June 4, 2024

St. Petersburg City Council
175 5th Street North
St. Petersburg, Florida 33731

Dear Council Member,

On behalf of the 3,034 members and supporters of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) in St. Petersburg, Florida, I urge the St. Petersburg City Council to renegotiate or consider an alternative to the Rays Hines proposal to redevelop the 86-acre Historic Gas Plant site.  Under the plan as currently proposed, most of the $2.4 billion public expense would fall on St. Petersburg.  The city would sell 64 acres surrounding the stadium’s 22-acre area to the team at a price more than $500 million below competitive market value, and the city would lose another $400 million of foregone rent and real estate taxes over the contract’s 30-year term.  

The council should instead consider the proposals offered on NoHomeRun.com.  The grassroots advocacy group suggests either improving the financial terms of the Rays Hines deal at the Gas Plant site to shift the burden off taxpayers or allowing the team to consider an alternative development location for the Rays elsewhere in the Tampa Bay area.  The group also suggests that the council publish the total expected cost of unfunded priority infrastructure projects in the city for the next 30 years, so that taxpayers have full information to assess the true opportunity cost of directing public funds to a private stadium.  St. Petersburg’s taxpayers and voters deserve credible evidentiary data to support the dubious claim that a stadium would provide more local jobs and stronger economic growth than alternative development proposals for the Gas Plant site.   

Citizens Against Government Waste has extensively chronicled the lack of return on investment by taxpayers for publicly-funded sports facilities around the country.  St. Petersburg voters also know the proposed Rays Hines deal will not pay off.  A League of Women Voters survey conducted in January and February 2024 showed that 80 percent of respondents agreed that the city should not accept the current deal, 77 percent said the team should use its own private money to build the stadium, and 78 percent said the city ought to direct property tax revenues toward the projected $5 billion expense for stormwater improvements and wastewater infrastructure repair instead of giveaways to a private sports franchise. 

The Rays Hines plan should not go forward as proposed.  Instead, I urge the city council to take all the time necessary to ensure that a renegotiated plan for the Gas Plant site, or for an alternative redevelopment location, places the weight of financial risk on the Rays franchise, not on taxpayers.

Sincerely,
Tom Schatz
President, CCAGW