Stadium Deal to Slow Sale of Nats – WTOP
WTOP’s Political Analyst Mark Plotkin says the lease is really “the first and last step” in the process.
“All the controversy over which owner is really moot until they get the deal done.”
Big surprise, right?
MLB relocation committee chairman Jerry Reinsdorf will be on Plotkin’s politcs program at 10 a.m. today. You can listen live here. I hope that Frank Robinson makes a guest apperance, PMOF around his neck and presents his “point of view” to Reinsdorf.
UPDATE: D.C. Councilman Jack Evans went on WTOP today to clarify the District’s position on ballpark lease negotiations.
D.C. needs a guarantee that baseball will pay the $6 million a year lease on the stadium, and time is running out, Evans said.
“What I have told them is: This is non-negotiable. So you either agree to this, or you move the team to somewhere else because we’re wasting our time,” he said.
Evans said the lease could be agreed upon “tomorrow” if baseball could only agree to the rent payment.
“If you have to guarantee us a $6 million a year guarantee, then do it. I mean, enough is enough.”
Without baseball’s guarantee of rent payment, D.C. will lose its investment-grade bond rating on Wall Street.
“It’s not me being the hard negotiator. I am boxed in by Wall Street,” Evans said. “Wall Street has said to us…that under no circumstances will they give us this investment-grade rating without this guarantee.”
Audio: The Politics Program with Mark Plotkin
THOMAS BOSWELL – While D.C. Waits, Baseball Continues to Put On the Squeeze – The Post
Bos lists his grievances against Bud Selig for holding up the Nats sale, but ultimately gives the commissioner the benefit of the doubt on the whole process.