Group claims Rays lobbied illegally

Sunday, March 9, 2008

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The Rays have announced plans for a $450 million waterfront stadium in downtown St. Petersburg.

PINELLAS COUNTY (Bay News 9) -- A group trying to stop the Tampa Bay Rays from building a multi-million dollar stadium in downtown St. Petersburg asserts that team officials illegally lobbied city council members.

According to Bay News 9's partner newspaper, The St. Petersburg Times, members of the group St. Pete Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfront said that the baseball team's executives broke city rules when they gave T-shirts to city council members at a public hearing last month.

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The shirts referenced the Rays' web site touting the stadium proposal.

Preserve Our Wallets and Waterfronts, or POWW, point to a suggestion on the web site that a developer (Hines) for the mammoth $450 million construction and redevelopment project has already been awarded despite the fact that the city is holding a competitive bidding process.

POWW members have said the process has been tainted.

Anti-stadium activists are asking the city to reject Hines' bid or cancel the entire bidding process. City officials say that's unlikely to happen.