businesses, Meadows says, is the possibile shuttering of three popular gay clubs -- Nation, Wet and The Edge, located on M Street, north of the ballpark footprint. Those clubs could close if the city acquires land outside the actual ballpark site, as part of a master plan for the entire Anacostia waterfront.

No one rules out the possibility of acquiring businesses outside the ballpark footprint. But officials generally agree that if the city displaces a business, it should help with relocation.

Graham, who chairs the council's Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Committee, doesn't even know whether the council even has the power to one-time waive regulations. Zoning experts say the chances of sexually oriented businesses getting a zoning variance are slim.

Council members and gay activists said they expect discussions to become tense, in part because some residents oppose the sexual nature of the businesses and creation of a so-called "red light district" in the city.

"This is going to take some careful consideration of what to do," says Graham. "The solution is not immediately obvious."