Mayor Anthony A. Williams vowed yesterday to provide "just compensation" to property owners who would lose their land if a publicly funded stadium were built in Southeast Washington to lure a Major League Baseball team.
"I don't take lightly the loss of someone's home," said Williams (D). But he said the economic development spurred by a new stadium would justify taking over the land, by eminent domain if necessary. The 20-acre site on the banks of the Anacostia River is dominated by vacant lots and warehouses.
Mayor Anthony A. Williams says he's open to any name for a D.C. baseball team -- except the Senators.
(The Washington Post)
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"Anyone driving down M Street [near the proposed stadium site] and saying, 'This is what we want' [to keep] . . . I'm not sure what they're thinking," he said.
Williams spoke to reporters yesterday as he prepared to begin a round of meetings this week with community groups, clergy, business owners and others to promote his plan for a $440 million waterfront ballpark to attract the Montreal Expos. Major League Baseball is expected to announce its decision on the team soon.
The stadium plan must go before the D.C. Council.
Opponents have said public funding would send the wrong signal in a city in dire need of better schools and other services. But Williams argues that large business owners, and not the general public, will shoulder the stadium's costs. His plan calls for financing the stadium through 30-year bonds, which would be repaid by collecting about $5.5 million a year in rent from the baseball team's owners; at least double that from taxes on tickets and concessions; and $21 million or more from a special tax on District-based businesses with annual revenue of at least $3 million.
Williams said city funding for such things as libraries and youth programs would not be hurt by the stadium project. "We can do both, because this is not money coming from the regular general fund of the city," he said.
The mayor said he believes that the stadium would encourage economic development in a blighted part of the city with few homeowners. About two dozen individuals and businesses own the land on which the city hopes to build the stadium.
City Administrator Robert C. Bobb said last week that the District will try to negotiate with the owners but that it would use eminent domain if necessary. "Certainly, we will work with them, and hopefully, at the end of the day, we can make a deal," he said.
The D.C. Council has said it must submit legislation for the stadium by the end of the week to have enough time to pass it by year's end. A majority of the council's 13 members have indicated that they would support the plan. Some members who are expected to take office in January, however, have opposed the idea of public financing for the stadium, including Kwame R. Brown, who recently won the Democratic primary for an at-large council seat.
Brown said yesterday that he hadn't had an opportunity to study the financing proposal because he has been out of town on a family medical emergency. But he was leery about the mayor's remarks that big businesses would pick up much of the tab.
"Any additional tax [on businesses] will ultimately result to the consumer paying more. So I'm concerned about that," he said.
Washington is considered the leading candidate to get the Expos, and the guessing game has begun about the team's name. Suggestions have included the Senators, the name of the team that moved out of the city in 1971.
Williams said he would be open to any name -- except the Senators.
"We don't have a senator," the mayor observed to reporters. "It would be a misnomer."
The lack of full-fledged members of Congress representing the District has been a source of irritation to many in the city. The decision about the team's name, however, will be up to its owners.
