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March 17, 2010
St. Pete threatens suit over any Rays move talks
The facedown between the city of St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Rays stadium task force that it helped create just got facedownier: The ABC Coalition gave a presentation of its findings to the Pinellas County board of commissioners yesterday, but didn't actually say much on advice of the county attorney.
The reason? The city of St. Pete has threatened a lawsuit against any party that "interferes" with the Rays' current lease on the Tropicana Dome, which runs through 2027.
WTSP reporter Noah Pransky adds on his blog that "County Commissioner Ken Welch told me the current budget problems will prohibit any entity - not just Pinellas Co. and St. Pete - from building a stadium anytime soon." But if St. Pete is really prepared to go to court to stop anyone from even talking about a non-St. Pete stadium, this could present a huge obstacle to a lot of the prospective sites — which could be why the Toytown site is suddenly getting so much attention.
