Council Vote on Stadium Delayed

If the case goes to arbitration, Mayor League Baseball and the District probably would go to the American Arbitration Association for a list of arbitrators, baseball officials said yesterday. Typically, both sides would go through the list until they agree on an arbitrator. Once an arbitrator is selected, the city and baseball would argue their points of view on each major provision in the lease.

"The crux is that at the end of the day, the District will build a new stadium for the Nationals, or [baseball] will take the team and move it someplace else," said council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), a stadium supporter. "How it all gets accomplished is anybody's guess. The risk is that baseball could open up the whole process again and ask for new bids from the District, Northern Virginia or Las Vegas."

The postponement came after days of intense lobbying by Williams, who rallied supportive council members, youth coaches, developers and organized labor. In meetings, phone calls and e-mails, they implored council members who appeared to be undecided to vote in favor of the stadium lease.

Administration officials were fairly confident that they had the support of Cropp, Evans, Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5) and Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6).

Lined up against the deal were David A. Catania (I-At Large), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4) and Marion Barry (D-Ward 8).

"We stopped the stickup in its tracks," Barry said last night. "We are determined to save taxpayers this money. This is an open-ended deal. The costs were changing every other day."

Williams's administration was concentrating on Mendelson, Carol Schwartz (R-At Large), Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) and Vincent C. Gray (D-Ward 7). But Brown said before the vote was delayed that he was leaning against the deal. Schwartz released a statement after the postponement that she was prepared to vote against the deal.

Williams spoke to more than 200 baseball supporters at a rally yesterday at Freedom Plaza, in front of the John A. Wilson Building, and stadium opponents showed up with signs reading, "Schools B4 Stadiums" and "MLB wins, DC loses."

"We want this economic development. Anyone who votes to kill that goose cannot expect to have the total support of the labor community," said Joslyn N. Williams, president of the local chapter of the AFL-CIO, which has supported the stadium project as a way to create construction jobs.

But in many ways Williams was outflanked by stadium opponents, a collection of activists involved in schools, health care and the environment.

Joe Ruffin, a political consultant who said he had become disillusioned with the stadium deal, said that to fight the agreement, he spent thousands of dollars for a half-page advertisement in The Washington Post, mailings to 40,000 households and automated phone calls to 20,000 homes.

Yolanda Odunsi of Northeast Washington said: "The money being spent is a waste because [the stadium] is something that private businesses could take care of."

Odunsi added that she sends her 5-year-old son to a charter school because she is unhappy with the neighborhood public school. "They should prioritize what's important to our lives," she said, "not make businessmen richer."

Staff writer Lori Montgomery contributed to this report.